Commander Chenkov

Commander Chenkov is a Valhallan general whose doctrine is that the Imperium has more men than the enemy has ammunition. He will spend a regiment to take a trench, then spend the next regiment to hold it, and file the result as a victory because Valhalla can ship more bodies.

The Departmento Munitorum likes the arithmetic. The men in the arithmetic do not get a dissenting minute. Chenkov's famous instruction to send more soldiers is not a joke in his headquarters. It is standing orders.

Valhalla raised him on ice and attrition. Other worlds produce commanders who manoeuvre. Chenkov produces craters and casualty lists that still, somehow, move the front. The Astra Militarum keeps him because the alternative is admitting the Guard cannot always be clever.