NationStates Jolt Archive

(OOC:

Firstly, sorry if this is completely the wrong place to post this. My deepest apologies.

Ok.... That aside, I'd like to have some help determining a reasonable army size. I'm not quite sure what % to use.

The nation I'm using is sort of ranges between Near-Future and Future. Different planet. Major concern is Defence. Very agressive. Uses a large % of Cyborgs...

Any suggestions? I want as high as realistic...
)

army size should usually be 1 to 5 percent of the population. Least from what i've heard.

Generally no more than 2% of the population on active duty during peacetime.
Up to 5% is acceptable in war, more under certain circumstances, though that must be RPed.

it depends on what type of nation you are. if you are a nation with a huge poulation and whos ecconomy is all-consuming, then you could use up to 10-15 percent.
scary considering that most of the huge nations have huge economys :(

Ehhh. But technically a 10-15% army in an all consuming economy would reduce it to a fragile one.

there really is no definate percentage to allways use. Many factors influenece how much you should use. such as:

1. do you have a compulsory military age?

2. How big is your country.

3. War time or Peace time.

4. If in war time, do you have a draft law...

there are many more factors, these are just a few. you need to decide more on these things then decide how much to use.

Just come up with something and people will let you know if it's reasonable. And 10-15 is huge. Thats taking a huge part of the workforce into the military, and if noones around to build stuff, then your in trouble.

Well... I sort of came up with this yesterday based on my pop of 12 million. Now that I have 16 million people, I'll probably update some stuff.

Army:

Basic:

700,000 Total Ground Army Personal

300,000 Cyborgs
300,000 Humans (Being reduced)
100,000 Cybers (Mecha)

Vehicles:

50,000 Ground Vehicles
40,000 Space Fleet/Flying Fleet

Cyborgs:

150,000 CyberTalin 406s
90,000 CyberTalin 428s
45,000 CyberTalin 435s
10,000 CyberTalin 367s (Being Phased out in Favour of CyberTalin 546)
5,000 CyberTalin 546s

Humans:

150,000 Talin Laser Squad- 100,000 using LBlaster 380
- 50,000 using LBlaster 450
- 40,000 using LBlaster 320
- 10,000 using LRifle 100
50,000 Laser Sniper- All using LSnipe 400
50,000 Ground Pilots- Various ground vehicles. Armed with LBlaster 320.
40,000 Pilots- Various space fleet. Armed with LBlaster 320.
10,000 Chancellor's Talon- All using LSnipe 600 with secondary LBlaster 460
Cybers:

50,000 CyberNarya 400- Armed with built-in LCBlaster 500
30,000 CyberNarya 344- Armed with built-in LCRifle 320
15,000 CyberSwap 400Swappable weapon. Currently armed:
- 10,000 LCSBlaster 510
- 5,000 LCSSnipe 100
5,000 CyberCommander 700- Armed with built-in LCSnipe 130
- Armed with built-in LCBlaster 560
- Swappable Slot. Currently LCSBlaster 520



Also, could any sort of future-tech people mention what is a reasonable size for space fleets? I fear that I may have made too much...

Also, thanks to all that responded! :)

Yup, definitely too many space things. Nations your size don't have any space things.

Er... We are future-tech thingies, though.... But I probably assigned too many...

I'd also like to add that we are a colony... Ares (our Region/Planet) is not anywhere particularly close to earth.

[OOC: This topic has always been debated. The army size should also be affected by a nation's characteristics. The stronger the economy, the more able is a country to support their defense forces. However, a nation with high civil and political freedoms will generally have a smaller amount of willing recruits to pool from. Sometimes this would be hard. For example, lets look at my nation. It'd hard to calculate a good size of an army for my country because its of massive size, as well as its excellent civil and political rights, and not forgetting the strong economy. You must also consider my compulsory military service.]

Actually it turns out that the bigger/more productive your economy is the smaller the percentage of it you can afford to ahve in the armed forces.

In a poor economy the loss of a worker isn't such a huge problem as they contribute less to the economy (and are more likely to be unemployed in the first place) as your average worker in a powerful economy. Also there are costs: in a powerful economy the soldiers will require higher wages, better gear, better food and better logisitcs where as in a poor economy all you really need to do i make sure your soldiers get fed every day...

Basically i would put all consuming anf frightening economies at being able to afford at msot 0.5% of thier population under arms where as imploded and basketcase nations could be as high as 5 quite easily or even higher.


As to space tech things you can have just about anything as long as you can justify the expensse of producing and maintaining them: ie i can fully see a new space nation haveing a frigate or even destroyer class space ship as the main center of thier navy.

First of all, your wrong about Fright economies not being able to have a large % of their popualtions in the military. Secondly, even if you did manage to get a "Large" army with a basketcase economy, they would be totally destroyed by even a small army from a fright economy, as you woulndt be able to equip them with anything better then bolt action rifles, and ww2 tech weaponry.

I said large, not well equipped.

A rubbish ecomony simply cannot afford to feild decent equipment anyway.

In modern terms an imploded country is likely to be on the level that albania finds itself today, simply not even being able to keep it's MiG19s and 21s flying at all and literally breaking the bank to buy 10 AB 206 helicopters second hand.

Look at africa, there are some very very large armies there yet as a whole they are very lightly equipped.
As to what equipment they could have, well modern autoamtic weapons and light to medium support systems would be the norm.

The Armed forces of a very rich nation quite literally has to be very well equipped, the population and soldiers simply wouldn't stand for anything else.

Perhaps you would care to look at the star kingdoms that insapire your name, the LA/LC had the most powerful economy in the IS yet the smallest army yet the periphery states have enournmous numbers of men udner arms from thier small populations yet almsot no ecomonic power. the clans all so help my point as the warrior caste make up only a tiny percentage of the entire clan system.

There are many many factors to take into cosnideration including culture and society but in the end it basically boils down to:

Big encomy= small well equipped army
tiny economy= massive under equipped army.

Yes but the clans , are the bulk of the what was the entire star Leage defence forces, except for com star. And the FWL also faired best during the crusader clan invasion.

:evil: Futhermore the FWL has the best military in the Innersphere. YOU KNOW IT! :twisted:


http://www.solaris7.com/Images/Art/fwl1.gif

I generally go with whatever it says for the percent of GPD spent on defense on the GDP calculator I use. Right now I am at 5.08%. You are at 3.26%

My nation. (http://www.pipian.com/stuffforchat/gdpcalc.php?nation=Muktar&randomize=1&defenseprovided=1&defense=15&militarybudget=1)
Your nation. (http://www.pipian.com/stuffforchat/gdpcalc.php?nation=Narya_Talin&randomize=1&defenseprovided=1&defense=15&militarybudget=1)

Would you please tell me what calculator you used, and how you arrived at those figures?

FWL's nation. (http://www.pipian.com/stuffforchat/gdpcalc.php?nation=Free_Worlds_League&randomize=1&defenseprovided=1&defense=15&militarybudget=1) You can change the nation name in the URL to see a different nation's GDP, budget, etc.

that makes no freaking sense, how do you or your calculator know how much I spend of defence when I set my own standards, where exactly does this calculator get its figures from?

You can actually set it so the calulator uses your percentages.
To quote the site:

Nationstates GDP Calculator

Please add ?nation=(your nation name) to the url to get it to work properly (Remember, spaces should become "%20", HTML-encoded).

Other options:
&popspec=(the difference of your "population" from Nationstates) - For those countries who like to specify exact populations
&randomize=1 - Randomizes the GDP per capita and budget (and population if there's no popspec) slightly
&defenseprovided=1&defense=(percentage of your GDP spent on defense) - Calculates your Defense spending. REQUIRES DEFENSEPROVIDED TO BE SET.
&militarybudget=1 - Forces &defense= to represent the percentage of your budget instead of your GDP. MUST BE USED WITH THE TWO ABOVE VARIABLES.

No matter what your size or economic capacity, you should never exceed 5% of your population in the military except in an extreme emergency. Any more than that and you start to have major economic impact because of all the members of your workforce being sucked up.

Ahh I see, this is someone elses idea of what an accurate percenatge should be. But since I believe I set my own budget rather then the calculator :wink: , and since the my military and industry are integrated under the control of the government, I think I will NOT PAY ATTENTION TO THAT CALCULATOR.

Ahh I see, this is someone elses idea of what an accurate percenatge should be. But since I believe I set my own budget rather then the calculator :wink: , and since the my military and industry are integrated under the control of the government, I think I will NOT PAY ATTENTION TO THAT CALCULATOR.

Umm...with the calculator you set your own percentages.

Yes but the clans , are the bulk of the what was the entire star Leage defence forces, except for com star. And the FWL also faired best during the crusader clan invasion.

:evil: Futhermore the FWL has the best military in the Innersphere. YOU KNOW IT! :twisted:
That's a rather weak point when you consider that they weren't even in the invasion corridor. Kind of hard not to fare better when you're the one not getting invaded.

And still, they're not the best by a long shot :wink:


You also seem to have completely ignored Crookfor's points. The Clans started as the SLDF, but look at their populations. Then look at their military forces. Seriously, with the exception of the Hell's Horses, I don't think any of them have even 0.5% of their population in the military, Solahma clusters included. 0.15-0.3% looks like the norm, but I may be a bit off with adding technicians as support. There usually aren't more than a few thousand actual warriors.

Well... Thanks for everyone's help. And the budget calculator, of course...

Let me see....

1/7th of my actual "Army" is all robotic. The rest are humans or human-based... So I have a little less than 5% of my people in the army.

Sound decent?

:evil: They still have technology far superior to the Innershpere mechs, and although the FWL was not directly in the path of the invaders, we did send help to the free rashalaque republic :D

During the invasion of the crusader clans, they may have only had thousands or warriors, but I do not think they would send thier entire military to deal with an enemy that they could fight with minimal forces, they probably kep the bulk of their forces near their homeworlds, to deal with other threats, such as hostile clans. :wink:

:evil: They still have technology far superior to the Innershpere mechs, and although the FWL was not directly in the path of the invaders, we did send help to the free rashalaque republic :D

During the invasion of the crusader clans, they may have only had thousands or warriors, but I do not think they would send thier entire military to deal with an enemy that they could fight with minimal forces, they probably kep the bulk of their forces near their homeworlds, to deal with other threats, such as hostile clans. :wink:

Check "Clans:Warriors of Kerensky". The actual percentage (among ALL of the Clans as an aggregate) is .01%-that being the entire Warrior Caste including Freebirths.
Clan Blood Spirit actually has the deepest reserves per Capita since they train their civilians in basic infantry tactics.
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