NationStates Jolt Archive

I was just woundering on what percentage of your population could be in your army. Does it matter on anything else. Thank You.

~Namuh

It doesn't really matter on anything within the NS game, but within an RP, your military should max out at about 0.7% of your population, usually less as most nations do not maintain huge armies.

ok.Thanks. Because some stupid fool in my region who has a population of 479 is sending 10,000,000 of his people into war and i know that was too much. So what do you think the average percentage is?

Hmm, well on the new boards I can't locate it, but there is a military calculator running around...

You see the question of "How Large" is tempered by "How Good" You can have an army of 0.7% but a good deal of them are going to be walking and likely carrying bolt action rifles....then realize that that percentage includes all, not just frontline troops...

You see it is a quite complicated question that takes a bit of though. I'd repost the calcuator but I've edited my version to fit my needs (which are a bit odd)

Thanks. It helps a lot. But i did think it was less, because having 2/3 of your population in the army. Even 1/2 of your population is a lot. But I understand more.

~Namuh

I said 0.7% or 0.007...most nations are about 0.3% or so....
(In reality things can become even more complicated, Switzerland is 20% but then that is a milita style army.)

NS is rather unrealistic, though- many nations use an insane 5% and I use a very large 2%, but that is with compulsary miltiary service for 2 years of (almost always noncombat) service.

And only a bit over 400,000 of those men are combat ready in the army, anyhow- the rest are drivers, logistical personell, etc.

For a bit of reading:

http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=275828

Depends on the country and how bad the war is, an world war an nation of even 140 million or less could have 10 million or more men in their whole miltary in real life just for the war, thats an country like the united states during world war II. Even with massive numbers of combat troops, planes and ships, you can only throw so much into an battle and the larger the country and bigger the spheres of war the farther the troops are spread, plus Many troops are left behind to defend against attack and hold ground captured or retaken, prevent the enemy from disrupting supply lines and so on.