NationStates Jolt Archive

There are a lot of nations which claim to have ungodly percentages of their population in their military (ranging from the 20% IF and NRBC claim, to the more reasonable 2.5-4% i saw when i first got here). At first, we want to say, yes, militaristic regimes can in fact dragoon this many troops into service, especially if they have compulsory military service and big defense spending. I agree, nations like that can in fact raise large % militaries, but for numerous economic reasons, most of the %'s used are in fact insanely self destructive.

Let's use the US as a case study, not for their military, but because information on their census is very readily availabe. Circa 2000 the census put the US population around 250 M, with ~108 M of those people between the ages of 18 and 44. Now, to be realistic, most nations are not going to have women serving in the same capacity as men (i'm not saying it's right, just that realistically, that's how it is). So your pool for troops is more than half of 108 M, let's say 70 M to represent women in support roles, whatever. Coincidentally, 18 to 44 is also the primary demographic for the labor pool; after 44 non professionals tend to get pushed out in favor of younger workers who can be paid less, work more and not put in for viagra perscriptions under the company health plan. So every soldier you take means you are losing workers.

If you doubt the power of military service to greviously affect the labor pool, look at the US during WWII; it as widely accepted that the need for women to work, replacing the men who left for Europe and Asia, forced owners to accept women into the workforce. What % of the workforce did they make up, if they were only replacing men who left? 10% 15% It sounds small, but in economics, 5% is a apocolypic shift.

So whey IF dragoons 20% of his TOTAL population into military service, that's 20% of 565 M = 113 active military personel. But, out of his labor pool, which using the US statistics is ~40% of the population, that's half of your available workers. HALF.

And then, let's get to the point that these nations are either making their own arms or buying them. The point can be made either way; either a huge portion of your production is being siphoned off from Dept I or Dept II goods (that's consumer or capital goods if you're wondering) into the useless Dept III (means of destruction, weapons). So if IF claims to be able to launch x number of missiles because he makes nothing but missiles all day, who is growing the food, making the appliances, running the stores? It's an economists nightmare. If you don't make the weapons yourself, you need to fund those purchaces, which means huge amounts of production for export, which still leaves the country, leaving your country with nothing to eat or sit on.

Some people might try to bring up DPRK (N. Korea) as an example of a nation with a huge % military, but I have yet to be provided with the stat to back that up. Furthermore, their economy is toast. If you want that high %, are you willing to accept that your economy is incapable of providing for your people? Likely not, since people say a powerhouse economy allows them to fund huge militaries. This is true, to a point. There's a line when the military steps on the economy's foot.

Still not convinced huge military %'s hurt the economy? What happens when you take a large % of your work force and, effectively, remove them from the labor market? Labor supply goes down while demand goes up, driving wages up, which (if you're a classical economist) kills profitability.

Now let's take a military that is 2.5% of total population. This is, clearly, a more realistic claim, but still fatal to their economy. Let's say a nation has 12 M citizens. 2.5% of 12 M = 300k, availabe labor pool for 12 M = 4.8, so active military personel out of the labor pool = 7%. Adjust for unequal male/female involvement, you're looking at closer to 10%. Not to bad, but still very high in terms of yanking a segment of the population out of the labor pool. But also remember, that active personel is not combat personel. What % of that 300k is actually going to see any combat? How many troops can this nation deploy at a time, vs how many are actually employed?

Now I'm not saying you can't claim to have 2.5% of your total population in your military, but they won't all be storming the beaches and I'd like to see people taking the economic effects in stride. I'm at the point where I feel like a god mode is when you just assume away a problem (i.e. my bombs never miss, my soldiers never die etc), and assuming the economic effects of large militaries away, well, you get my point. All I want here is to add more depth and dimension to this game and, maybe, get people to think twice about what they're doing.

edit: added because it's true and necessary for some people who can't quite get a grasp on reality:

there is also the issue of economies of scale. the larger your nation the larger the economic superstructure to keep your nation running is. you see, we all think intuitively that mechanization decreases the number of workers we need to make the same amount of goods; tractors increase farm yeilds while requiring fewer hands, robots in car factories speed production. what you don't think of but is nonetheless true is more workers end up being needed to make the tractor than are saved in the tractor's use. this is why technology only increases with population; you need larger and larger labor surpluses in order to spare those people to make new things.

tractors are made of engines, wheels, axles, frames, spark plugs etc etc, and all these parts need seperate lines, if not whole factories, to make. so when you increase your tech level you also increase the % of the population that needs to stay in the work force in order for your nation to function. this is true down the line; every high tech gadget you've got lowers the number of troops you can raise. not that it matters, high tech is meant to make soldiers more effective, and if you keep a small, well armed army you get to overlook those huge force projection problems a 2M man infantry group is going to have.

so my point in this addendum is, as you get bigger plan to decrease the % of people in your army. this means your army size will remain static or grow very slightly, but that's not a big deal because it has other pay offs. but if you think that a 400M person nation is going to drop 5% of its population on the battlefeild expect to see this link again and have a very nit picky economist wonder about what exactly you're doing.

Very true, and well presented. Good job.

This is a consideration that I've seen flagrantly ignored many times since I joined the game. Without moderation though, I doubt that an injection of common sense such as this will make a discernable difference.

Well maybe one of you economics oriented people can help me out...

Chimaea now has 315 million people.

What percentage is realistically part of the military? Forget the Air Force and Navy, I'm talking land army. armoured divisions, support, logistics, artillery, infantry etc.

right now Chimaea has 2.2 million people in that land army, in all of those and more positions. So obviously not all of them would be storming a beach (after all, it'd get crowded and smelly).

2.2 million = 0.7 per cent.

I have a very strong economy. But that's gonna get better soon anyways.

If I have a whole 1 per cent of population in the military (that's 3.15 million people) is that realistic?

Please remember that Chimaea's military is, atm, also Clock Hill's military/police force AND our own "offensive army" (the armed forces which get sent overseas i mean).

So. Suggestions?

As of the last inspection on my military, only 0.4% of the population was in the military. However, this has probably increased a small amount while keeping my economy in good condition.

That would aslo depend on the type of econimy, wither machinary is invoded, aslo workforce statisics does not include people who are discoraged workers who could work but are discouraged from finding jobs and it still doesn't exclude a large mitary force for defencify purpuces and short term. Also if a nation was under a serious threat they would recruit large numbers of people even those who would not normaly be in the miltary and suffer the econmic conqusnces later.

Chimaea now has 315 million people.

right now Chimaea has 2.2 million people in that land army, in all of those and more positions. So obviously not all of them would be storming a beach (after all, it'd get crowded and smelly).

2.2 million = 0.7 per cent.

2.2 M is 1.7% of your labor pool, which is significant but easily absorbable.


If I have a whole 1 per cent of population in the military (that's 3.15 million people) is that realistic?

I would say yes; that's 2.5% of your labor pool. In my experience/mind (economic is VERY subjective) once your range around 5% of the labor pool you begin to have serious problems that need to be solved (RPed out, explaind whatever). But 2.5% shouldn't provide much of a problem for labor; depending on how high tech your army is, though, supplying them may be your next problem. How many tanks do you have, how expensive are they etc etc. But that's a seperate question, and a strong economy with a reasonably sized military (as you have) should be able to supply them no problem.


Please remember that Chimaea's military is, atm, also Clock Hill's military/police force AND our own "offensive army" (the armed forces which get sent overseas i mean).

I have no idea what this means.

Also if a nation was under a serious threat they would recruit large numbers of people even those who would not normaly be in the miltary and suffer the econmic conqusnces later.

This is true, now if only nations would play out those consequences...

Military figures should be more like 0.10-1.0%.

I had originally posted this in another thread, but here's the info again if anyone is interested.

The per capita ratios (percentage of troops versus total population) for a few real countries in the late 90's:

USA 0.58%
China 0.23%
Japan 0.19%
Germany 0.49%
India 0.14%
France 0.87%
Italy 0.77%
UK 0.47%
Brazil 0.18%
Indonesia 0.13%
Mexico 0.19%
Russia 1.13%
Canada 0.28%
South Korea 1.64%
Turkey 1.28%

With the U.S having 283.8 million people, that only gives 1.65 million troops. Even if you consider a global war, like WW2, and multiply that percentage by ten - it's still only 5.8%, or 16 million out of a population of 283 million.

Here's the website I got the stats from if anyone is interested in seeing my source:
http://www.liberal-international.org/ldr/russia/schroder.html

Just my opinion here, but no nation - even the most frothy-mouthed, war crazed lunatics - should ever have more than 5% of its population as military.

That would aslo depend on the type of econimy, wither machinary is invoded, aslo workforce statisics does not include people who are discoraged workers who could work but are discouraged from finding jobs and it still doesn't exclude a large mitary force for defencify purpuces and short term. Also if a nation was under a serious threat they would recruit large numbers of people even those who would not normaly be in the miltary and suffer the econmic conqusnces later.

Very true. The problem is some nations *cough*IF*cough* have standing armies of 20%.

To continue with the point about North Korea, presupposing that they do indeed have 1 million in their army, it still is bad. Note that pretty much anyone who isn't in the army or government is starving to death.

The real problem with this thread is that nations that need to read it probably won't.

I have this army:

Various infantry: 20.000.000
Black Hand of Nod elite commandos\snipers\asassins: 10.000
Tick Tanks: 7.000
Flame Tanks: 5.000
Light Tanks: 3.500
Recon Bikes: 1.750
Nod Buggies: 1.400
Harpy Attack Helicopters: 1.200
Stealth Tanks: 1.000
Apache Attack Helicopters: 800
Mobile Artillery: 750
Banshee Attack Fighters: 500
Mammoth Mk. VII (from GMC): 480
Subterrenean APC's: 200
Devils Tongues (they suck): 150
Cluster Tactical Missiles: 80
Tiberium-based Tactical Missiles: 40
Tiberium-based ICBMs: 15
Ion Cannon Sattelites (control codes nicked from GDI): 5
Nod Montauk (mobile HQ): 1

My population is somewhere around 550 million, and my economy is Frightening.

True, I got compusary miltary service but that doesn't that mean I got this huge army, I got a pretty midevil country dependant on farming and fishing. I could possably rase a large army during the winter season or short term for the summer but it would be devasting to do so for a long period during the growing season, an Act of disperation.

What about if your a nation of something which cannot conform to this chart, like a Dalek nation? I mean they're all encased in protective armour and with weapons and the majority of them do go fighting, with minorities acting as researchers and most industry run by machines. You will recognise and make fantasy exceptions should the Daleks ever find your planet/country has enough resources and wish to invade? And no stair jokes, we have hovercrafts!

But I am curius, how would that work for an country with a Midevil socity, miltary, culture, ecomic system like I got.

Well, it's a while since I did anything about medieval (not "midevil") countries, but you'd still need to have quite a large number of people working the land. Sure they'd all pick up their farm tools and defend if someone came invading in, but offensively they'd be hampered by the fact that (in a real medieval society, at any rate), they don't have that great weaponry - not swords and shields even.

Daleks: This thread seems to be assuming a circa 2003, real world nation. Nations of elves, daleks and the like would exist outside of that and thus be subject to different rules. In your case, it would depend on how things were run in Dr. Who. I'm sure there's numerous fan sites that go into nauseating levels of detail.

Teritora: Again, as a midieval nation, you would have to look into historical data. Of course, such a society would have a hard time surviving with a large population, and would probably morph to a dictatorship.

And if it became a dictatorship, there's the attendant problem of needing to keep troops on "home soil" in case anyone wants a say in how the place is governed.

True, it is an odd goverment and land, those blasted dragons keep burning villages down and some king in the past got the Idea that it would be a good Idea to make all the non nobles, Heritary knights and thus part of the noblitly. Theres 7 royal houses whos members can become king and kings are selected by a counsl of elders but first they have to slay a dragon to even become elegable to be chosen as king.

True, but feudalism becomes as unworkable as true democracy with large numbers of people. It could even be argued that feudalsim requires the army to be at home even more. Serfs are likely to revolt should the nobility show any weakness. Or should bubonic plague rear its ugly head again :wink:

Besides, dictatorships exist in modern times. Feudal lords do not. Monarchs do, but thats about it (and they're concerned about angry people too).

True, it is an odd goverment and land, those blasted dragons keep burning villages down and some king in the past got the Idea that it would be a good Idea to make all the non nobles, Heritary knights and thus part of the noblitly.

If everybody is a noble, you have no serfs, and thus no agriculture.

Very few monarchs bear any resemblance to monarchs of even 150 years ago, or 100 for that matter.

Very few monarchs bear any resemblance to monarchs of even 150 years ago, or 100 for that matter.

True. They've either become Constitutional Monarchies (ala Britain), or dictatorships in disguise (ala Saudia Arabia)

In fact, I'm desperately trying to think of any "absolute monarchies" which aren't something else really. Bhutan, anyone?

Like I said its an odd country, the only place where you see nobles farming. There is an senate with 1000 members and the king is head of state, Heritary President, commander in cheif and the High judge of the land.

Like I said its an odd country, the only place where you see nobles farming. There is an senate with 1000 members and the king is head of state, Heritary President, commander in cheif and the High judge of the land.

Sounds more like a Constitutional Monarchy.

Enodia: As there's very little difference between an Absolute Monarchy and Dictatorship... Would you called Saudi Arabia or Qatar AM's?

I have 0.5% of my population in the army, 1/3 of them are not professionals but doing their compulsory military service.

The Navy and Air force are disproportionate strong in numbers, whereas the Ground troops are relatively small. Thats due to the fact that you can easily build the material (Tanks, Guns, etc) for the ground troops, they also are relatively fast to train, whereas it takes some longer time to build an aircraft carrier, and the training of a jetfighter pilot is very long and expensive.

In the case of an crisis we are involved, we are able to double our total troops within a months due to reservists and stored material, however, this is mostly for the ground troops.

In the case of a direct attack against us (Invasion of our homeland), we are able to put at least 5% of our population into the army within three months (At least we hope so, but it`s possible that, due to production lacks, it may take up to six months). This would surely be a desaster for our industry (except the arms manufacturing sector), but that does not matter in such a situation.

Realistic enough?

Sounds pretty good. Perhaps the conscripts would be 1/3 above the .5%, especially since conscripts are particularly motivated. It should also be possible to have the armor and weapons already built. It would be easier, and cheaper to maintain unused hardware then to build from scratch.

Also, waiting 3 months to have a sizable army in case of invasion seems pretty risky. It'd probably be better to have the remaining 4.5% (5% less .5% standing army) be in the reserves, where they could be called up in days or weeks, as opposed to months.

It should also be possible to have the armor and weapons already built. It would be easier, and cheaper to maintain unused hardware then to build from scratch.
Also, waiting 3 months to have a sizable army in case of invasion seems pretty risky. It'd probably be better to have the remaining 4.5% (5% less .5% standing army) be in the reserves, where they could be called up in days or weeks, as opposed to months.

Well, it is pretty expensive to storage and maintain material for an army of ~15 Million soldiers, not to forget that the material would mostly be out of date when it comes in need, so it is cheaper to build it when needed.

Also, akihabara is an inland/continent of it`s own (i suppose all regions are), and there are no nations we expect any danger from, to be honest, we are all good friends ;).

That means the attacking army must use his Navy. This navy has to beat ours, it has to have enough aircraft carriers to defeat our air force as well as our aircraft carriers, and it has to transport enough troops to defeat the ~1.7 mio soldiers we have everytime, and the ~3.4 mio soldiers we would have within a month (i ignore casualties to make the calculating easier). Also, it is impossible to let ground forces of ~100000 men (Minimum for a successful regional invasion, as a base for reinforcements), stay on ships for several months. That means, to start a successful invasion, you must fight several month to destroy our fleet and air force, THEN the actual invasion can take place. That leaves us more than enough time to mobilize our complete forces (the 5%).

I think a major factor you are missing is unemployment. A nation, even an economically healthy one can sustain an unemployment rate of 5%. Now taking out 5% unemployed (same age range as working) plus your ~2.5-5%that you already took out for military its possible at the high end to have 10% of your population in the armed services, permanently with only some adverse affects on your economy.

Of course crazy governments like IF can make many sacrifices to have a military state like that. No, DPRK is not a good model (1.3 out of 22) is about 6% or so, Prussia however is a different story.

One of the best armies in Europe, population 10.5 million fielding an army of 900,000 professional soldiers (about 9%). Of course that meant that instead of 18 different types of toothbrushes to choose from you had 1.

So remember, competition is WASTEFUL, yup, lots of resources are duplicated to achieve the same ends.

about 700,000 active soldiers or about 0.52% of New Genoa's people serves in the military while there are 400,000 reserves who only work 2 weekends per month. Our population is 133 million.

I'd like to ask, what is an appropiate number for navies and air forces? Also, what is the suitable percentage of reserves for my country, which has a Powerhouse economy?

I'd like to ask, what is an appropiate number for navies and air forces?

Good question, i am not entirely sure myselve ^^*

What about if your a nation of something which cannot conform to this chart, like a Dalek nation? I mean they're all encased in protective armour and with weapons and the majority of them do go fighting, with minorities acting as researchers and most industry run by machines. You will recognise and make fantasy exceptions should the Daleks ever find your planet/country has enough resources and wish to invade? And no stair jokes, we have hovercrafts!

So how do you MAKE the hovercrafts eh?

Rememberance of The Daleks... one of them was FLOATING. Up a STAIRCASE. >.<

We have 917,020 serving in Air Force, Mechanised, Infantry, Police, Homeland Defence and Special Ops.. I havent got an accurate number of people serving in the Navy yet. Anyway, 917020 is effectively 0.53% of my population of 172 million.. thats pretty realistic..

5% was the old rule, and I already did up a huge system divvying up my forces. I'm not going to change all of that.

5% was the old rule, and I already did up a huge system divvying up my forces. I'm not going to change all of that.

Actually, it's easy to handle that bit. When I started up the Territory's space initiative, I paid for it with a solid working week of cr*p economic decisions before returning to cmy usual corporate militarism. Bounced me right down to Very Strong, IIRC. So lowering your econ and keeping it at an appropriate level is not that hard if you want to. Might even give you more flexibility with other issues.

<bump so Chellis will know he's a god moder>

OHDF represents about...0.02-3% of the population. :)

There are a lot of nations which claim to have ungodly percentages of their population in their military (ranging from the 20% IF and NRBC claim, to the more reasonable 2.5-4% i saw when i first got here). At first, we want to say, yes, militaristic regimes can in fact dragoon this many troops into service, especially if they have compulsory military service and big defense spending. I agree, nations like that can in fact raise large % militaries, but for numerous economic reasons, most of the %'s used are in fact insanely self destructive.

Let's use the US as a case study, not for their military, but because information on their census is very readily availabe. Circa 2000 the census put the US population around 250 M, with ~108 M of those people between the ages of 18 and 44. Now, to be realistic, most nations are not going to have women serving in the same capacity as men (i'm not saying it's right, just that realistically, that's how it is). So your pool for troops is more than half of 108 M, let's say 70 M to represent women in support roles, whatever. Coincidentally, 18 to 44 is also the primary demographic for the labor pool; after 44 non professionals tend to get pushed out in favor of younger workers who can be paid less, work more and not put in for viagra perscriptions under the company health plan. So every soldier you take means you are losing workers.

If you doubt the power of military service to greviously affect the labor pool, look at the US during WWII; it as widely accepted that the need for women to work, replacing the men who left for Europe and Asia, forced owners to accept women into the workforce. What % of the workforce did they make up, if they were only replacing men who left? 10% 15% It sounds small, but in economics, 5% is a apocolypic shift.

So whey IF dragoons 20% of his TOTAL population into military service, that's 20% of 565 M = 113 active military personel. But, out of his labor pool, which using the US statistics is ~40% of the population, that's half of your available workers. HALF.

And then, let's get to the point that these nations are either making their own arms or buying them. The point can be made either way; either a huge portion of your production is being siphoned off from Dept I or Dept II goods (that's consumer or capital goods if you're wondering) into the useless Dept III (means of destruction, weapons). So if IF claims to be able to launch x number of missiles because he makes nothing but missiles all day, who is growing the food, making the appliances, running the stores? It's an economists nightmare. If you don't make the weapons yourself, you need to fund those purchaces, which means huge amounts of production for export, which still leaves the country, leaving your country with nothing to eat or sit on.

Some people might try to bring up DPRK (N. Korea) as an example of a nation with a huge % military, but I have yet to be provided with the stat to back that up. Furthermore, their economy is toast. If you want that high %, are you willing to accept that your economy is incapable of providing for your people? Likely not, since people say a powerhouse economy allows them to fund huge militaries. This is true, to a point. There's a line when the military steps on the economy's foot.

Still not convinced huge military %'s hurt the economy? What happens when you take a large % of your work force and, effectively, remove them from the labor market? Labor supply goes down while demand goes up, driving wages up, which (if you're a classical economist) kills profitability.

Now let's take a military that is 2.5% of total population. This is, clearly, a more realistic claim, but still fatal to their economy. Let's say a nation has 12 M citizens. 2.5% of 12 M = 300k, availabe labor pool for 12 M = 4.8, so active military personel out of the labor pool = 7%. Adjust for unequal male/female involvement, you're looking at closer to 10%. Not to bad, but still very high in terms of yanking a segment of the population out of the labor pool. But also remember, that active personel is not combat personel. What % of that 300k is actually going to see any combat? How many troops can this nation deploy at a time, vs how many are actually employed?

Now I'm not saying you can't claim to have 2.5% of your total population in your military, but they won't all be storming the beaches and I'd like to see people taking the economic effects in stride. I'm at the point where I feel like a god mode is when you just assume away a problem (i.e. my bombs never miss, my soldiers never die etc), and assuming the economic effects of large militaries away, well, you get my point. All I want here is to add more depth and dimension to this game and, maybe, get people to think twice about what they're doing. amen to that

I got the draft, high military spending, and a good economy. I have approx. 13 million in my army.

My pop 570 million. Is that reasonable?

I got the draft, high military spending, and a good economy. I have approx. 13 million in my army.

My pop 570 million. Is that reasonable?

13 million standing army? Christ. What are they equipped with, pointy sticks?

Kits, remember that NS populations are much larger than real-life populations.

Very true, and well presented. Good job.

This is a consideration that I've seen flagrantly ignored many times since I joined the game. Without moderation though, I doubt that an injection of common sense such as this will make a discernable difference.

The words right out of my mouth.

Nik,
Leader Of The Free Land Of The Damned People
http://expage.com/unitedpeacecoalition

Kits, remember that NS populations are much larger than real-life populations.

I know that. That's why I've started ignoring my population figure. There's no way my island could even HOLD 700 million people. I'm half the size of Connecticut, for god's sake! My people aren't stupid! They'd stop breeding before we got anywhere near that big.

That's the only real problem with the game itself, really; populations don't level off after time.

Kits, remember that NS populations are much larger than real-life populations.

I know that. That's why I've started ignoring my population figure. There's no way my island could even HOLD 700 million people. I'm half the size of Connecticut, for god's sake! My people aren't stupid! They'd stop breeding before we got anywhere near that big.

That's the only real problem with the game itself, really; populations don't level off after time.

How do you know you're half the size of Conneticut? :D

Yeah, we have about 1% of the total population in the armed services, for a standing army of more than 4 million. Lavishly equipped and trained, as I think #32 in the world for defense spending can do. (Amazing how I still get called a godmodder. I think "godmodder" has become the latest cliched insult everyone in the game throws at each other, kinda like "snert" on AOL or whatever) And that's pretty damn large if you take a look at real nations in the world. We do, however, have 5% listed as Reserves, organised and trained, but not on active duty. So far, we've never had to call these guys up.

President Bob Pratt, USSSB
Chairman, COMA
GDODAD
2MPN Pact

Kits, remember that NS populations are much larger than real-life populations.

I know that. That's why I've started ignoring my population figure. There's no way my island could even HOLD 700 million people. I'm half the size of Connecticut, for god's sake! My people aren't stupid! They'd stop breeding before we got anywhere near that big.

That's the only real problem with the game itself, really; populations don't level off after time.

How do you know you're half the size of Conneticut? :D

Because I've written a CIA World Factbook entry for Kitsylvania.

Geography Kitsylvania

Location: North Atlantic Ocean,
Geographic coordinates: 26 00 N, 45 00 W
Map references: North Atlantic Ocean
Area: total: 1,137,100 sq km
land: 6,700 sq km
water: 1,130,400 sq km
note: includes 300 km radius of Kitsylvanian ocean claims for Cetacean citizenry habitat
Area - comparative: about half the size of Connecticut; about six tenths the size of Lebanon; about thrice the size of Luxembourg
Land boundaries: none
Coastline: about 7,300 km
Maritime claims: contiguous zone: 300 km
exclusive economic zone: 300 km
territorial sea: 300 km
Climate: mostly temperate, but tropical in the southern extremities of the island.
Terrain: plains in sourtheast, central mountain range, hills and low mountains throughout;
Elevation extremes: lowest point: sea level
highest point: Libertatis Mons 8,604 m
Natural resources: coal, copper, lead, molybdenum, phosphates, uranium, gold, iron, mercury, nickel, silver, zinc, natural gas
Land use: arable land: 23%

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jckut10/konania.html


Oh? Well, I'M as big as Alaska. :P

Kits, remember that NS populations are much larger than real-life populations.

I know that. That's why I've started ignoring my population figure. There's no way my island could even HOLD 700 million people. I'm half the size of Connecticut, for god's sake! My people aren't stupid! They'd stop breeding before we got anywhere near that big.

That's the only real problem with the game itself, really; populations don't level off after time.

How do you know you're half the size of Conneticut? :D

Because I've written a CIA World Factbook entry for Kitsylvania.

Geography Kitsylvania

Location: North Atlantic Ocean,
Geographic coordinates: 26 00 N, 45 00 W
Map references: North Atlantic Ocean
Area: total: 1,137,100 sq km
land: 6,700 sq km
water: 1,130,400 sq km
note: includes 300 km radius of Kitsylvanian ocean claims for Cetacean citizenry habitat
Area - comparative: about half the size of Connecticut; about six tenths the size of Lebanon; about thrice the size of Luxembourg
Land boundaries: none
Coastline: about 7,300 km
Maritime claims: contiguous zone: 300 km
exclusive economic zone: 300 km
territorial sea: 300 km
Climate: mostly temperate, but tropical in the southern extremities of the island.
Terrain: plains in sourtheast, central mountain range, hills and low mountains throughout;
Elevation extremes: lowest point: sea level
highest point: Libertatis Mons 8,604 m
Natural resources: coal, copper, lead, molybdenum, phosphates, uranium, gold, iron, mercury, nickel, silver, zinc, natural gas
Land use: arable land: 23%

Uhh...yeah. There you go, then.

Me = nerd. With faaaaaar too much time on his hands. ^_^

I got the draft, high military spending, and a good economy. I have approx. 13 million in my army.

My pop 570 million. Is that reasonable?

13 million standing army? Christ. What are they equipped with, pointy sticks?

Not standing. I have 3 million standing army. And about 1,000,000 other personal. The rest are reservists that are called in. Get the same training though. Should've been more clear.

10 Mil, now that RF invaded.

<bump in the futile quest for realism>

Excellent post from Seocc, and I'm glad you bumped it because I missed it first time around.

I'd like to just drop this post in that I made on another thread when someone was looking for guidance on army size. Seocc has said much more than I have on the US army, but the Nazi germany reference might be of interest.

Even 5% seems pretty high - well, certainly for a democracy in peace time. 5% would give the US about 14,000,000 military personnel, when in reality it only has about 1.4 Million. So 0.5% seems more reasonable for a democracy IMO. Also, don't forget that the USA spends more on the military (by a large amount) than any other nation.

Anyone know how many people are employed by the military in Israel? Their spending is much higher as a percentage of GDP than the US, so the percentage of the population in the army is probably a lot different for a country like that. By how much would be interesting.

Even during WWII about 18M out of a population of 78M served in the armed forces. That's about 23% of the entire population - remember the Nazi's sent young boys to the front - and it's over a period of 6 years. The UK and US sent about 12% of their population to war.

Very excellent post if I may say so Seocc.

I find the comparing armies in WW2 very interesting, Germany; big population=Big army, UK; big population=big army and so on.
But let's take Sweden; small population=small army right?...no!
When WW2 was in its highest state Sweden had a population of 7.7-7.9 million people so if we take 1% of that and transfer to the army we get between 77000 and 79000 and that was of its total population, now in WW2 Sweden had a army consisting of no more than 500,000 soldiers or 15,6% of the total poulation.


EDIT:Didn't see your post before Celdonia, you allready said what I meant.

We'd like to add our thoughts on this issue.

Monkecia's militry service is compulsoary for everyone between the ages of 16 and 21 (unless a person shows high intellegence, they leave school at 18 and become officers). Once 21, a Monkecian has all the skiils needed to survive life, is fit and healthy, and has a good working knowlegde of the world.

Recruits are trained for 2 years, so they are working militry for 3 years. Sex makes no difference: everyone joins at 16 or 18.

At 21 people are presented with a choice: join civy street or stay and become a life soldier.

Those who leave, about 95%, go on to help our 'All consuming' economy even further.

The Militry here doesn't just subtrat form the work force, it actively increases it's abilitry by educating, equiping skills to everyone. For instance, militry engineers can become fantastic, well disiplined automobile engineers in no time.

Monkecia feels it can support about 8% in the armed forces.

I find the comparing armies in WW2 very interesting, Germany; big population=Big army, UK; big population=big army and so on.
But let's take Sweden; small population=small army right?...no!
When WW2 was in its highest state Sweden had a population of 7.7-7.9 million people so if we take 1% of that and transfer to the army we get between 77000 and 79000 and that was of its total population, now in WW2 Sweden had a army consisting of no more than 500,000 soldiers or 15,6% of the total poulation.


my problem is with big standing armies; clearly, during a war, people get conscripted, this or that. but when at the drop of a pin 10% of your population just marches away from the work benches, well, you get my point. but like i said, i'm not against it altogether, i just want some RP or explanation to back it up. up with nerdom!

Monkecia feels it can support about 8% in the armed forces.

well, not to nitpick, but about 12% of the US pop is 18-24, so i would say that, yes, if everyone 16-21 is in the military you can have a large standing force. now, i'd expect that this force would be crap compared to an older, career force made up of late 20's guys who have spent the last 10 years in the military, but if you take that into account, no, i see no problem.

this is my point: think it through, as i beleive Monkecia did. this lets you play more reaslitically, which makes it more fun for everyone else, and gives you something to do instead of going to church.

Germany managed to put more then 9 millions soldiers in action during ww2 which was more then 10 % of the pop.

Sweden mobilises 870k soldiers during war wich is about 10%

During the last half of the 17th century sweden mobilised more then 150k soldiers from a population of 2.1 million

I have made a decision to list First Outside's armed forces only as percentages, people can dig up my UN report and see my population for the correct figures.

First Outside's standing military is 0,4 % of it's population.

Of the entire military, 40% are naval forces or coastal artillery (remember, we are an island nation). 34% is made of the air forces, and 34% of ground forces and the remaining 2% is special operations folks.

I posted this here 'cause I couldn't find the official 'post your military here' thread.

Monkecia feels it can support about 8% in the armed forces.

well, not to nitpick, but about 12% of the US pop is 18-24, so i would say that, yes, if everyone 16-21 is in the military you can have a large standing force. now, i'd expect that this force would be crap compared to an older, career force made up of late 20's guys who have spent the last 10 years in the military, but if you take that into account, no, i see no problem.

this is my point: think it through, as i beleive Monkecia did. this lets you play more reaslitically, which makes it more fun for everyone else, and gives you something to do instead of going to church.

(I take it this entire trheat is OOC, so)

Thank you.

About 5% of those reaching 21 decide to stay with the militry - becoming heroes, elite soldiers, division commanders etc. Most people who stay on to become professional soldiers make it into the MIST or MIWST.

At the moment, Monkecia's armed forces is about 600,000 - roughly 0.5% of it's total population. We are, however, putting through a major militry building plan to put this up to 4% - or, 5,000,000 troops. This vast number of people will become available to us as the baby boom of 15 years ago, and the huge increase in numbers of babies being born, reaches a figure over the next 5 years allowing us to do so.

Germany managed to put more then 9 millions soldiers in action during ww2 which was more then 10 % of the pop.

Sweden mobilises 870k soldiers during war wich is about 10%

During the last half of the 17th century sweden mobilised more then 150k soldiers from a population of 2.1 million

Yes sorry, 500K soldiers were during WW1.

My army stands much higher than 5%... but then again. Most of my troops are poorly armed (kamikaze warriors).

now that we've gotten a range down for the overall military, what's a good support:combat-arms ratio? 5:1? 10:1?

With a population if 550M, if I allocate 1% to military (compulsive service, so we have a lot of kids in training - mainly for technical fields, as our military serves as another route to a college education), that's 5.5million in the military. With about a 9:1 support:combat ratio, that's 550,000 in combat roles.

Additionally, we have large Reserves unit and "Citizens' Militias" (which would only be deployed in defense of the homeland - and consists of pretty much anyone over the age of compulsory service but no longer on active-duty or in teh reserves). The game doesn't allow for it, but the Outlands has compulsory firearms ownership. Everyone over the age of 18 and free to live on their own is required to own a military-grade firearm. So, if ya invade the Outlands, you'll be facing something like 500M armed citizens, in addition to whatever units are at home.

Not really knowing the answer to Outland's question, and wishing to keep this subject in the public arena, allow me to *bump*.

No clue, anyone?

Ratio of support:combat units?

<bump in the quest for truth about support personel>

Some people might try to bring up DPRK (N. Korea) as an example of a nation with a huge % military, but I have yet to be provided with the stat to back that up. Furthermore, their economy is toast. If you want that high %, are you willing to accept that your economy is incapable of providing for your people? Likely not, since people say a powerhouse economy allows them to fund huge militaries. This is true, to a point. There's a line when the military steps on the economy's foot.

I posted a reference for it a couple weeks ago, but can't find the link now. The points, you make, though, are absolutely correct.

I"m not sure how this applies to my particular nation.

I have a command economy with 100% income tax. My social values center around ascetiscm and stability. Every citizen of servicable age (15-45) is a member of a militia/police force (bascailly a more active form of reserves). Everyone works 10 hour days, 6 days a week. Basically it's a somewhat more benevolent military Stalinist state. Given that my production is going to be quite high, and I don't manufacture luxury goods (except for export on occasion), I don't think having 7-8 % of my total population in a military role would be so bad, especially considering that they also form much of the administration, and control the education system. Further more, I produce large surplusses, due to the lack of consumptive mentalitly in my population.

I"m not sure how this applies to my particular nation.

I have a command economy with 100% income tax. My social values center around ascetiscm and stability. Every citizen of servicable age (15-45) is a member of a militia/police force (bascailly a more active form of reserves). Everyone works 10 hour days, 6 days a week. Basically it's a somewhat more benevolent military Stalinist state. Given that my production is going to be quite high, and I don't manufacture luxury goods (except for export on occasion), I don't think having 7-8 % of my total population in a military role would be so bad, especially considering that they also form much of the administration, and control the education system. Further more, I produce large surplusses, due to the lack of consumptive mentalitly in my population.

ah, yes, my favorite topic, socialist economics.

true fact, production increased when Ford when to a 40 hour week. also true fact, the USSR's labor efficiency (man hours/product) hovered around 60-70% of western nations. 10 hour days, 6 days a week, hmm. let's break it down old school.

for one, you're going to waste a lot of man power through labor inefficiency with your schedule and power structure, that's just a fact. the USSR, by ~1970, produced more per capita than the US, but this was due to the planned economy etc; they did this in spite of the labor inefficiency. so keep that in mind. phasing out luxury goods also actually decreases production, as it removes incentive for people to work hard. sadly, this is true. conclusion: realistically, working people that hard with only the People's Shoe to look forward to, your production will be ~equal to a comprable capitalist nation. sorry, that's my take on it (source for info: Socialist Planning by Michael Ellman, Caimbridge Press. great book, pick it up if you're into Political Economy)

also, you are going to need a lot of your military at home, all the time to keep things in order. so while 7% isn't out of line, i'm not expecting to see more than half of them leave the country. also, recall that the USSR made crap gear, something to keep in mind. having a command economy does allow you a larger military as you can assign production where it is needed, but it will still have a negative effect, especially on public sentiment. conclusion: yanking upwards of 15% of the labor pool out of service isn't going to be catastrophic, and is acutally necessary to prop up your regime. army strength on the offensive, though, suffers as you have to deal with the shoddy workmanship of unmotivated workers and homeland security issues.

regarding surpluses, i'm skeptical. the USSR couldn't manage it, what's your trick. convince me.

I"m not sure how this applies to my particular nation.

I have a command economy with 100% income tax. My social values center around ascetiscm and stability. Every citizen of servicable age (15-45) is a member of a militia/police force (bascailly a more active form of reserves). Everyone works 10 hour days, 6 days a week. Basically it's a somewhat more benevolent military Stalinist state. Given that my production is going to be quite high, and I don't manufacture luxury goods (except for export on occasion), I don't think having 7-8 % of my total population in a military role would be so bad, especially considering that they also form much of the administration, and control the education system. Further more, I produce large surplusses, due to the lack of consumptive mentalitly in my population.

ah, yes, my favorite topic, socialist economics.

true fact, production increased when Ford when to a 40 hour week. also true fact, the USSR's labor efficiency (man hours/product) hovered around 60-70% of western nations. 10 hour days, 6 days a week, hmm. let's break it down old school.

for one, you're going to waste a lot of man power through labor inefficiency with your schedule and power structure, that's just a fact. the USSR, by ~1970, produced more per capita than the US, but this was due to the planned economy etc; they did this in spite of the labor inefficiency. so keep that in mind. phasing out luxury goods also actually decreases production, as it removes incentive for people to work hard. sadly, this is true. conclusion: realistically, working people that hard with only the People's Shoe to look forward to, your production will be ~equal to a comprable capitalist nation. sorry, that's my take on it (source for info: Socialist Planning by Michael Ellman, Caimbridge Press. great book, pick it up if you're into Political Economy)

also, you are going to need a lot of your military at home, all the time to keep things in order. so while 7% isn't out of line, i'm not expecting to see more than half of them leave the country. also, recall that the USSR made crap gear, something to keep in mind. having a command economy does allow you a larger military as you can assign production where it is needed, but it will still have a negative effect, especially on public sentiment. conclusion: yanking upwards of 15% of the labor pool out of service isn't going to be catastrophic, and is acutally necessary to prop up your regime. army strength on the offensive, though, suffers as you have to deal with the shoddy workmanship of unmotivated workers and homeland security issues.

regarding surpluses, i'm skeptical. the USSR couldn't manage it, what's your trick. convince me.

I don't really see a problem with "the laziness of socialist economies" in Mallberta, due to it's unique social structure. Since everyone is Militarized, there is roughly the same level of discipline in the general populace as their is in most militaries- you don't hear to often of lazy soldiers. Promotion is still possible, which leads to more pleasant jobs (no one wants to work in a factory their whole lives) so I don't think luxuries are nessecary.

Again, seeing as my population is organized into militia groups already, and are tightly monitored through barcoding, etc., as well as being pretty much all armed as reserve forces, I would imagine I would have somewhat more flexiblity. The consequences of bringing my reserves into action, even as a defensive force, are obvious, but I believe in a short term conflict, more than possible.

I don't really see a problem with "the laziness of socialist economies" in Mallberta, due to it's unique social structure. Since everyone is Militarized, there is roughly the same level of discipline in the general populace as their is in most militaries- you don't hear to often of lazy soldiers. Promotion is still possible, which leads to more pleasant jobs (no one wants to work in a factory their whole lives) so I don't think luxuries are nessecary.

let me get my sociologist hat. i think you've over estimated the ability of society to crush the human spirit; generally, the more authoritarian the regime, the more foot dragging at the bottom. look at corporate management principles. the more intrusive micromanaging techniques create huge inefficiences, while letting workers do their job and only keeping them to a quota or schedule increases productivity (the latter there is called Statistical Process Control). the harder you squeeze, the more slips through your fingers. so while i don't doubt that you can militarize your society, i don't think that's going to solve laziness. there are plenty of lazy conscripts, look at Beatle Bailey.

I don't really see a problem with "the laziness of socialist economies" in Mallberta, due to it's unique social structure. Since everyone is Militarized, there is roughly the same level of discipline in the general populace as their is in most militaries- you don't hear to often of lazy soldiers. Promotion is still possible, which leads to more pleasant jobs (no one wants to work in a factory their whole lives) so I don't think luxuries are nessecary.

let me get my sociologist hat. i think you've over estimated the ability of society to crush the human spirit; generally, the more authoritarian the regime, the more foot dragging at the bottom. look at corporate management principles. the more intrusive micromanaging techniques create huge inefficiences, while letting workers do their job and only keeping them to a quota or schedule increases productivity (the latter there is called Statistical Process Control). the harder you squeeze, the more slips through your fingers. so while i don't doubt that you can militarize your society, i don't think that's going to solve laziness. there are plenty of lazy conscripts, look at Beatle Bailey.

Maybe your right, but I think with a sufficient length of time to socialize a population, you can mould them in interesting ways. Confuscianism is a good example of a mindset that allows a governing body tremendous authority over it's populace with relatively little resistance. Since my populace has been educated from birth, (or is beginning to be, our government having been in power for some 20 years now) our values and morals are beggining to really shine through.

Still no idea on support:combat ratio?

I think a major factor you are missing is unemployment. A nation, even an economically healthy one can sustain an unemployment rate of 5%. Now taking out 5% unemployed (same age range as working) plus your ~2.5-5%that you already took out for military its possible at the high end to have 10% of your population in the armed services, permanently with only some adverse affects on your economy.

Of course crazy governments like IF can make many sacrifices to have a military state like that. No, DPRK is not a good model (1.3 out of 22) is about 6% or so, Prussia however is a different story.

One of the best armies in Europe, population 10.5 million fielding an army of 900,000 professional soldiers (about 9%). Of course that meant that instead of 18 different types of toothbrushes to choose from you had 1.

So remember, competition is WASTEFUL, yup, lots of resources are duplicated to achieve the same ends.

Yes Prussia! I read somewhere tho that at one time Prussia had almost 20% of its population serving in the armed forces. Now, i'm not economically inclined but i'd say that back in the 17th - 19th it was easier to conscript more of your population into the army than now a-days. I believe it might have to do with the fact that back in those days life was simpler. There were no office jobs, there was no worry about who would hire who. It was more like feudal Japan where all the peasants stayed home and made bread for the Samurais who were out there fighting. Today there are higher levels of buisness than just food and arms making that are taken into account. So i would think that one could not go on army % stats that are taken from early 1900s and before, cuz its just not the same playing field.

-Premier Roland Ratzen of the PRR

20%? Perhaps in the 7 years war... when it was a fight of live or death. But definitely not in peace times...

All i remember about the 20% was that it was during Frederick the Great's reign.

-Premier Roland Ratzen of the PRR

Now, i'm not economically inclined but i'd say that back in the 17th - 19th it was easier to conscript more of your population into the army than now a-days. I believe it might have to do with the fact that back in those days life was simpler.

yep, right on; high tech goods need many componants, which all need to be put together, rather than just pressganing peasants and leaving their wives to tend the feilds.

[oooh. sticky-ed.]

OFFICIAL NS MOD ACTION

I've stickied this thread for the benefit of all, especially certain nations that think they can maintain a Thriving economy with 22-30% of their population in the military.

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/1431815.jpgLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
"We can't go around supporting the Goodness of All Things. People might mistake us for Menelmacar." ~Education Minister Lobon, Kn-Yan
Clicky-clicky! We Love The Iraqi Information Minister (www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com)

What about those of us >ahem< who have big armies but are somewhat realistic?

I mean, my standing army isnt that big [compared to wartime] but I have a huge pool of Uruk Hai to call on in wartime.

What about those of us >ahem< who have big armies but are somewhat realistic?

I mean, my standing army isnt that big [compared to wartime] but I have a huge pool of Uruk Hai to call on in wartime.

Same with me. If you've ever played Marathon... you'd know that all Lookers fight... and most Pfhor. Lookers believe in a helping of the community or something like that, and they'll all swarm together.

[ true... I can't imagine an orc or looker that doesn't fight... ]

[ true... I can't imagine an orc or looker that doesn't fight... ]

[Neither can I. I've often argued that Melkor's military capabilities are based on legitimate literature. Ever notice in the Two towers that when Saruman sends his army out, that he only has a few orcs left behind at Orthanc? It's kind of like that.

So basically, I stockpile resources like mad for years and years so I have em when I need to go to war. Even then, I have to rely on a quick outcome, and my losses will invariably be substantially higher than my enemies']

OOC: I agree with both Melkor's and Marathon's statements, but the vast majority of players play human, or human-majority, populations, and that is the 'certain nations' I was referring to.

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/1431815.jpgLady Sirithil nos Fëanor
Elentári of the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar
"We can't go around supporting the Goodness of All Things. People might mistake us for Menelmacar." ~Education Minister Lobon, Kn-Yan
Clicky-clicky! We Love The Iraqi Information Minister (www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com)

Ever notice in the Two towers that when Saruman sends his army out, that he only has a few orcs left behind at Orthanc? It's kind of like that.


True, but look what happened to Orthanc. Send everyone to war if you want, just don't expect to offer much resistance if you suffer a counter invasion.

In saying that, the guidelines (as has already been pointed out) are really geared around modern human armies. I'd still say they could be applied to any modern well equiped army.

Within the 13 Clans of the High Orcs, nearly half of them never see combat. The EnheilRas respects all things Orcish, and this includes agricultural and civil methods. There is a clan dedicated to smithing weapons, there are several which do nothing but farm to feed the others, and carry out civil services. The High Fist and Bent Crown Clans are just traditional and strategic leaders which focus on political views.

Manus, the EnheilRas (Ancient Orc for WarMaster) has been very careful not to dedicate all Orcs to combat. He sees that Orcs can do so much more than swing an axe. He is truly a visionary!

As a Political Science and Military History major I find this post of particular interest. I think people are looking too much at one possible effective %. Looking back through history, you have to look at the time period, which is important since a lot of people on this forum use very different time periods. Look back at military powers like Sparta, and every single male from extremely young ages till they were elderly were in the military. Of course things have changed since then. Up until Napoleon the governments actually wanted to keep the weapons out of the hands of the masses in fear of rebellion. Napoleon brought the levee en masse, which resulted in huge armies, yet also decimated France's population. From around this time until modern day post vietnam era when a country went to war, it would have to mobilize around the war to support the constant supply of troops and weapons. Look at the modern wars however, the economy itself isn't really affected by the war (of course people's fears affect the market, but I mean there aren't suddenly thousands of people hired at Lockheed to make F-16s). There is a reason whenever talk of reinstating the draft comes up every general is against in. In a modern technically advanced military, everyone is a specialist, so draftees and undertrained soldiers are a hgue hinderance. the USSR spent 20% of its GDP on its military, which is a large reason for the ecnomic collapse. The US spent 6% at the height of the cold war, and spends about 3% now if I remember correctly. Israel spends 10%, but this is necessary due to constant wars. People on this board seem to be totally obsessed with who has the larger numbers, and since people don't seem to be willing to agree to using currently existing technology, there is no real way to judge who is stronger. Personally I try to just rely on nationstate's rankings, spending per capitaxpopulation=military strength. Does my nation probably spend a huge amount on the military, heck yea, #2 at last ranking, but my economy is also the fastest growing and at frightening. I'm not sure how that works, but somehow nationstates says it's so.
I guess my overall point to this is that there are a huge number of factors that go into the numbers of troops as to percentage of the population, things that are far too complicated to simply work out generic percentages and ratios, and maybe we need to try a bit harder to avoid war since we have no real way to fight a war.
I hope that didn't get too rant-ish :-)

Good points from Praetor, but I think the thread simply came about because a lot of people started saying I've got a country of 100 M people and and army of 50 M (well, you know what I mean) and the %ages were just an effort to give modern comparisons.

Anyway, you might be able to answer a question that's been floating around - in a modern (i.e. today) army what is a reasonable ratio of support to front-line combat personnel. Ok, I know just about everyone in the Army has some combat/firearms training but you know what I mean.

I originally posted this on the FYI: Godmoding topic, but it's more pertinent to this topic, so here goes.

---

Just some numbers that you may want to consider:

The Cold War Soviet Union can probably be considered as having concentrated more on peacetime military might than any other nation in the history of humankind. To a certain extent the Soviet Union's economy was a military-industrial complex. At the peak of the Soviet Union's military power in 1989, it spent about 15 percent of its GDP on purely military activities. It had just under 6 million troops in uniform out of a population of 287 million people. Many of these soldiers were entirely combat ineffective. Its economy was nearing collapse.

The present-day United States of America is probably the best example of economically sustainable military might in the world's history. The United States currently spends 3.2% of its GDP on the military. The DoD employs three and a half million active duty soldiers, ready reservists, and civilian contractors. There are ten active duty Army divisions, three active duty Marine divisions, eight National Guard divisions, and one Marine reserve division. In practice they are not all full divisions, but we will assume that the short staffing of some divisions is made up for by the smaller units that are also encountered within the US armed forces. Each division counts roughly 25,000 troops, and twenty-two divisions times 25,000 troops each makes 650,000 troops. This is from a nation with a population is 297 million, a degree of economic success unparalleled in the history of mankind, and a level of military spending much higher than that of other successful democracies.

In other words, before the United States of America has to start drafting raw recruits, it can put 650,000 soldiers in the field in total. It must use these soldiers to fulfill all of its ground military commitments - it cannot put them all in one place at once.

You may claim that your nation is at war mobilization and is hence able to surpass these peacetime norms. This is nonsensical. Total mobilizations have ruinous effects upon nations' social, economic and financial structures. (Consider the experiences of Japan, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union in World War II.) They cannot be sustained for more than a few years without causing complete economic implosion.

My bottom line? Militaries are fantastically expensive and they bankrupt a nation like nothing else. Conquerors soon find their checkbooks empty and their dreams stolen by those with greater financial acuity.

I posted this reply to that post in the other forum, so I guess I'll post it here.

Just some numbers that you may want to consider:

The Cold War Soviet Union can probably be considered as having concentrated more on peacetime military might than any other nation in the history of humankind. To a certain extent the Soviet Union's economy was a military-industrial complex. At the peak of the Soviet Union's military power in 1989, it spent about 15 percent of its GDP on purely military activities. It had just under 6 million troops in uniform out of a population of 287 million people. Many of these soldiers were entirely combat ineffective. Its economy was nearing collapse.

The present-day United States of America is probably the best example of economically sustainable military might in the world's history. The United States currently spends 3.2% of its GDP on the military. The DoD employs three and a half million active duty soldiers, ready reservists, and civilian contractors. There are ten active duty Army divisions, three active duty Marine divisions, eight National Guard divisions, and one Marine reserve division. In practice they are not all full divisions, but we will assume that the short staffing of some divisions is made up for by the smaller units that are also encountered within the US armed forces. Each division counts roughly 25,000 troops, and twenty-two divisions times 25,000 troops each makes 650,000 troops. This is from a nation with a population is 297 million, a degree of economic success unparalleled in the history of mankind, and a level of military spending much higher than that of other successful democracies.

In other words, before the United States of America has to start drafting raw recruits, it can put 650,000 soldiers in the field in total. It must use these soldiers to fulfill all of its ground military commitments - it cannot put them all in one place at once.

You may claim that your nation is at war mobilization and is hence able to surpass these peacetime norms. This is nonsensical. Total mobilizations have ruinous effects upon nations' social, economic and financial structures. (Consider the experiences of Japan, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union in World War II.) They cannot be sustained for more than a few years without causing complete economic implosion.

My bottom line? Militaries are fantastically expensive and they bankrupt a nation like nothing else. Conquerors soon find their checkbooks empty and their dreams stolen by those with greater financial acuity.

Very good post Hanse, the USSR was actually up at 20%, and in WW2, the country that actually mobilized the most was Britain. Germany didn't mobilize nearly as much as everyone assumes. The US also mobilized to a huge extent, yet that mobilization didn't cause huge economic problems. Sustained trememndous mobilization causes the most problems, but a temporary mobilization for a major war does not necessarily spelle conomic doom. Japan's economy was destroyed by US embargos, and then bombing of nearly every major city. Japan was then able to rebuild and become an economic powerhouse.

Let me see here... my guess is that my military is but a small percentage... but there ya go... let me just work this out (level 8 in maths don't fail me now!).

Air Force: 6750 Pilots + 2250 Turret Operators
Navy: 47000 Crew
Army: 78000 Troops
National Guard: 12000
Total Personnel: 146000
Total Population: 166000000
Percentage of Total Population in Military:
= 146000 / 166000000 x 100
= 146 / 166000 x 100
= 0.087951807228915662650602409638554%
= 0.09% to two decimal places.
:shock:

Thats small...
Egads.

Well, imploded economy, whatcha gonna do. Conscription time :twisted:

Good question, Celdonia! A modern US Army heavy division, such as the 3rd Infantry Division, has ten direct-fire combat battalions. Six of these are armor battalions and four are mechanized infantry battalions. (Generally the Army's infantry divisions had five armor and five mech-inf battalions, but IIRC the 3rd ID is an exception to this rule.) The following calculations may be slightly dated but they will provide a good rule of thumb estimate of the proportion of combat arms soldiers in a given division.

A tank battalion consists of four companies of 14 main battle tanks: 56 tanks in all, with four crewmen per tank, for a total of 224 tankers per battalion. There are additional combat arms units such as the scout platoon, the air defense platoon, and the mortar platoon; these add up to perhaps sixty additional combat troops.

A mechanized infantry battalion consists of four companies of mechanized infantry. Each company consists of 14 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles with three crewmen each, plus six nine-soldier infantry squads , plus 12 two-man anti-tank missile teams. That's a total of 42+54+24 = 120 soldiers per company, or 480 soldiers per battalion. Again we have perhaps sixty additional combat troops in the battalion's remaining units. That makes 540 troops per mechanized infantry battalion.

280 troops per tank battalion times six is 1680. 540 troops per mechanized infantry battalion times four is 2160. That makes 3,840 combat arms troops out of a total divisional size of approximately 25,000 troops. This figure seems about right for a Western army: for every 'tooth' soldier there are seven 'tail' soldiers. Your first reaction may be to get flabbergasted and to demand that all the rear-echelon personnel be given guns and sent up to the front line. Don't do this. Without its support staff the division would quickly run out of supplies and collapse. The large "tail" actually makes Western forces more, not less, effective. Forces with smaller tails historically have much less staying power on the battlefield and are able to operate continuously for much shorter periods of time.

As a way to prove Hanse's point, look at every army that has ever invaded Russia. Without proper supply lines they freeze and starve in the winter. Russia's severe weather just further proves the importance of supply lines. Hit an army's supply lines, and it will hurt badly, cut them off, and it will die.

The Mongols did it.

we have 250 tractors, 50 combines and good, big, hairy women that are all well able to fight - Do I have any offers?

It's important to note, Melkor, that the Mongols did it while fighting armies that also lacked supply organizations. Their foes existed on the same forage basis as the Mongols, but were generally less efficient about it. Modern logistics date from the latter half of the 1600s.

The character of armies has fundamentally changed since the time of the Mongols. It is difficult to keep main battle tanks in operation through foraging. :)

It is difficult to keep main battle tanks in operation through foraging. :)

LOL, yes it is... yes it is

Thanks for the answer Hanse. Some of us had been guessing that it might be as much as 10 to 1, but 7 to 1 seems good to me :D

Can we make a rule of thumb estimate then that the US army with lets say, for convience sake, just under 700,000 personnel has about 100,000 combat soldiers that can actually be put into the front line?

Basically I'm trying to come up with a decent way of calculating all forces given, say, the levels of military spending, and using the US, UK or other real countries as a model.

So, if you know what expenditure is like, how many people does the military employ, how many ground troops, how many tanks, airforce, etc...

Personally I'm basing Celdonia's military on the UK and factoring it according to spending, economy and size of the nation.

If citizens don't work, they don't eat. No complimentary health service for those suffering from malnutrition either.

one of my nations has 100% military. That is because it is a hive of big bugs who are all of a hive mind.

one of my nations has 100% military. That is because it is a hive of big bugs who are all of a hive mind.
Well, I could argue that my nation has a 100% military because it's made of robots. Still, who feeds the hive? Who equips it (assuming they need equipment)? Who orders it around--I'm sure the Queen or Brain bugs aren't going to go off fighting?

one of my nations has 100% military. That is because it is a hive of big bugs who are all of a hive mind.
Well, I could argue that my nation has a 100% military because it's made of robots. Still, who feeds the hive? Who equips it (assuming they need equipment)? Who orders it around--I'm sure the Queen or Brain bugs aren't going to go off fighting?

You got me started on Starship Troopers...

In the book, there is a BIG distiction made between the Worker Arachnids and the Warrior Arachnids; the Workers are literally incapable of fighting. Of course, this doesn't mean they're useless, because the Bugs' primary tactic is generally to send out a flood of Workers with a Warrior or two hidden in them (since they look basically identical). The Workers get massacred, but the Warriors have the advantage of surprise and camoflauge. This wouldn't work for the movie version because the movie version has the Bugs without technology. In the book, the Bugs had überlasers n' shit.

Book > movie.

Well it depends..you can do that for a certain amount of time if it's important. Let's say your country is under attack, it wasn't unsually in ancient China to draft every man avaliable for the defense of the country.

Well it depends..you can do that for a certain amount of time if it's important. Let's say your country is under attack, it wasn't unsually in ancient China to draft every man avaliable for the defense of the country.

Yes, but:


Ancient China was not industrialized. I don't think we have any non-industrial countries here. The allure of modern warfare is too strong.
In any sort of industrial economy, this would utterly f*ck your economy over.

I talked to a former USArmy intel-weenie who said a 3:1 support:combat ratio is about right. A lot bloody closer than *I* would have thought!

I talked to a former USArmy intel-weenie who said a 3:1 support:combat ratio is about right. A lot bloody closer than *I* would have thought!

Wow, that means my army can be quite a bit larger...

Excellent.

Like I said..it was only when the defense of the nation was in danger. (meaning the enemies could possibly breach the capital).

What you could do for your millitary is place most of it in the reserves, allowing them to have normal jobs and such and you only use them in times of war or other crisis. For my nation i have close to 4 million troops and my population is around 485 million. Only 2.5 million are on active duty while the rest are in reserves and only have to come in part time.

I have 3 million standing army with almost 15 million reservists. Is that realistic?

Depends on your population.

My society is set up so that its required by the laws of probability that about 1/3 of my population is involved in the military. Of course, all of them are only called into action in extreme emergencies, the rest of the time most of them act as an internal police force, with only a small percentage on constant active duty.

Um what would be the percentage of 2,300,000 military personnel over 345,000,000 cititzens?

my military, being that i am highly militaristic....is 10% of my population...exactly...there are laws in my nation for this

Um what would be the percentage of 2,300,000 military personnel over 345,000,000 cititzens?

Less than 1%. 1% would be 3.45 million

Once you get above a certain population, you really can't build you armies higher. I mean, the cost of feeding, clothing, training, equipping, etc, a modern soldier is insane. Multiply that times however many millions of soldiers you have. Now factor in tanks, guns, bombs, ships, space-based überlasers, nuclear weapons programs, ICBMs, cruise missiles, psychic penguin eugenics programs, etc.

If your economy can afford this, congratulations on having all resources in the entire galaxy at your disposal.

*Looks @ army that is 3.4% of total population

Our military is a little different to most countries.

10 Battle fleets each consisting of:

10 Photo Battleships (Photo Battleship specs are top secret, but each Battleship is about 2 Miles long.), which have a compliment of 1000 A.I controlled Photo fighters.

This may not seem like much, but Each photo Battleship is very powerful equall in strength to at least 5 ships of equivilent class.

We are also developing a new replacement more powerfull class ship, which will eventually be phased in to all Battlefleets.

The Terran Republic dosn't have any ground forces as such, because our military is not geared toward invasion, but we have a force of about 1000 Dread Templers. Dread templers are extremely powerful beings.

We also have numerious planetary defence structures\units.

What about those people that had to make new nations so they could post in the forums. For awhile I couldn't post as Yavin, so I made The Imperial Center, and then so I could have a voice in the UWC I made new Yavin. All together I have 1 billion people but I only have a 100 million man military but that includes support, all medical staff in the Empire, all police in the Empire, intellegance(?), all education, and then the normal military. So wouldn't that at least requor(?) 100 million people. It makes it easier to tell my medical and stuff to go places or get courtmartield(?).

When every peasant carries a lupara, you dont need an army. :)

Don Goldoni
Holy Empire of Mafiosi

MY ARMIE HAS 830835801308315-83153851-89-53108351087531087315 PEEPLE IN IT AN TEY ALL RIED AROUN ON N00K-POWRED ELLIFANTZ!!!!!!!11111111 :twisted:

My military is 0.06% of my population.

Good topic. I posted the following in another thread about military size and I still think it's pretty reasonable - a standing army (this includes navy and airforce) of 12 million (2.3% of my total population). Professional soldiers are only .38% of the population. There are also reservist personnel that number over 100 million as I outline here. This is based onthe fact that even when compulsory service is completed, people still have to maintain their skills by going to reservist refresher weekends six times a year until the age of 45.

I think it does have to be recognised that not every serviceman carries a rifle and we also have to consider the process of mobilisation and its speed. It should also be recognised in role-playing that reservists wouldn't be as effectiveas active personnel.

----------

My country has a population of over 500 million. We have a system of national service in place in which every fit person must perform 2 years of active service at some stage between the ages of 18 and 30. In cases where the people do not wish to serve in the military due to conscience or religion, they may serve in the Department of the Environment as park rangers or they may serve with the National Medical Corps as paramedics. Such duty is for a 3 year term and those that undertake this work do not have to be reservists in the future.

In addition, everyone who has completed national service must take part in a reservist refresher course 6 weekends a year until the age of 45.

Police officers, medical professionals and teachers do not have to perform national service.

Professional soldiers, sailors and airmen make up approximately 2 million personnel in the armed forces.

In addition, there are 10 million personnel in the armed forces on active duty completing their national service at any one time.

The Grand Duke may, when a national emergency is declared, activate some or all of the reservists and Ouagadougou can have a total of up to 120 million servicemen on active duty if circumstances demand it.

What if your troops are not human and mostly dormant 90% of the time anyhow?

Um.....you're not hiding any Lovecraftian horrors we should know about, are you? :shock:

well warbeasts have nothing to do with HP, i had several post concerning them before, basically they are genetically engineered, altered, and breed for specialized combat roles. They don't steal your soul or anything.

Well it depends..you can do that for a certain amount of time if it's important. Let's say your country is under attack, it wasn't unsually in ancient China to draft every man avaliable for the defense of the country.

Yes, but:


Ancient China was not industrialized. I don't think we have any non-industrial countries here. The allure of modern warfare is too strong.
In any sort of industrial economy, this would utterly f*ck your economy over.

Not that I have much in the way of industry but even in a non Industrial enonomy, the crops still need to be planted and harvested.

I think a major factor you are missing is unemployment. A nation, even an economically healthy one can sustain an unemployment rate of 5%. Now taking out 5% unemployed (same age range as working) plus your ~2.5-5%that you already took out for military its possible at the high end to have 10% of your population in the armed services, permanently with only some adverse affects on your economy.

Of course crazy governments like IF can make many sacrifices to have a military state like that. No, DPRK is not a good model (1.3 out of 22) is about 6% or so, Prussia however is a different story.

One of the best armies in Europe, population 10.5 million fielding an army of 900,000 professional soldiers (about 9%). Of course that meant that instead of 18 different types of toothbrushes to choose from you had 1.

So remember, competition is WASTEFUL, yup, lots of resources are duplicated to achieve the same ends.

Yes Prussia! I read somewhere tho that at one time Prussia had almost 20% of its population serving in the armed forces. Now, i'm not economically inclined but i'd say that back in the 17th - 19th it was easier to conscript more of your population into the army than now a-days. I believe it might have to do with the fact that back in those days life was simpler. There were no office jobs, there was no worry about who would hire who. It was more like feudal Japan where all the peasants stayed home and made bread for the Samurais who were out there fighting. Today there are higher levels of buisness than just food and arms making that are taken into account. So i would think that one could not go on army % stats that are taken from early 1900s and before, cuz its just not the same playing field.

-Premier Roland Ratzen of the PRR

I think it was during the 7 years war or something, Prussia held off Russia and Austria while England poured gold into Prussia. But I agree, now a days it would be a lot more difficult to duplicate the 20% conscription.

My nation has a large military percentage of the working force, but I also envision that many 'civilian' parts of normal countries. It makes sense that in a country with compusary military service that maybe service does not include front line deployment.

For instance, imagine that the public health care industry is completely run by military. Hospitals are staffed by a brigade of army doctors each...

Same with schools. If you're going to have compusary military service...what age group benefits the most from basic military training? Maybe the ages about 14-18? Might as well make all public high schools into military academies.

I also have an imploded economy, so it makes sense that most goods and services absolutely required are somewhat regulated by the government or produced by the military.

So, while I can bost to have 3 infantry divisions (12 regiments/brigades each), 2 armour divisions and a handful of independant regiments and brigades...even in the height of the war I was involved in, only 5 regiments where able to serve overseas.

So, while I peg my military at about 70 to 75 million, (which is about 20% of my population) and can press a much larger amount into service, I can deploy only thousands (near 0.01% of my population).

as fo now every male in my country between the ages of 16-65 are part of my military but they are not all on active duty i only have about 10 million active duty people in my military the rest are on reserve status with the exception of those who have jobs considered war material (oil, steel, Ect.)

just posted this to another thread, thought it might be of interest as it's all about what we're talking about here:

I can reduce your population with my bio weapons. ANd I have a 6 mil man army, with a 125 mil population.

ooc: yay! i get to use my new formula!

6M of 125M (which i consider the population bug... ahem) is 4.8%. it has been revealed that modern armies usually have a support staff:combat staff ratio of 3:1. so 4.8% balloons to 19.2% if you claim to have 6M combat troops; if not, then you have only 1.5M combat troops.

then, and you'll know this if you read my bit on high % armies, you have to take into account that the army is sapping your labor pool. you have 50M people of fighting age (see the thread) and with support staff, you end up taking 48% of your working population to war.

and then we have to arm, train, feed, support, etc etc these troops. even if you stick with 6M as total, giving you 1.5M combat troops, are these all ground troops? how many in your navy etc. you're still taking 12% of your workforce, which is HUGE (a 12% unemployment rate makes economists grimace), and you have no way to supply and feed these people at home, much less on the feild.

so congrats, you've been smacked down with reason. and the biological weapons threats really don't even deserve a response. what kind of nation are you playing that says 'my opening move is biological warfare.' i'm sure you're really stable and have lots of freinds.

c:\run ignore.exe -the bisons

I don't know that if anyone has pointed this out, but the more advanced and better equipped and maintained a military is THE SMALLER IT IS. Why? Armies are extremely hard to manage even with all the logistics and support you need, even 1,000 men was very near umanageable until after WW2 ,thanks to communications innovations and advances in tactics.The only time any military commander in history has raised the largest army possible,is if they had no other choice.Almost any general would rather have a smaller,better trained better equipped army. it's easier to manage,motivate train and keep happy.........oh and move. If we look at ancient Rome we will see that when they invaded Gaulic territories to the north, their legions were regularly outnumbered 10-1 and even 25-1 in some cases. The Gauls because of poor technology and training NEEDED to mass every fighting man or woman they could to fight off the superior roman arms,tactics and morale and even then, they regularly lost in a spectacular fashion. Now I know you say 'the Romans were always good at warfare,that example sucks' let me point this out: In the Punic wars Rome's military was roughly 4 times the size of the Roman army during the Gaulic campaigns BUT Hannibal regularly defeated in stunning fashion, comparably equipped Roman legions that out numbered his army 4-1! Why? Hannibal understood that numbers meant nothing, it was tactics that wins the day ,the Roman army was reformed after Hannibal's defeat at Zama (By Scipio Africanus,who coincidentally beat Hannibal,by apeing Hannibal's tactics) to reflect the Roman shift to a more compact more manageable army,and then Roman Expansion truly began. Numbers are a poor indicator of military strength.

Supreme Republican Commander, Vaikov-One Hundred Man of The Retaliatory Guard, Ilek-Vaad

I thought this was a sticky. Hmmm...

[Thread un-Stix0ReD by me. Sorry.

I got complaints from a lot of people wondering why the hell it was stickeyyd, and I didnt think it was worthwhile. Large armies can be covered in the "GODMODDING" thread. I dont want to clutter the NS page up with stickys and announcements]

I think a major factor you are missing is unemployment. A nation, even an economically healthy one can sustain an unemployment rate of 5%. Now taking out 5% unemployed (same age range as working) plus your ~2.5-5%that you already took out for military its possible at the high end to have 10% of your population in the armed services, permanently with only some adverse affects on your economy.

Of course crazy governments like IF can make many sacrifices to have a military state like that. No, DPRK is not a good model (1.3 out of 22) is about 6% or so, Prussia however is a different story.

One of the best armies in Europe, population 10.5 million fielding an army of 900,000 professional soldiers (about 9%). Of course that meant that instead of 18 different types of toothbrushes to choose from you had 1.

So remember, competition is WASTEFUL, yup, lots of resources are duplicated to achieve the same ends.

Yes Prussia! I read somewhere tho that at one time Prussia had almost 20% of its population serving in the armed forces. Now, i'm not economically inclined but i'd say that back in the 17th - 19th it was easier to conscript more of your population into the army than now a-days. I believe it might have to do with the fact that back in those days life was simpler. There were no office jobs, there was no worry about who would hire who. It was more like feudal Japan where all the peasants stayed home and made bread for the Samurais who were out there fighting. Today there are higher levels of buisness than just food and arms making that are taken into account. So i would think that one could not go on army % stats that are taken from early 1900s and before, cuz its just not the same playing field.

-Premier Roland Ratzen of the PRR

I think it was during the 7 years war or something, Prussia held off Russia and Austria while England poured gold into Prussia. But I agree, now a days it would be a lot more difficult to duplicate the 20% conscription.

Prussia is sort of a unique case, as my History professor likes to put it "Prussia was an Army with a Nation." In a way Prussia was somewhat similar to modern day Israel, it was a small nation in comparison to its major neighbors, and completely surrounded. Should it lose, it would cease to exist as a nation.

<bump in protest of the unstickying>

I like that "Army with a nation" thing. Really sums up the way it was.

[Thread un-Stix0ReD by me. Sorry.

I got complaints from a lot of people wondering why the hell it was stickeyyd, and I didnt think it was worthwhile. Large armies can be covered in the "GODMODDING" thread. I dont want to clutter the NS page up with stickys and announcements]

Yeah well, whatever. *bump* anyway.

Pffff, you do realise 100 is my ENTIRE military, inculding Farmers, Inmformation, desk jobs etc, very little are actually troops.

America has a population of around 300 million people, meanwhile we have a military that enlists a little less than 2 million service men and women. That's not an army of 2 million, that's army, navy, and etc. Although, I don't know one person who wouldn't fight to the death for this country, so I guess you could say we have a military of about 300 million people......minus the toddlers thru 14 year olds.

America has a population of around 300 million people, meanwhile we have a military that enlists a little less than 2 million service men and women. That's not an army of 2 million, that's army, navy, and etc. Although, I don't know one person who wouldn't fight to the death for this country, so I guess you could say we have a military of about 300 million people......minus the toddlers thru 14 year olds.

and anti-american revolutionaries like me! viva la technocracia!

I don't know that if anyone has pointed this out, but the more advanced and better equipped and maintained a military is THE SMALLER IT IS.

This is a good point. The modern army is much less labour intensive than its predecessor. Also, one of the reasons that (I believe) the idea of building economies through militarism has changed over the years in that it's not as effective a method of controlling unemployment as it used to be, and it requires huge investments with (often) a limited number of arms manufacturers, placing too much reliance on one sector.

*Bump* Well thought-out and written. Of course, it'd be easier to RP if my nation's population didn't keep increasing so fast...

Although, I don't know one person who wouldn't fight to the death for this country, so I guess you could say we have a military of about 300 million people......minus the toddlers thru 14 year olds.

Fight to the death for a crap-bucket like America? Oh, come on, you have got to be kidding me. Any country whos government even considered a bill that would require copy protection devices on a digital watch is in serious trouble. Until the RIAA, etc, are declared monopolies and disbanded, and the government generally gets its head screwed on straight, I'll have nothing to fight for.

Until the RIAA, etc, are declared monopolies and disbanded, and the government generally gets its head screwed on straight, I'll have nothing to fight for.

here here, i second.

*bump*

OOC: This is a really good article!

Although, I don't know one person who wouldn't fight to the death for this country, so I guess you could say we have a military of about 300 million people......minus the toddlers thru 14 year olds.

Fight to the death for a crap-bucket like America? Oh, come on, you have got to be kidding me. Any country whos government even considered a bill that would require copy protection devices on a digital watch is in serious trouble. Until the RIAA, etc, are declared monopolies and disbanded, and the government generally gets its head screwed on straight, I'll have nothing to fight for.

Well, unlike you, I don't think I'd like the crushing boot of a dictator. (Please spare me the "Bush IS a dictator," it's neither original nor true.) Now you can bad mouth America all you want, just remember what Clinton said "There is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." I know when I'm having it good. And I would fight to the death for freedom and this country, that in the past 200 years has grown faster than any other nation alone. Nations that have existed for centuries longer than the US. We rake in more than 8 trillion dollars a year. (Maybe less since Bush took over.) And if you have a problem with large corporations or capitalism, move to Cuba or North Korea, they share your thoughts. Big business is the only thing that gives America a direction, if it weren't for the Microsofts, Viacoms, and Wal-Marts this country would be stagnant. I'll fight for this country. I'll fight for my way of life. I'll fight for my children's way of life. I'll fight for my right to live in a lap of luxury. To not have to drink water out of a stream or river that's also used for bathing. To not have to buy partially rotted foods out in some market that attracts more flies than customers. To have electricity so I can stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. To not have to worry about my child being born because I can't afford or find a doctor. America has to be doing something right to have become such a powerful yet sympathetic nation.

If a country has one of the largest arms industries in the world it can be profittable to put money into defence. A certain amount of money sent to the defence force ends up in R&D. Take WW2 for example. In WW2 technology advanced in all the victorious nations and only a few years after the war Germany had recovered economically. So if you as your countries leader percieve a threat and up defence spending your military technology is advanced and becomes more desireable for other nations.
There are also a number of side effects here. For example with a bigger military nations are more likely to side with you on issues and therefore buy arms off you even if there is a better deal around. For example Australia purchasing JSF's off the USA despite the release of Su47's at the same price. The Su47 been the superior aircraft.
One major example of a country with a large military industry & military is the USA. The Military makes up for 46% of the industry and is tied directly to 71%. So in the event of war 71% of the factories will pump out tanks, shells etc. Meanwhile in the event of peace 46% of US industry makes its money by selling arms to third world dictators. The profit from these sales is siphoned into the government by taxes and the government can again afford a larger military.
Another side effect comes during war. If you use your huge military to invade a country you are destroying their infrastructure & weaponry. After the war the new government of that nation will have to buy American bridges, tanks, power plants, jet fighters to rebuild. Thusly it is economically smart to invade countries that are likely to give you cheap oil in the future.
And you also have the handy bonus of expenditure of over production. After a while rich capitalist nations produce more goods then are demanded. If they then go to war these goods can be expended and overproduction is dealt with.
So with a large military industrial complex & an even larger military nations can quite literally dominate the world as the USA does.
However if you buy all your weaponry off one of these major powers keep your spending low & make sure that major power will back you up in a war.

Although, I don't know one person who wouldn't fight to the death for this country, so I guess you could say we have a military of about 300 million people......minus the toddlers thru 14 year olds.

Fight to the death for a crap-bucket like America? Oh, come on, you have got to be kidding me. Any country whos government even considered a bill that would require copy protection devices on a digital watch is in serious trouble. Until the RIAA, etc, are declared monopolies and disbanded, and the government generally gets its head screwed on straight, I'll have nothing to fight for.

Well, unlike you, I don't think I'd like the crushing boot of a dictator. (Please spare me the "Bush IS a dictator," it's neither original nor true.) Now you can bad mouth America all you want, just remember what Clinton said "There is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." I know when I'm having it good. And I would fight to the death for freedom and this country, that in the past 200 years has grown faster than any other nation alone. Nations that have existed for centuries longer than the US. We rake in more than 8 trillion dollars a year. (Maybe less since Bush took over.) And if you have a problem with large corporations or capitalism, move to Cuba or North Korea, they share your thoughts. Big business is the only thing that gives America a direction, if it weren't for the Microsofts, Viacoms, and Wal-Marts this country would be stagnant. I'll fight for this country. I'll fight for my way of life. I'll fight for my children's way of life. I'll fight for my right to live in a lap of luxury. To not have to drink water out of a stream or river that's also used for bathing. To not have to buy partially rotted foods out in some market that attracts more flies than customers. To have electricity so I can stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. To not have to worry about my child being born because I can't afford or find a doctor. America has to be doing something right to have become such a powerful yet sympathetic nation.

OOC:

You know, it's this arrogant and blinkered view of the rest of the world that gets some people so worked up about Americans, and the insistence that countries such as Cuba and North Korea are the alternatives to American capitalism label you as an extremist.

Do you think we're living in straw huts in Europe?
Do you even think the USA generates more wealth per head of population than any other country?
Do you actually believe that only wealth generation is a measure of a successful society?

Ok, love America (and your corporations - truly believe they have your interests at heart if it makes you sleep any better) but the reality for most of us living in North America/Europe/Japan/Australasia etc.. is that the quality of life we enjoy is all pretty similar.

America isn't Eden. In fact, it isn't even Sweden.

America isn't Eden. In fact, it isn't even Sweden.
I like that quote. :D

BTW, Bump.

America isn't Eden. In fact, it isn't even Sweden.
I like that quote. :D

BTW, Bump.

Cheers :D

Use it with impunity - just send the royalty cheques to the Ministry of Progadanda, Celdonia.

..a lot of what I would add has already been said, but: Is your right to a comfortable life greater than those of people all over the globe, Manchuu?

I very much dig the comfort and wealth that allows me to sit on my ass RP'ing, drinking, going to school etc. without worring I might fall dead from starvation or serious illness, BUT, I also feel the need to do everything I can to aid those living in dismal conditions(or worse, some places are still practically rampant with disease and hunger). In other words, they have as much right to at least a decent living standard as I do.

Your point of view, and that of the uncaring powerhouse transnationals you claim are making your country so 'great', is why we haven't fixed world hunger yet - it's not that it isn't possible, it isn't even hard(although it will be in the future unless we make breakthroughs soon).

Regards,
Tias.

The funny thing is only 19% of american busnesses are corporations which are heavly regalated and taxed doublely like other busnesses in america. The rest of the busnesses are family owned, single owner or Partnerships. I got more freedoms and protections in the US than I would ever have under anyother goverment. But this is off topic, this thread deals with Armies not economic and political systems.

Total Military:
112,000,000

Imperial Army:
Troops:25,000,000
Tank total:500,000*
Light weight:100,000
Meduim:300,000
Heavy:100,000

Rockets systems:500,000

Recons:2,000

Anti-Airs:20,000

Imperial Navy
Troops:25,000,000
Subs:300 All Hydrogen/nuclear powered
Destroyers:1,000*
SBBMP:11**
Battle ships:40
Aircraft Carriers:13

Imperial Airforce
Troops:25,000,000
Fighters:30,000
Bombers:30,000
Coppters:23,000
Spy Planes:21,000

WMD:
Biologial Stocks:420,000 Kg
Chemical Stocks:400,000Kg
Nuclear Weapons:24,234 Nuclear weapons.***


*Not all units are orpeational, but are backups
**Sea Based Ballistic Missile Platform
***All ICBM capable; Rising number.

Would you say that that's acceptable? Bearing in mind that his nation is based underground in Ross Bay(A frozen lake. A nation underneath a frozen lake.), Antarctica.

Total Military:
112,000,000

Imperial Army:
Troops:25,000,000
Tank total:500,000*
Light weight:100,000
Meduim:300,000
Heavy:100,000

Rockets systems:500,000

Recons:2,000

Anti-Airs:20,000

Imperial Navy
Troops:25,000,000
Subs:300 All Hydrogen/nuclear powered
Destroyers:1,000*
SBBMP:11**
Battle ships:40
Aircraft Carriers:13

Imperial Airforce
Troops:25,000,000
Fighters:30,000
Bombers:30,000
Coppters:23,000
Spy Planes:21,000

WMD:
Biologial Stocks:420,000 Kg
Chemical Stocks:400,000Kg
Nuclear Weapons:24,234 Nuclear weapons.***


*Not all units are orpeational, but are backups
**Sea Based Ballistic Missile Platform
***All ICBM capable; Rising number.

Would you say that that's acceptable? Bearing in mind that his nation is based underground in Ross Bay(A frozen lake. A nation underneath a frozen lake.), Antarctica.


You an idiot, I can't belive how thick headed you are.
Underground cities are perfectly possible, and a 100 Million military IN TOTAL for a military first state is possible, many natoons have proven that is possible.
If you stop to think, you probly won't waste your time writing this down.

Small underground cities are easily possible.

An underground NATION, housing 81,000 planes, and 23,000 helicopters?

I seriously doubt it, unless your ability to mobilize your force was severely limited.

I didn't write it. I quoted some & typed others.

How do you pay to arm that army? & yes, subterrenean countries exist in NS, & are perfectly legitimate, but Ross Bay is a FROZEN LAKE. The cities are what, carved out of the ice? & how the Hell are you able to live in a cocoon of permafrost?

Small underground cities are easily possible.

An underground NATION, housing 81,000 planes, and 23,000 helicopters?

I seriously doubt it, unless your ability to mobilize your force was severely limited.

You know a wearhouse were they keep stuff in????
Think of that with a soil above it and on a cut away slope.
Aircraft can be easiy slingshoted off a vertical ramp or out an underground runway with a ramp/cut away slope.

Small underground cities are easily possible.

An underground NATION, housing 81,000 planes, and 23,000 helicopters?

I seriously doubt it, unless your ability to mobilize your force was severely limited.

You know a wearhouse were they keep stuff in????
Think of that with a soil above it and on a cut away slope.
Aircraft can be easiy slingshoted off a vertical ramp or out an underground runway with a ramp/cut away slope.

Yes.. but outside that runway is usually open space to maneuver and store airplanes. I know this because I used to live next to an air force base. They store the planes on vast areas of open space, not to mention making enough holes in ice to shoot JETS out of would weaken the ice to a point that cave-ins would be a regular occurance.

Yes.. but outside that runway is usually open space to maneuver and store airplanes. I know this because I used to live next to an air force base. They store the planes on vast areas of open space, not to mention making enough holes in ice to shoot JETS out of would weaken the ice to a point that cave-ins would be a regular occurance.

I'm not bothed to post how to overcome that, I just you actualy know how they stop caves from caving in >_>

Yes.. but outside that runway is usually open space to maneuver and store airplanes. I know this because I used to live next to an air force base. They store the planes on vast areas of open space, not to mention making enough holes in ice to shoot JETS out of would weaken the ice to a point that cave-ins would be a regular occurance.

I'm not bothed to post how to overcome that, I just you actualy know how they stop caves from caving in >_>

Yes, but you claim to live under a frozen lake.

Ice is not dirt, it melts. Body heat melts it, industrial heat melts it, jet engines melt it.

It would cave-in.

Yes, but you claim to live under a frozen lake.

Ice is not dirt, it melts. Body heat melts it, industrial heat melts it, jet engines melt it.

It would cave-in.

There IS dirt under Ice jackass.

Yes, but you claim to live under a frozen lake.

Ice is not dirt, it melts. Body heat melts it, industrial heat melts it, jet engines melt it.

It would cave-in.

There IS dirt under Ice jackass.

Yes, thank you, I know. However, the SURFACE OF THE EARTH is above that ice. Unless you have magic citizens who don't breathe air, you need to have some sort of open ventilation.

Heat rises. Above the dirt is water. Heat hits water, water melts.

Also, are you trying to tell me that you fling your planes into the air, THEN have them start the engine? After being in an ice cold cave? Because if not, on their way out, they would be super-heating anything they passed by, including that ice they'd have to pass through to get out into the air.

How many planes do you lose from failed starts?

as much as i do think that IF is a god moder (and he is) it's pointless to argue with him. my suggestion, Vthnaar, is to get the RPN and everyone else to just mass ignore him in the forums, that's what i'm doing. he is, as they say, invinciby ignorant.

as much as i do think that IF is a god moder (and he is) it's pointless to argue with him. my suggestin, Vthnaar, is to get the RPN and everyone else to just mass ignore him in the forums, that's what i'm doing. he is, as they say, invinciby ignorant.

Oh, I indeed do, and as far as the RPN nations go, I've never seen one war with him.

The reason I point out when he does things that defy logic, is because there's (though few) nations out there who don't understand why everyone calls him a godmoder. I also hold out some small hope that he'll realize that if he just said, "Hey, that doesn't make sense, i'll change it and get back to you." Nobody would have a problem with him, it's his obstinance and arrogant attitude to ANY criticism that makes him the way he is.

If I don't point it out, he'll roll over some poor newish roleplayer like he did Slavrov again, and he'll run more decent roleplayers out of the community because they feel like they HAVE to play with him or leave. I'm not going to put up with that.

If I don't point it out, he'll roll over some poor newish roleplayer like he did Slavrov again, and he'll run more decent roleplayers out of the community because they feel like they HAVE to play with him or leave. I'm not going to put up with that.

i don't know anyone that feels they have to play with him; i was really happy to see that everyone seems to be ignoring Arconom's absurd posts about dungeons and dragons stuff. at this point, i think only the GDODAD plays with him, since i know the circles i move in tend to disregard his madness offhand.

i agree telling people he's a putz is important, but don't bother replying to him, just clarify your position to other players. in the end, he is god moding and there are enough threads out there to prove it (this one being, in my greatly biased opinion, the most damning).

*Sigh* For the last time, I am not a godmodder, never have, never will.
Every time, you have claimed you have godmod, someone with more than half a brain would come in and say I haven't and prove you wrong.

*Sigh* For the last time, I am not a godmodder, never have, never will.
Every time, you have claimed you have godmod, someone with more than half a brain would come in and say I haven't and prove you wrong.

So you never claimed to have taken Slavrov over?

Even though he said you didn't?

*Sigh* For the last time, I am not a godmodder, never have, never will.


ah, to hear this from a nation with a 112 MILLION person military...

IF, did you even read my post at the beginning? if not, go read it. then, explain how your economy can manage this.

let me help you along:

IF population = 612 M

112 M = 18.6% of total population
112 M = 45.8% of labor pool (18-44)
112 M = 91.5% of male population between 18 and 44

sigh.

even if IF can claim that his nation is perfectly sexually equal, and that women make up half of all armed forces (which is highly unlikely, for ideological and logistical reasons), he still has an army that taps almost half of his labor pool. i won't even ask whether the 112 M includes support troops, because it can't possibly.

i dare IF to find one nation that will back up his claim to have a 112 M person military. then, i dare them to start a new thread where we can argue this out. then, i dare him not to cry when i make a mockery of his poor grasp of economics and military logistics.

Seocc, correct me if I'm wrong but you were going to ignore me, this sounds like bitching/spamming.

I can dissmiss your claims, but I would be just wasting my time since every time me or some one else *eg Pure Evil* have defended me you just ingore the thimg and continue spamming the threads.

Do the board the favour and leave me alone.

I wish people new what "spam" actually is.

Anyway, I don't see this going anywhere, and whilst I don't want to get involved with a nation that thinks it can field half its population in battle I think NationStates is big enough for us to keep out of each others business.

This is beginning to clutter what is a very good thread, and some people are never going to be convinced.

Seocc, correct me if I'm wrong but you were going to ignore me, this sounds like bitching/spamming.

I can dissmiss your claims, but I would be just wasting my time since every time me or some one else *eg Pure Evil* have defended me you just ingore the thimg and continue spamming the threads.

Do the board the favour and leave me alone.

I wish you'd realize that disagreeing with you isn't spam.

I also wish you'd realize that just because Pure Evil defends you, doesn't make him right.

Strange.. all IF is doing is denying being a godmoder and accusing people of spamming... but he is yet to provide explanations for his claims.. :D

IF = http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame78.html

IF = http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame78.html

OOC: LOL! Imperial Forces, you have been:

http://www.automags.org/forums/attachment.php?s=f6a0c085d2717f39b48551f676c920ee&postid=633056

IF = http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame78.html
ROTFLMAO!!!
That's IF all over.

*Bows.* S'always nice to feel appreciated.

http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame78.html

That's web-site r0x0rZ.

Dosen't it?

Yeah.

*goes off to make a topic about it*

Those of you with huge millitaries should realize that you economy would go the tubes and you would turn into a North Korea type country.

Those of you with huge millitaries should realize that you economy would go the tubes and you would turn into a North Korea type country.

North Korea isn't even close to the proportions some people claim.

But we've had this argument anyway, and it doesn't look like anyone's budging.

That's just like a European to take something the wrong way. Did I say that every other country was living in straw huts? No I did not. And by the way, yes, I consider wealth the utmost important success factor for a country. For the more money you have the better your defences, your offences, your welfare, etc, etc, etc. Other countries can only wish to do as well as America. And by the way, the truly anti capitalist countries are Cuba and North Korea. If i was president I would have already started back trade relations with Cuba. Why? To help the Cuban people get supplies, medications, and other stuff they desperately need? No. To expand Amrtica's markets even if it's increases the GDP by one million dollars. God bless Capitalism. God bless the Almighty Dollar. God bless America. By the way, I also never said that I thought the corporations had our best interests in mind. I know they're greedy sunuvabitches and cook the books and lie on their taxes and whatever other dirty tricks they play, but if it helps America shorten the distance between the Dollar and the Pound, or even the Dollar and the Euro, I'm all for it.

I'm for the Americanization of every country in the world. Because, damnit, we're just that much better than everyone else. :D

P.S.

That last bit was sarcasm in case you missed it. :roll:

That's just like a European to take something the wrong way.

I resent that. Don't tar us all with the same brush. There are a lot more offensive American stereotypes far worse than European ones that could be unleashed.

Interesting, considering the fact that there are so many more culutres to make fun of in Europe.

That's just like a European to take something the wrong way. Did I say that every other country was living in straw huts? No I did not. And by the way, yes, I consider wealth the utmost important success factor for a country. For the more money you have the better your defences, your offences, your welfare, etc, etc, etc. Other countries can only wish to do as well as America. And by the way, the truly anti capitalist countries are Cuba and North Korea. If i was president I would have already started back trade relations with Cuba. Why? To help the Cuban people get supplies, medications, and other stuff they desperately need? No. To expand Amrtica's markets even if it's increases the GDP by one million dollars. God bless Capitalism. God bless the Almighty Dollar. God bless America. By the way, I also never said that I thought the corporations had our best interests in mind. I know they're greedy sunuvabitches and cook the books and lie on their taxes and whatever other dirty tricks they play, but if it helps America shorten the distance between the Dollar and the Pound, or even the Dollar and the Euro, I'm all for it.

I'm for the Americanization of every country in the world. Because, damnit, we're just that much better than everyone else. :D

The most important factor in a nations sucess is their human rights. And the American people are slowly losing theres, so. America is a failure. A rich failure (for now), but a failure just the same.

Just like Rome...

The most important factor in a nations sucess is their human rights. And the American people are slowly losing theres, so. America is a failure. A rich failure (for now), but a failure just the same.


i second, except i don't use 'rights,' but you get the point anyway. up with humanity!

The most important factor in a nations sucess is their human rights. And the American people are slowly losing theres, so. America is a failure. A rich failure (for now), but a failure just the same.

Unlike all the great utopias in Africa & Asia. But I suppose some people are able to pretend to themselves that that's the West's fault.

:wink:

Also, Rome may have collapsed after...I'm not sure how many centuries, but without them, there would be no civilisation as we know it today. Not after the Chinese fell apart.

The most important factor in a nations sucess is their human rights. And the American people are slowly losing theres, so. America is a failure. A rich failure (for now), but a failure just the same.


i second, except i don't use 'rights,' but you get the point anyway. up with humanity!

I disagree but thats your opion, II feel as an american that I got more freedoms and rights then anywhere else in the world. I could call bush an idot and not have to worry that the FBI will break in the door and arest , I can have a fair trial by jury. There are problems but things overall are good.

Also, Rome may have collapsed after...I'm not sure how many centuries, but without them, there would be no civilisation as we know it today. Not after the Chinese fell apart.

Rome was traditionally founded in 752 B.C.E., I believe.

And uhm...I don't know who you've been talking to, but China has been the dominant culture in the world for 18 of the last 20 centuries...that's a pretty damn good track record, if you ask me. What most Westerners know of China is the China of the Opium War, which was the late Qing Dynasty as it was falling apart. Dynasties have a tendancy to do that. New dynasties come in, take over, and build a new state. Just because China was being crappy right then doesn't mean that they'll always be crappy.


I can't believe I forgot to write B.C.E. >.<

Also, Rome may have collapsed after...I'm not sure how many centuries, but without them, there would be no civilisation as we know it today. Not after the Chinese fell apart.

Rome was traditionally founded in 752, I believe.

And uhm...I don't know who you've been talking to, but China has been the dominant culture in the world for 18 of the last 20 centuries...that's a pretty damn good track record, if you ask me. What most Westerners know of China is the China of the Opium War, which was the late Qing Dynasty as it was falling apart. Dynasties have a tendancy to do that. New dynasties come in, take over, and build a new state. Just because China was being crappy right then doesn't mean that they'll always be crappy.

Yep, and Chine is clearly on the rise again.

Also, I would measure the success of a nature based on overall quality of life. I would thus argue that the Scandinavian Socialist Democracies are the most successful democracies to date.

as the author of this thread, and a one time guilty party for derailing it, i ask that all parties please take this argument elsewhere. gracias.

China became mired after so long, as I said. I simply ceased making any real advancements. It was overtaken by Europe. The peoples of Europe forged the world of the day.

& I spoke of civilisation as we know it, not of civilisation altogether.

EDIT- Didn't see the above post. My apologies.

China became mired after so long, as I said. I simply ceased making any real advancements. It was overtaken by Europe. The peoples of Europe forged the world of the day.


No, they just had a succession of rulers that absolutely refused to do anything useful. If the early Qing emperors had been in power then, like K'ang Xi, things would have come out very differently. Instead, you had the Empress Dowager T'zu Hsi spending all the money intended for military reforms on a new Summer Palace.

China became mired after so long, as I said. I simply ceased making any real advancements. It was overtaken by Europe. The peoples of Europe forged the world of the day.


No, they just had a succession of rulers that absolutely refused to do anything useful. If the early Qing emperors had been in power then, like K'ang Xi, things would have come out very differently. Instead, you had the Empress Dowager T'zu Hsi spending all the money intended for military reforms on a new Summer Palace.

Not to mention the revolutions (I believe there was one which took place due to some guy thinking he was the brother of Christ, which in the end took millions of lives) and the Japanese invasion.

Anyways, the Chinese empire has a long history of waxing and waning power and influence. It will rise again, and before too long i'll wager.

Also, Rome may have collapsed after...I'm not sure how many centuries, but without them, there would be no civilisation as we know it today. Not after the Chinese fell apart.

Rome was traditionally founded in 752, I believe.

And uhm...I don't know who you've been talking to, but China has been the dominant culture in the world for 18 of the last 20 centuries...that's a pretty damn good track record, if you ask me. What most Westerners know of China is the China of the Opium War, which was the late Qing Dynasty as it was falling apart. Dynasties have a tendancy to do that. New dynasties come in, take over, and build a new state. Just because China was being crappy right then doesn't mean that they'll always be crappy.

Yep, and Chine is clearly on the rise again.

Also, I would measure the success of a nature based on overall quality of life. I would thus argue that the Scandinavian Socialist Democracies are the most successful democracies to date.

China had and has no influsion outside of eastern Asia. The last of the roman empire didn't fall intill 1452 when the turks lucked out in taking constananoble.

The revolutions & the taking a battering off of the Japs is as a result of deficiencies in their society. The fact that the progress of the nation relied upon the whims of a monocratic ruler was also an obvious drawback, & is what led to China's eventual slide into obscurity. If they had been superior to their opponents, they would have bested them. They did not. The countries in the West did, & then Mao killed a whole boatload of people mostly through stupidity.

Yes, China is looking to be getting powerful, but I can't see it being able to overthrow the Western powers any time soon.

Also, Rome may have collapsed after...I'm not sure how many centuries, but without them, there would be no civilisation as we know it today. Not after the Chinese fell apart.

Rome was traditionally founded in 752, I believe.

And uhm...I don't know who you've been talking to, but China has been the dominant culture in the world for 18 of the last 20 centuries...that's a pretty damn good track record, if you ask me. What most Westerners know of China is the China of the Opium War, which was the late Qing Dynasty as it was falling apart. Dynasties have a tendancy to do that. New dynasties come in, take over, and build a new state. Just because China was being crappy right then doesn't mean that they'll always be crappy.

The west empire fell but Rome thru the church stayed powerful, The Pope is the most powerful man in the world if he uses his power, the soviets couldn't take the pope on and neither can the US. As well the eastern empire didn't fall intill 1452 AD when they conducting on of their many sieges when they found a under guarded portalist and even then they were almost driven out of the city. The Turks would have lost if that hadn't happened. Rome never really fell, its been driving force of western culture eversince.

China had and has no influsion outside of eastern Asia. The last of the roman empire didn't fall intill 1452 when the turks lucked out in taking constananoble.

I would contest that on two points
1) China is a big and EXTREMELY densely populated place, and has been for a long time. It's is a very difficult place to hold and defend. The Chinese Empires were far, far more populous than the Greco Roman ones.

2) While the last of the Roman empire did fall in constantinople, for all intents and purposes the Romans were finshed as a world power almost a thousand years before. China, on the other hand, is STILL a major world power, one of only a handful of nuclear armed nations, a balooning economy, and a serious player in south east asian politics. They also control Taiwan, one of the "asian tigers". They're not very active internationally at the moment as they are focusing more on internal matters.

"The Pope? How many divisions does he have?"

The Pope just isn't a factor anymore. Because governments, particularly of the dictatorial kind, have stopped caring.

Maybe but Rome never fell, the empire fell. Anceint Rome has being the driving force behind western law, goverment, and civilation in general and Rome as dealing with the church is still very powerful.

China, on the other hand, is STILL a major world power, one of only a handful of nuclear armed nations, a balooning economy, and a serious player in south east asian politics. They also control Taiwan, one of the "asian tigers". They're not very active internationally at the moment as they are focusing more on internal matters.

Still? It wasn't a world power back in ancient times. It never really became one until after the Khans & their legacy had finished with them & reshaped their country.

Irrelevant, debatable note, to be ignored: The term is oriental. It is not a racist term.


EDIT- Territora, I'm with you on the importance of the Romans, & all, but Rome did fall. It was sacked around a half dozen times. :wink:

"The Pope? How many divisions does he have?"

The Pope just isn't a factor anymore. Because governments, particularly of the dictatorial kind, have stopped caring.

Then why did Castio let the Pope into the country, he doesn't listion to the US who could blow him off the face of the earth with second glance. Cuba is one of the last true communist countries left in the world other than North Korea and Vitnam.

At the risk of sounding overly rude: So? I really can't see the significance in that, or why it means that the Pope is still powerful.

China, on the other hand, is STILL a major world power, one of only a handful of nuclear armed nations, a balooning economy, and a serious player in south east asian politics. They also control Taiwan, one of the "asian tigers". They're not very active internationally at the moment as they are focusing more on internal matters.

Still? It wasn't a world power back in ancient times. It never really became one until after the Khans & their legacy had finished with them & reshaped their country.

Irrelevant, debatable note, to be ignored: The term is oriental. It is not a racist term.

Oriental can be racist, depending on who you ask. My profs no longer use this term.

China was as much a world power as Rome was- China controlled somewhat less territory, but had similar levels of trade, and a higher populations. More advanced culture and technology as well. China is also believed to have reached North America long before Columbus. They are certainly a world power today- they have the third largest nuclear arsenal, and one of the largest absolute GNPs.

This was quite well written and made many valid points. I can only use my own nation as a model of why I have a larger % army that works.

First: Military service is compulsory. For both sexes.
Second: Service is long term. 16years old - 24.
Third: Soldgirs make very little in the military. It is virtual slave labor. So it does not put much of a strain on the econemy in terms of payroll. The vast majority of the military budget goes into weapons, supplies, and training. However they are well fed, well trained, well eduacted, and they have the honor of serving the empire. Honor is very important here, it is drilled into your head from child birth.
Fourth: we do not discriminate. Women fight on the front lines as well as support positions.
Fifth: The empire does not allow unemployment. All citisens are required to work, if they fail to report a job within 6 months of leaving the military (we provide job placement assistance) they are returned to service for another 2 years.
Sixth: If a person loses thier job, and it is required to be reported by all employers any change in employment status, and does not find a job with-in 6 months they are again returned to military service. Regaurdless of age. A 65 year old man who needs to work and is not can peel potatos and free up a younger body to fight.
Seventh: ALL citisens remain a reserve memeber of the military. They are required to maintain thier own weapons and uniforms so the empire does not bear that expense. All reserves are required to participate in 2 weeks of re-training every 2-5 years depending on social position. (doctors, scientists, teachers, police, fire fighters, ect are in the 5 year catagorie. trashmen, lawyers, fast food cooks, celebrites, ect are in the 2 year range.)

so the empire of bubbadom can reasonably maintain an 8-10% population active army. Obviously our reserve rate can be tremendous depending on the needs of the empire. You economy dont mean nothing if someone bombs your country to the ground. National Security always comes first.

[/quote]Oriental can be racist, depending on who you ask. My profs no longer use this term.[/quote]


It was orgnial applied in use to the peoples of Asia minor and the middleast.

Oriental can be racist.

No, people can take offence to it. The fact that they have decided to take offence does not make it racist.

China was as much a world power as Rome was- China controlled somewhat less territory, but had similar levels of trade, and a higher populations.

You're confusing landmass & population with power, influence, lasting legacy etc. Going from that Russia still beats the US.

China is also believed to have reached North America long before Columbus.

So are the Vikings, & even Europeans in ancient, ancient times, before even the ''Native'' Americans were there.

& I'm pretty sure that it was proven, rather than believed (For all three.).

This was quite well written and made many valid points. I can only use my own nation as a model of why I have a larger % army that works.

First: Military service is compulsory. For both sexes.
Second: Service is long term. 16years old - 24.
Third: Soldgirs make very little in the military. It is virtual slave labor. So it does not put much of a strain on the econemy in terms of payroll. The vast majority of the military budget goes into weapons, supplies, and training. However they are well fed, well trained, well eduacted, and they have the honor of serving the empire. Honor is very important here, it is drilled into your head from child birth.
Fourth: we do not discriminate. Women fight on the front lines as well as support positions.
Fifth: The empire does not allow unemployment. All citisens are required to work, if they fail to report a job within 6 months of leaving the military (we provide job placement assistance) they are returned to service for another 2 years.
Sixth: If a person loses thier job, and it is required to be reported by all employers any change in employment status, and does not find a job with-in 6 months they are again returned to military service. Regaurdless of age. A 65 year old man who needs to work and is not can peel potatos and free up a younger body to fight.
Seventh: ALL citisens remain a reserve memeber of the military. They are required to maintain thier own weapons and uniforms so the empire does not bear that expense. All reserves are required to participate in 2 weeks of re-training every 2-5 years depending on social position. (doctors, scientists, teachers, police, fire fighters, ect are in the 5 year catagorie. trashmen, lawyers, fast food cooks, celebrites, ect are in the 2 year range.)

so the empire of bubbadom can reasonably maintain an 8-10% population active army. Obviously our reserve rate can be tremendous depending on the needs of the empire. You economy dont mean nothing if someone bombs your country to the ground. National Security always comes first.

*Whispers.* Let's drop it. Someone just posted on-topic.

Truely

*bump* for info.

STICKY

It used to be, but it isn't likely to be one again. Melkor disagrees with it.

Whats a reasonable active military size for a nation with a strong economy, 540 million people, and cumpulsory military service of 3 year terms, starts at age 21, is renewed if you are unemployed for more than 6 months, commit a crime, or if you are one of the annual 100,000 chose for those positions by lottery? Note that people can JOIN the military voluntarily at age 14 and older, can be drafted in times of war at 16 and older, and are required to serve 3 year term at age 21. Also note that if drafted or serivng cumpolsury time you receive relatively low wages, if you join voluntarily, your wages are relatively resonable. Everyone from ages 18-45 are reservists, and they are required to maintain their own equipment, and they must serve one week out of every 5, and are trained for three weeks yearly.


Thank you in advance to anyone who helps me out,
The illustrious emperor of Derieties. :twisted:

Whats a reasonable active military size for a nation with a strong economy, 540 million people, and cumpulsory military service of 3 year terms, starts at age 21, is renewed if you are unemployed for more than 6 months, commit a crime, or if you are one of the annual 100,000 chose for those positions by lottery? Note that people can JOIN the military voluntarily at age 14 and older, can be drafted in times of war at 16 and older, and are required to serve 3 year term at age 21. Also note that if drafted or serivng cumpolsury time you receive relatively low wages, if you join voluntarily, your wages are relatively resonable. Everyone from ages 18-45 are reservists, and they are required to maintain their own equipment, and they must serve one week out of every 5, and are trained for three weeks yearly.

i want to point something out because it seems this 'if you're unemployed for x months you're in the military' thing is catching. a labor pool is, let's recall, the number of people looking for work. if you have a job you are probably not looking for work. if your nation yanks unemployed people and puts them in the military your labor pool is tiny, and so labor costs will be huge. guess what that does to your economy. hurts it, yes...

furthermore, keeping your military artificially inflated like that is entirely self destructive since, as noted in my addendum, it means you have a huge military you're not using, that's producing no goods, that taxes your economic superstructure. why would you want that? having large reserves is fine, it won't hurt much of anything, but when you pull those guys to active duty you're going to rip a hole out of your economy. EVERYONE from 18-45 is in the reserves? do you know the labor issues involved with that?

also, again, conscripts rarely fight as well as volunteers, especially 18-21 year old conscripts. if you use this army expect them to scream like girls and run away at the first sign of boo.

so to answer your question, at 540 M i would say you could have a 1% volunteer rate (5.4M), with 15M reservists (serving as support personel, meaning that 5.4 of the volunteers are mostly combat troops) and not be horribly out of order. if you try to use conscripts and not play them being what they are, scared kids, that's a mistake, and if you yank more than 20M reservists without an economic recession or outright collapse, that too would be a mistake.

hope that helps.

Whats a reasonable active military size for a nation with a strong economy, 540 million people, and cumpulsory military service of 3 year terms, starts at age 21, is renewed if you are unemployed for more than 6 months, commit a crime, or if you are one of the annual 100,000 chose for those positions by lottery? Note that people can JOIN the military voluntarily at age 14 and older, can be drafted in times of war at 16 and older, and are required to serve 3 year term at age 21. Also note that if drafted or serivng cumpolsury time you receive relatively low wages, if you join voluntarily, your wages are relatively resonable. Everyone from ages 18-45 are reservists, and they are required to maintain their own equipment, and they must serve one week out of every 5, and are trained for three weeks yearly.

i want to point something out because it seems this 'if you're unemployed for x months you're in the military' thing is catching. a labor pool is, let's recall, the number of people looking for work. if you have a job you are probably not looking for work. if your nation yanks unemployed people and puts them in the military your labor pool is tiny, and so labor costs will be huge. guess what that does to your economy. hurts it, yes...

furthermore, keeping your military artificially inflated like that is entirely self destructive since, as noted in my addendum, it means you have a huge military you're not using, that's producing no goods, that taxes your economic superstructure. why would you want that? having large reserves is fine, it won't hurt much of anything, but when you pull those guys to active duty you're going to rip a hole out of your economy. EVERYONE from 18-45 is in the reserves? do you know the labor issues involved with that?

also, again, conscripts rarely fight as well as volunteers, especially 18-21 year old conscripts. if you use this army expect them to scream like girls and run away at the first sign of boo.

so to answer your question, at 540 M i would say you could have a 1% volunteer rate (5.4M), with 15M reservists (serving as support personel, meaning that 5.4 of the volunteers are mostly combat troops) and not be horribly out of order. if you try to use conscripts and not play them being what they are, scared kids, that's a mistake, and if you yank more than 20M reservists without an economic recession or outright collapse, that too would be a mistake.

hope that helps.


I find many of the points made in this post to be both interesting and valid, however I think that are being made with certian western mentalities.
First by assuming that conscripts wont fight as well as volunteers you are assuming that the citisens of a given nation have the same mentality and upbringing as americans & europeans. However in a nation where they are taught from thier early childhood that its not just thier duty to serve the empire, but also thier privialge and honor to do so. These conscripts would have a different mentality than thier western counterparts. Also if the training for this begins at the elementary school level, by the time they hit the age of service (16 in bubbadom) they are essentialy brainwashed and willing to do whatever is needed.
Also there is an assumption that a large military is doing nothing. In Bubbadom large portions of the military is used to assist many of the empires public services; Law Enforcement, Argriculture, The Airlines, the Rail Roads, The Various utilities, The road ways, ect. This allows for Bubbadom, in times of peace, to have a much more efficent public works system. It also allows for future job trining for many of the soldgirs who will eventually be entering the work force.
There is also an assumotion that there is a need for a large labor pool. When there is low unemployment rate there is not a need for a large labor pool. the cost of that labor stays fairly stable when the base salary for any given job is set by the government.
Finally there appears to be an asumption that when reserves are called up, all the reserves are called up. That is obviously impratical. Reserves can be called up on an by-need basis.
Also national security must always come first. If your nation is being invaded, your economy is ruined anyway. The fastest way to repel an invading force is with overwhelming numbers. If your economy ius takling a hit anyway, it would seem more prudent to get things back to normal as fast as possible.

I find many of the points made in this post to be both interesting and valid, however I think that are being made with certian western mentalities.

interesting, since i was raise in Asia and live in Saudi Arabia...

First by assuming that conscripts wont fight as well as volunteers you are assuming that the citisens of a given nation have the same mentality and upbringing as americans & europeans. However in a nation where they are taught from thier early childhood that its not just thier duty to serve the empire, but also thier privialge and honor to do so. These conscripts would have a different mentality than thier western counterparts. Also if the training for this begins at the elementary school level, by the time they hit the age of service (16 in bubbadom) they are essentialy brainwashed and willing to do whatever is needed.

fair enough, but are you willing to play out the consequences of that kind of regimented schooling? you're going to have a very uncreative population whose government would be ultimately to rigid to adapt to changing situations. you can't brainwash them AND let them think for themselves.

Also there is an assumption that a large military is doing nothing. In Bubbadom large portions of the military is used to assist many of the empires public services; Law Enforcement, Argriculture, The Airlines, the Rail Roads, The Various utilities, The road ways, ect. This allows for Bubbadom, in times of peace, to have a much more efficent public works system. It also allows for future job trining for many of the soldgirs who will eventually be entering the work force.

again, fair enough, but then i'd expect this to be played out; if someone attacked you those units working in the industrial sector are not ready to be deployed and would be days behind the actually active duty servicemen. don't believe me. i was at WSU during the 'riot' (for those who remember) and it took the state a day to mobilize the National Guard to deploy from Spokane, which is about 100 miles away.

There is also an assumotion that there is a need for a large labor pool. When there is low unemployment rate there is not a need for a large labor pool. the cost of that labor stays fairly stable when the base salary for any given job is set by the government.

i'm not even sure i follow your argument here; when unemployment is low (the labor pool is small) there is no need for a large labor pool (generally created by a recession and large lay offs, aka unemployment)? and while you can have the government set the wage, will businesses pay it? unless your enterprises are state run and you operate a closed economy (don't trade with other nations) you're going to run into some big problems with inflating the wage artificially.

if you are a capitalist yes, you need a large labor pool. this is a fact, and if you disagree i'd like to see the argument against this.

Finally there appears to be an asumption that when reserves are called up, all the reserves are called up. That is obviously impratical. Reserves can be called up on an by-need basis.

i didn't say all the reserves are called up, but if you call up reserves to serve as support staff for combat personel you're going to need a lot of people. i just saw a post that said the US ratio of combat troops : support troops is 1:5, which is way above my 1:3 ratio but whatever, we'll use the smaller one for the sake of argument. if you mobilize 1M combat troops you need 3M support troops. if thoset troops have to come out of their jobs the vacancies will be filled from the labor pool. if that 3M is enough of the labor pool to drive up wages you're going to see an economic contraction since it could/will be more profitable for businesses to lower production and not hire replacements.

also, remember the whole thing about the bigger the nation the bigger the support structure. equally, the bigger the nation the more vulnerable their economy is to yanking out certain pins.

Also national security must always come first. If your nation is being invaded, your economy is ruined anyway. The fastest way to repel an invading force is with overwhelming numbers. If your economy ius takling a hit anyway, it would seem more prudent to get things back to normal as fast as possible.

fine, if you think your economy is toast and you're invaded it is a good idea to mobilize everyone. but if you do that expect to play that your economy is smashed. but don't think things get back to normal quickly. you still need to grow food, make bullets etc, so you can't take people from critical industries, which means that certain industries will be harder hit than others. most notably, capital goods (production facilities) will be neglected, and so if you decide to tank your economy for a year or two in order to repel an invasion the effects are likely to last for 10 or 20 years. look at the effects of the Soviets doing exactly what you're saying; a whole generation of young men wiped out, to say nothing for the psychological effects on the survivors of the seiges.

as i've always said, if you play out the effects, it's fine. it's when people ignore the effects of what they're doing that we havep problems.

[quote="Light and Order"]I think a major factor you are missing is unemployment. A nation, even an economically healthy one can sustain an unemployment rate of 5%. Now taking out 5% unemployed (same age range as working) plus your ~2.5-5%that you already took out for military its possible at the high end to have 10% of your population in the armed services, permanently with only some adverse affects on your economy. /quote]

Pardons if this has already been addressed. You can't just pull the 5% out of your economy and plop them into the military; you still have a certain level of unemployment, in a modern-day economy, or you will start having other problems, like inflation.

In addition, you're assuming that the 5% could easily be swapped into the military; however, there will be many who are not fit for military service. Assuming they are all in the proper age and ability range for your military is a bad idea.

So yes, you could pull from your unemployed population somewhat if you are willing to deal with the likely inflation that will result--but it's not a matter of saying "Hey, 5% of my population doesn't have jobs, they can go run tanks for me."

[quote=Light and Order]I think a major factor you are missing is unemployment. A nation, even an economically healthy one can sustain an unemployment rate of 5%. Now taking out 5% unemployed (same age range as working) plus your ~2.5-5%that you already took out for military its possible at the high end to have 10% of your population in the armed services, permanently with only some adverse affects on your economy. /quote]

Pardons if this has already been addressed. You can't just pull the 5% out of your economy and plop them into the military; you still have a certain level of unemployment, in a modern-day economy, or you will start having other problems, like inflation.

In addition, you're assuming that the 5% could easily be swapped into the military; however, there will be many who are not fit for military service. Assuming they are all in the proper age and ability range for your military is a bad idea.

So yes, you could pull from your unemployed population somewhat if you are willing to deal with the likely inflation that will result--but it's not a matter of saying "Hey, 5% of my population doesn't have jobs, they can go run tanks for me."


Military service is mandatory for everyone in the empire. This 5% you speak of has already been in the military for 10 years (that is the lenth of service..yes its long, but the military is responsible for all higher education and everyone in the empire recieves that) so they are more than suited for a return. Obviously they will not be imediatly put into a tank, but anyone can peel a potato, swab a deck, wash uniforms, ect.
We have NO unemployment. The alternative to the military for those who can not find a job is slavery. Wanna geuss which most people choose.

Here's my military:
Total Combat Personnell: 10,152,000

Army: 5,076,000 (336 divsions)
Infantry Divisions (all mechanized): 192
Armored Divisions: 48
Artillery Divisions: 96
Helicopter Gunships: 25,380
Navy: 2,538,000
3 Battleships
19 Amphibious Assault Ships LHD
6 Misc. Command Ships
9 Amphibious Assault Ships LHA
49 Amphibious Landing Platform Docks LPD
70 Amphibious Landing Ship Docks LSD
19 Destroyers DD
111 Guided Missile Destroyers
58 Guided Missile Frigates FFG
406 Submarines
20 Carriers
Aircraft: 20,303
Air Force: 2,538,000
74 Bomber Squadrons (B-1, B-2, FB-111)
16 Strategic Reconissance Squadrons (SR-71, U-2, TR-1, Unmanned stuff)
24 Command Squadrons (E-4, EC-135)
141 Tanker Squadrons (KC-10)
149 Fighter Squadrons (F/A-22, F-16)
201 Fighter/Ground Attack Squardons (A-10, F-16, F-117, F-4G "Wild Weasel," F-111)
32 Tactical Reconissance Squadrons (RF-4G)
29 AWACS/Electronic Combat Warfare Squadrons (E-3, EC-135, EC-130, EF-111)
49 Tactical Control Squadrons (O-2, OV-10, CH-3)
24 Special Squadrons (Varied)
16 Aggressor Training Squadrons
125 Training Squadrons
70 Strategic Airlift Squadrons (C-5B, C-17)
58 Tactical Airlift Squadrons (C-130)
20 SAR squadrons
11 Medical evacuation squadrons
11 weather reconissance squadrons

And this is the equation thing I use for calcuating the combat personnel I have:
1. Your GDP per capita :

Imploded-500
Basket Case-1000
Developing-2000
Struggling-3000
Good-5000
Resonable-7000
Strong-9000
Very Strong-11000
Thriving-20000
Power House-30000
All Consuming-40000


2. GDP per capita x Country Population = GDP

3a. tax% + 10 = revenue% (cannot be higher than 100%)
(no income tax = 0% of income tax, therefore 10% in revenue)

3b. GDP * revenue% = govt spending

4. Main concern of budget is defense = 30% of govt spending
Defense is a budget concern = 15% of govt spending
Defense is not a concern = 10% of govt spending
Defense is negliged = 5% of govt spending

5. defense spending / 50 000 = max. number of soldiers possible
(this is approximative. the real factor is probably higher... a real military officer could tell us)

For the actual number of soldiers, it depends on the level of conscription (forced or not), your war state, and so on...

Of course, this presumes a high level of technology, support and training. Guerilla armies, on the other hand, pretty much require low costs. Heck, you can arm half your population with sticks and ship them off somewhere to die of hunger and bullet wounds if you want to.

And I'm sticking to it.

God bless,

The Republic of Syskeyia

Very informative and excellently written post Seocc. And not just informative about NS, even.


this is my point: think it through, as i beleive Monkecia did. this lets you play more reaslitically, which makes it more fun for everyone else, and gives you something to do instead of going to church.

I applaud you for the last 11 words of that quote.

----------------------------------------

ALL citisens remain a reserve memeber of the military. They are required to maintain thier own weapons and uniforms so the empire does not bear that expense. All reserves are required to participate in 2 weeks of re-training every 2-5 years depending on social position. (doctors, scientists, teachers, police, fire fighters, ect are in the 5 year catagorie. trashmen, lawyers, fast food cooks, celebrites, ect are in the 2 year range.)

Might I mention to you that even a nation with deeply honourable citizenry can have uprisings? And if all of the citizens have not just a gun, but a high-powered, military-grade assault rifle these revolts could get out of hand? And granted your apparent (from your post) lack of care for your citizenry (you mentioned 65-year-olds peeling potatoes for the military and a slave labour armed forces), unrest doesn't seem that unlikely.

But revolution aside, we ought to consider the practical implications of this entreprise: Until the first generation of conscripts dies you have to produce a new rifle for EVERY SINGLE 16-year-old. And even once your first generation of conscripts begins dying you still have to account for the increase in the size of your military (i.e. make more guns).

my army:

10 land divisions:
each division includes:
6,000 Troops (Orculem wepons)
1,000 Flame throwers (Greek fire)
15 Centurion tanks
20 Ion cannons (Howzers)
5 Jaguar gunships (helicopters)

4 sea divisons:
each division incudes:
1 Titan carriar (small carriar)
10 wings of Icurus Fighter-bombers (my airforce)
5 Laviathun crusers
10 Mayan destroyers
3 Scarab U-boats
10 Isis transports

Defences:
300 Phinix Missles (scuds/Patriots)
6 Phinix launching sites
30 Anti aircraft guns
1 ICBM (given to me by another nation)

----------------------------------------

ALL citisens remain a reserve memeber of the military. They are required to maintain thier own weapons and uniforms so the empire does not bear that expense. All reserves are required to participate in 2 weeks of re-training every 2-5 years depending on social position. (doctors, scientists, teachers, police, fire fighters, ect are in the 5 year catagorie. trashmen, lawyers, fast food cooks, celebrites, ect are in the 2 year range.)

Might I mention to you that even a nation with deeply honourable citizenry can have uprisings? And if all of the citizens have not just a gun, but a high-powered, military-grade assault rifle these revolts could get out of hand? And granted your apparent (from your post) lack of care for your citizenry (you mentioned 65-year-olds peeling potatoes for the military and a slave labour armed forces), unrest doesn't seem that unlikely.

But revolution aside, we ought to consider the practical implications of this entreprise: Until the first generation of conscripts dies you have to produce a new rifle for EVERY SINGLE 16-year-old. And even once your first generation of conscripts begins dying you still have to account for the increase in the size of your military (i.e. make more guns).[/quote]


I have no doubt there would be some uprisings, no nation can have a totaly satisifed populace. There is no way around that. However uprisings are quickly and effiecently put down.
Citisens may have the guns, but they dont have the bullets. Those are issued when they are called up for service. Also not every single soldgir is issued a rifle. Depends on what you are trained to do. Mechanics, cooks, ect have very little need for assault riffles. Small side sides arms will do for them.
Yes we have to supply the guns. We have an All-consuming economy who is ranked 2039 in per capita military spending. Keeping the military going is our chief concern.
We have the greatest care for our citizens. That 65 year old who can no longer maintain his carrer is givnen a job, he now has an income, he now has a purpouse, self respect. This obviously applies only to those who are physically able to do work.
Slave labor is not used as soldigrs. They are used in support possitions or to fill the gaps that are made when reserves are called up. These slaves are working for freedom. They are convicted criminals (there are only two sentences in Bubbadom, slavery or death). These slaves are considered low security risks (and are tagged and monitored anyway) they were convicted of minor crimes and will be allowed to return to thier former life when thier sentences are up. (hard work ensures a lesser sentence)

So...if I said that all youth should spend one year in military service, how many people is that right there?

What if I want to do the complete opposite of whats suggested i nthis thread - having a ridiculously low army. I'm a big time pacifist and I believe in diplomacy and in the UN to solvep roblems and I believe than theyre is many, many more important things for my country than to buy more and more guns for more and more soldiers. I'm not stupid, I dont want to leave myself open to invasions but.. if I dont do anything to provoke people, I should be okay right?

Do you think than having a ridiculously small army could affect my economy in a negative way? Could it affect the internal security of my country? BTW I give almost every political and personnal freedoms avaible to my citizens but I give them not many economic freedom. Right now the game qualify my country to be a "left wing utopia".

How do you know how many people you have in the military?Please wire me the answers.

In fact, I'm desperately trying to think of any "absolute monarchies" which aren't something else really. Bhutan, anyone?

I believe that Swaziland is considered the last absolute monarchy in the world.

...

Well, social downfall is generally prevented by police, not military. If lack of military becomes a factor you're probably screwed anyway.

I think that countries with bad economies should NOT have armies 5% of their population, it should go like this:

Frightening = 5+
All Consuming = 5+
Power House = 5
Thriving = 5
Very Strong = 5
Strong = 5-
Very Good = 4+
Good = 4
Reasonable = 4
Developing = 4-
Fair = 3+
Struggling = 3
Weak = 3
Fragile = 3-
Basket Case = 2+
Imploded = 2

+ means up to .2 more, - means up to .2 less

I would also like to point out that if you say, have a 20 million population, that does NOT mean that your army is 1 million, unless you want to have absolutely no navy, air force, militia, coast guard, etc.

---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---

I think that countries with bad economies should NOT have armies 5% of their population, it should go like this:

Frightening = 5+
All Consuming = 5+
Power House = 5
Thriving = 5
Very Strong = 5
Strong = 5-
Very Good = 4+
Good = 4
Reasonable = 4
Developing = 4-
Fair = 3+
Struggling = 3
Weak = 3
Fragile = 3-
Basket Case = 2+
Imploded = 2

+ means up to .2 more, - means up to .2 less

Disagree. If anything, only the nations with imploded economies should have high military percentages, because such military percentages necessarily cause economic problems.

Disagree. If anything, only the nations with imploded economies should have high military percentages, because such military percentages necessarily cause economic problems.

second that; also remember that the higher tech your army is the more products you need to keep the army running, thus lower percentages. a machine gun needs way more parts made than a musket, much less a knife.

Hi, I'm kind of a newbie here. My total pop. is about 12 million. I figured I would conscript 5% of my population, but after reading this thread, I figured that 3% was more reasonable. But if I go lower than that, then my military gets too small for all the weapons I have recently purchased for the defense of my nation! At 3%, my total military is about 360,000. I figured that my army would make up 60% of 360,000, meaning my army is 216,000 strong. Then if I use the rest of that for my air force and navy and other stuff, it sounds quite reasonable. But that means my troop limit is very low. :shock: Oh well, real world economics, just fine by me. I like peace anyway. 8)

Disagree. If anything, only the nations with imploded economies should have high military percentages, because such military percentages necessarily cause economic problems.

second that; also remember that the higher tech your army is the more products you need to keep the army running, thus lower percentages. a machine gun needs way more parts made than a musket, much less a knife.'


Although there is a logic to that, there is alos the fact that some nations spend MUCH larger amounts of money on thier military. Those in the top few thousand of the defense spending rankings are spending tremendous amounts on theier military and so can field a larger % army than those who dont.

i was wondering how large an army would be to have a certain amount of divisions. the tutonic reich is still expanding fast, and these military targets will not be met for years to come.

But say if i plan to have an armed force of 12 million, with 8,600,000 in the army. How many divisions would this be (about 1 third armoured & 2 thirds infantry). I thought perhaps 410 divisions. I am aware that the amount of personnel per division is usually between 10 and 20 thousand, and usually towards the top of that range, but I worry I am inaccurate.

just to recap, 8,600,000 in the army = 410 divisions (of all types)

and another thing, the air force, is a ratio of 100 air force personnel to 1 aircraft about accurate?

And the navy....

Total manpower: 1,400,000,

Front line fleet: 8 Aircraft Carriers, 2 Battleships, 8 Landing Ships, 16 Cruisers, 40 Destroyers, 80 Frigates, 80 Hunter-Killer Submarines & 20 Attack Submarines ... and various other small craft and ground based personnel

anyone have any comments on the ratios involved? am i inaccurate? :?:

Here's my military:
Total Combat Personnell: 68,138,400

Army: 52,456,018 (2,623 divisions)
Infantry Divisions (all mechanized): 1374 (272 Active)
Armored Divisions: 343 (65 Active)
Artillery Divisions: 687 (131 Active)
Special Forces Divisions: 54 (All Active)
Air Defense Divisions: 62 (12 Active)
Airborne Divisons: 102 (19 Active)

Navy: 18,549,600
21 Battleships
132 Amphibious Assault Ships LHD
39 Misc. Command Ships
60 Amphibious Assault Ships LHA
352 Amphibious Landing Platform Docks LPD
502 Amphibious Landing Ship Docks LSD
132 Destroyers DD
805 Guided Missile Destroyers
417 Guided Missile Frigates FFG
2963 Submarines
36 Carriers
Aircraft: 7,962

Air Force: 3,185,242
94 Bomber Squadrons (B-1, B-2, FB-111)
20 Strategic Reconissance Squadrons (SR-71, U-2, TR-1, Unmanned stuff)
29 Command Squadrons (E-4, EC-135)
179 Tanker Squadrons (KC-10)
187 Fighter Squadrons (F/A-22, F-16)
252 Fighter/Ground Attack Squardons (A-10, F-16, F-117, F-4G "Wild Weasel," F-111)
40 Tactical Reconissance Squadrons (RF-4G)
36 AWACS/Electronic Combat Warfare Squadrons (E-3, EC-135, EC-130, EF-111)
62 Tactical Control Squadrons (O-2, OV-10, CH-3)
29 Special Squadrons (Varied)
20 Aggressor Training Squadrons
158 Training Squadrons
89 Strategic Airlift Squadrons (C-5B, C-17)
72 Tactical Airlift Squadrons (C-130)
40 SAR squadrons
14 Medical evacuation squadrons
14 weather reconissance squadrons

I did some calculations, and my active forces comprise of 3% of my population. Is my economy going to go to ruins? My military policy is that all the guys are drafted at age 18 and must spend one tour of duty in the military (they can choose the branch). After that they are placed in the reserves. OOC I'm not really sure about women in the military (maybe they can volunteer, and units would be segregated by gender), but at least then at least half my workforce works.

Anyone have any advice?

God bless,

The Republic of Syskeyia

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :lol: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :lol: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: yes they are fun :shock:

i am currently at war so i need some advice.

my current population is 28 million (not much i know) and i am wondering, how high should i go with the percentage. My economy is very Strong but i'm wondering that if i overdo it i may end up with no money to build weapons, train soldiers etc.

Please give me some advice

My system is this:

1% in peactime
2-3% in wartime
30% in invasion of the homeland

I just have a question for anyone who might know about this thing. I want to know how many people it takes to keep up a division besides the infantry (lets say its an infantry division) forces. Alright I have two questions. I want to know how a heavy combat infantry squad (I'm thinking that means weapon-wize) differs from a regular infantry squad. I've done some researching and lets say that roughly your average division has roughly (very roughly) 6000 infantry (in an infantry division) not including any regiments, etc attached to it.

When you have a nation such as mine there is no central government
To remain glued to reallity can be a chore. My answer was to create
a shadow government that has operative in a..........most nations :wink:
We do things in the background to a ......... protect our interests.

"There is no government in the normal sense the word; however, a small group of community-minded, corrupt individuals devotes most of its attentions to Law & Order, with areas such as Social Welfare and Religion & Spirituality receiving almost no funds by comparison. Income tax is unheard of. A robust private sector is led by the Pizza Delivery, Automobile Manufacturing, and Door-to-door Insurance Sales industries."

Lets see what do I have to work with hmmmmm seems I have a pool of insurance agents. My nation is known for it's insurance industry how better to assist our brothers in their hour of need.

Though all claims follow the laws of USGW :wink:

Now from time to time our a.....insurance agents stir the pot so to speak.
Just little things like spike lemonade with saltpeter, or print our own money, as to who's well lets just say wherever you hang your hat. 8)

Bump (check my last post and answer it if you can).

eh, instead of updating my forces in detail here (I have them other places), I will just put %

1-2% normal

100% if I am being invaded and losing horribly (all my people are extrimly patriotic, and will not fall without a fight)

Tch, who PAYS their soldiers these days? What with constant rebelions and all I prefer a nice %5 military, plus another %5 militia when its needed :P

I just have a question for anyone who might know about this thing. I want to know how many people it takes to keep up a division besides the infantry (lets say its an infantry division) forces. Alright I have two questions. I want to know how a heavy combat infantry squad (I'm thinking that means weapon-wize) differs from a regular infantry squad. I've done some researching and lets say that roughly your average division has roughly (very roughly) 6000 infantry (in an infantry division) not including any regiments, etc attached to it.

No one knows?

I believe an infantry division totals 18 thousand or so, so that would make it 12 thousand non-infantry, most of whom are support, command, logistics, etc.

As for heavy weapons squads, theyre mostly the same organisationally I think, but with crew operating a weapon instead of small arms.

I've got only one soldier... is that alright?

Kewl, can I invade you? It's perfectly fine; lemmitania only has two