NationStates Jolt Archive

NOTE: All of this pertains to modern (present-2020) nations.

When one first joins, or even wants to make improves to thier army, the first question is obviously "how many men should I have in my army, and what should they be armed with?" Many people use 5% of the nation's population as total number of people in the army at wartime, yet some real life nations have more than that. Israel, I believe, is a nation of 5 or 6 million people, yet they have a million or so man army.

That is roughly 3 times that of our limit, so I propose (amongst other things) a change in the unofficial rules: rather than make the limit a fixed number such as 5 million, make it whatever is justifyable by the nation based upon war/peace status, number of nations involved, etc.

So, why would you need 20% of your people in the army? For most nations here, you wouldn't. I would assume the government might have to enact strict food rationing etc. etc. to support it, and unless the people are die hardedly patriotic, they would complain, possibly revolt, go on strike whatever. 5% is very hard to justify anywhere either. So for most people, 2% or less is an ideal number as it doesn't eat much of the nation's resources and still allows for good number of troops.

But let's look more at the effects of conscription along logical lines. You, before the draft, were living peacefully in your country, with no intention to join the army. You then were thrust into the army, against your will, and continualy defy authority, and because you are conscripted, do not give your best. Volunteer militaries are much better than conscripted militaries because the people in the military have a will to fight, they wanted to fight, etc. They will demand better training and weapons too, I would suspect, and command would be pressured to make them better.

As for the cost of an infantry unit: I'd say roughly $70,000 per soldier to make it through basic training, armament, and a year's pay/benefits/housing/whatever. This is more or less, depending on your minimum wage laws, gun cost, quality of housing, electricity consumption, or whatever. Just to give you an idea of how much it takes to run, let's say, a million man army with this money, it is 70 billion dollars for no tanks, planes, ships, extra guns, extra armor, APCs, or any other equipment. All you get for this is a soldier, a gun, an armor unit, uniforms, training, and a year's pay.This is more or less depending upon your training/armament standards etc. See above.

"Now that my army has men, how many tanks/planes/APCs/ships do I have?" Well, let's see what the ratio of millitary men/tank etc. is in a modern army such as the US or Russia In America, it is 312 men per tank, 107 men per infantry vehicle, 287 men per airplane, 382 men per helicopter, and 6,489 per ship. In Russia, there are 152 men per tank, 114 men per APC, 532 men per aircraft, 1,220 men per helicopter, and 5,360 men per ship. Other countries, such as many non-US NATO nations, China, and others, have much higher ratios. For example, in Frace they have 801 men per tank, many less tanks than America or Russia per person. (For my source, go to http://www.cdi.org/products/almanac0102.pdf Yes, you need Acrobat Reader or whatever it is called.) Use all the numbers above to create a more realistic fighting force, if you follow the America or Russia school or follow closely.

"Now that I have my airforce/army/navy with numbers, how many nukes should I have?" This is an easy question to answer: it depends. Many nations such as the US or Russia do not have enough ICBMs or SLBMs to launch all of thier nuclear weapons. I am sure they don't have enough bombers either. This is likely due to the end of the cold war, and your nation may not have this if you so choose, but those not engaged in a cold war would likely have the "hedge," as they call it, of nuclear weapons to be rebuilt quickly should the need arise. Regardless, there should be, if you are like the US or Russia, only one every 265 military men (counting reserves, as before)

"But even with this, should I have nukes this early?" If you are a new nation, I would suggest that you develop nukes wisely. Your first nuke is likely going to be a Manhatten Project type thing, so you won't be building ICBMs for quite a long time, not even high yeild nukes. These things also, in this early development, can explode if you drop them, etc. etc. Be sure they are very crude if you are new, and you work up to nukes with nuclear power, etc. If they show competance and realism in creating nukes, then I am sure that they can get them without being ignored. Needless to say, a new nation won't be building a large nuclear force until development of ICBMs or long range bombers, and until they are larger and can afford it.

"Now that I've got numbers, can I afford it?" Depends. Using a GDP calculator, such as the pipian (http://www.pipian.com/stuffforchat/gdpcalc.php?nation=) or thirdgeek (http://www.thirdgeek.com/nseconomy.php) calculators, calculate your budget. Military should never be more than 50%, unless you are in a cold war/real war and need to catch up with someone. 30% is good, I'd say.

"How should I organize my army?" It depends on what your army is to be like, your doctrine, and your style. US divisions differ from European ranks, and Russian divisions are differant from other European divisions I think. Look up ranks of nations, adopt one of them, or develop your own.

"How should my newly developed weapons be?" For a new nation, somewhat crude, slight improvements on modern designs, not all that innovative for a little while. For an older/established nation, look up modern weapons very similar to your design and then create something from scratch. Don't make it outrageous, like a super nuke that destroys Earth, or a super invincable tank force field generator of death. Also, if at all possible, make sure it fits your doctrine. A land locked nation wouldnt have developed a carrier.

Well, this so far concludes my thing, feel free to ask/donate more questions to the cause!

Donated stuff (to be cont'd, forum is dying)

Logistics is the single biggest issue in any army, at any time during the history of warfare. In ancient times logistics was solved by simply training your soldiers to repair their own equipment, do their own laundry, build their own housing etc.. (like the Roman Empire's legions).

Now as history progresses and technology and weapons improve, the number and specialization of logistical support increases. During the middle ages at the time of the Crusades , the best trained and most effective european force were mounted knights. Even lesser knights had with them a squire, a retainer and a personal servant......better off knights had washer women, and any number of armourers and attendants.

Moving along the number of logistical attendants increasedc even more, by the Napoleonic era the quartermasters corp was a standard part of any military and often each man in the field would be support by an additional 5 to 6 professionals who handled everything from cooking to preparing and distributing ammunition.

Now Tom Joad says 'there are a smaller number of people doing lots of jobs' but in a modern, technically advanced military this is incorrect. More expensive and more complex military hardware means more specialization. In today's airforce ,for instance, a mechanic trained to repair an A-10 cannot repair an F-15 ( I have a friend in the airforce who is incidentally a mechanic....), there are all sorts of jobs that can only be handled by specific technically trained staff. In a modern hi-tech military 9-10 support per man is not all that high considering the advanced and complicated communications equipment, the increasingly complex computer systems in tanks, planes and ships , all these things require specialists to keep them up and running.

At no time should you imagine that when you deploy a man that he has 10 hangers on clustered behind him, but instead it needs to be seen as a chain of support that reaches from where that soldier is standing to where ever he is based. Someone tested,bought and distributed his weapons and equipment, someone shipped him to his destination someone prepared and his food, someone shipped and delivered his food, someone prepared and shipped his ammunition, someone planned his deployment, someone is going to evacuate him when he's wounded, someone is going to care for him in a field hospital that was erected by others and on and on.........you can have less support for a soldier, but the quality of that support and the quality of that soldier will suffer drastically.

You should train your soldiers to fight and you should train your logistical personnel to take care of all the other stuff. Let a soldier concentrate on his job. Perfect example: the US military MP that plead guilty to abusing prisoners (Sivits was it?) He was trained as a mechanic, sent to Iraq as a mechanic, waht happens when you make a mechanic do a job he wasn't trained for? Now , true he was an MP, but he was an MP motor pool mechanic, he had little to no training in actually handling prisoners. Would you expect an MP trained at enforcement and handling a prisoner to go out and fix a humvee?

I'm thinking of abolishing the draft, which consctripts everyone in my country (including women and disabled). However, if I do that, how many people do you think will volunteer?

I heard once that out of a survey in the United States, one in ten people said they were merely considering a military career. Even if I extend the length of service from one to three years, I still have only 30% of what it would be. And that's those "considering;" with their parent's tales about hard service, many may be dettered from service.

I was thinking about a small, say, 150,000 man force, highly trained since birth, something like AMF's infamous Senitals.

Hm, you know, the DPRK has probably less than 4% of its population in the army, and that's considered pretty insane. Sure there's a huge reserve that's many times larger, organised into different branches, but that doesn't constitue an army, really. I think it's important to note that Israel surely couldn't hope to mobilise a million men and women all at once to go on a coherent military campaign.

For most nation's having 2% of the population under arms would mean that there was a serious war underway. The UK has a population above sixty million, and the army's around a hundred thousand strong. Even while there was an empire to protect the army was usually less than quarter of a million strong. I'm not sure where this US$70,000 per soldier thing comes from. What are you basing that on? Well, I mean, for whose benefit is that? You know that many nations here are communist, others organised along feudal lines, and others simply have different strength economies, of course? It doesn't cost the same to keep a North Korean commando rolling as it does to pump a US soldier full of God only knows what and keep him going. Wait, before you say it, that NK commando will cut down half a dozen western soldiers before they know which side of the border he's on.

There's no hard and fast rules, no easy guidlines, and to attempt to compile such so as to be of any interest to all the nation states here would mean compiling pages and pages, and people may as well just read up for themselves.

By the way, some model military divisions and units (Bonstock's oversimplified versions). All of them have five brigades, with 3000 men each. Three are maneuver (infantry or armor), and there is one artillery and one support.

Motorized Rifle Division
15,000 men
500 trucks
75 155mm towed howitzers

Mechanized Rifle Division
15,000 men
150 tanks
300 IFVs
75 155mm SPH
150 large trucks
3,000 HMMWVs

Airborne/Light Division
15,000 men
1,500 HMMWVs
75 105mm towed howitzers

Air Assault Division
15,000 men
75 large transport helicopters
75 attack helicopters
75 105mm towed howitzers

I did alot of reasearch last summer, when I was a little n00b. By the way, Clan Smoke Jaguar sells much more comprehensive divisions by the package, which I would recommend to people who like complicated numbers.

Good job. There is a problem with the factor and ratio dilema. A nation of 2 billion, say having 2% of their population being active military, this alone would create a logistical problem for them. The military would be 40 million strong.

This is where the factors really come into play. How many of them are in the Army? And of this number, how many of them play the support role, ie, personnelmen, supply clerks, hospital corpsman, chaplain services, etc etc ect and this would have to be calculated for every branch of service.

I have seen several nations try to make the claim..."I have no Air Force, so my Army can be XXX million strong." I cannot recollect a modern nation that has any military power at all and not have all four branches. It is called diversity and a balance of power. The Air Force supports the Army which supports the Navy which supports the Marines which supports the Air Force, and the circle goes round and round.

Land locked Nations are further in crisis because they have no access to ports of call for trade. It is the most economical way to transport goods and services with other Nations and Regions. Mongolia economy is terrible compared to Japan, Afghanistan is weak compared to United Kingdom, Kenya is insignificant compared to United States. Access to the sea is access to cash. No cash means no military.

"I have a store front"...so what, every nation trades and sells products and services on a global scale. Your announcement just means that you are announcing what is for sale and on sale. JC Penny's announces their sales every week as does Sears and they are no better than any other department store because they all sale goods to the public.

There are few ligitimate claims, as they would have to be proven. "I am in a league". If this can be proven and not just a formation of puppets, but ligitimate trade routes and formations, that would provide more expendable cash as resources that were not readily available to support the populous and military is now present.

Colonies always support the motherland, but they are not cheap either. Having a colony and maintaining that colony is the difference between that extra dollor or that extra bank account. Does the colony trade with others? Is there access to this colony for transportation within the network of government and private sector? What freedoms are there? Is there autonomy? When I say colonies, I say this as a segregation of population and not as a puppet. Phyrric has a colony as East Phyrric, Io, Moon, Alabama, and Houston but there is no puppet as East Phyrric or others and they are calculated in the population of Phyrric, not in addition to.

Freedoms and politics do indeed determine the stature of your military. If your people have very little freedoms to even speak their peace, it is less likely they will give up their lives and the lives of their children for a corrupt and ruthless ruler. The free world is very frightening to any enemy because every man, woman and child is capable of becoming militia at any moments notice. They have something to live for and not just meer fiefdom or oppression.

The larger the Nation, the more liklihood that they have access to reserves and militia forces. This does not mean they have more cash to pay them, just more availability. A 2 billion Nation is more likely to have access to another 1 million men for reserves than a nation of 300 million would. This would of course increase with economic power and allies. Why send your 1 million men to go die when your ally is more than happy to do that for you?

This can go on forever as this is just fantasy. I can spend 10 trillion right now! Right now, and my economy and those that received all this cash would never be affected. there would be no inflation, no recession, no depression, just an exchange of words and numbers. This is the greatest problem within Nationstates and can never be rectified. That being the point if no one wants or desires to folow any kind of guidelines, then I can have a 100 million man military, that would only be less than 4% of my population, right?

@ Bonstock:
I'd think that maybe 1% (or less) of the population would join as volunteers, yet these men are infinately greater than what you would get in a conscript military, let's not mention how much more attention each would get. Man power means squat in a modern military unless you want to have enormous casualties. In a well organized opponent, you will be feeding the base of fire groups.

Machineguns are why soldiers tend to spread out far enough to not all die in one second, but close enough to maintain communication. A large military will probably need to be very dense, and a well placed airstrike/artilery strike/machine guns will do nicely against you.

@ The British Federation

You disregarded Israel entirely, didn't you? They have like 20% of thier people in the military, and are under unique circumstances yes, but these can be created in NS. As I said, they must justify thier massive armies.

No, I mentioned Israel specifically.

Hm, it hardly worth seems opening a window to type that. Oh well.

What I meant was 'You doubt Israel's capability.'

On the comment about army/air force, etc. These organizations developed historically with technology. And, they are really bureacratic subdivisions of what is in theory, a unified military. I think it's quite possible to have, simply, The Army, which might include what in more traditionally developed militaries is called the air force, marines, etc. Of course in that case the equipment and numbers would be the same, so it wouldn't benefit anyone in the "...so my air force is really huge" manner.

A lot of it also has to do with what you want to use your army for, and how well you want your army to preform. If you're expecting United States mechanization, with United States battle preformance you're looking at 9 to 10 logistical personnel per combatant. And this works into your 5% military figure..meaning, even if you have a population of 2 billion you're looking at total armed forces numbers to be 10 million combatants at the most.

The British used way more than a quarter of a million troops. However, not during peace time - their strategy was to be attacked and mobilize when attack - trading their massive empire for time... once the enemy went far beyond his supply lines the Brits would strike back. However, during war time their numbers exceeded 1 million.

Furthermore, there is a general logistical rule. The more advanced and high tech your military the higher that logistical ratio.

In fact I wish to invite Fluffywuffy and Phyrric, as well as the British Federation to WWXIII (worldwarxiii.cjb.net)... a well done Role Play game based on real life statistics (except your pop..which is NS based)... most players have a good sense of RolePlay and logistics... I would greatly love that you three - which prove your sense for realism - to join and help out the game.

can someone sell me men

Anyway, my military has a very specific organization; there are 120 divisions organized into 24 corps into 6 armies into 2 army groups, for the army. Each corps has two mechanized divisions, an airborne division, a light division, and an air assault division. In addition, for every man in a combat division in the Army, there are three non division support personnell. So there are five divisions and 75 support brigades, each 3000 strong. These support brigades include signals brigades, medical brigades, engineers, transportation, chemical, air defense, etc. There are 7.2 million people in the Army.

The Air Force and the Navy each have 3.6 million people. The Navy is centered around 72 carrier battle groups, each with a carrier, six destroyers, two subs, a support ship, and a LHA with Marines aboard. We assume that it is crewed by 10,000 men each. We also assume that for every 1 ship crew, 4 people are in shore support roles at ports. I'm not sure if that's correct, but its what I go by. There are six fleets, each with twelve carrier groups, and each grouped with one Army, and two commands, each corresponding to an army group.

The Air Force is a force with 1200 wings each 3000 strong, of which 900 are deticated to support roles, like signals, medical, space, whatever. That leaves 300 flight wings. There are 150 Fighter wings, 60 Airlift wings, and 90 Air refeuling wings. Each fighter wing has 60 fighters in three squadrons, and air refeuling and airlift wings each have 30 aircraft in 3 squadrons. They are all grouped into six air forces, each with 25 fighter wings, 10 airlift wings, and 15 air refleuling wings, and each corresponding to an Army and a Fleet. Then there are two commands that correspond to naval commands and army groups.

In addition, there are 600,000 men who serve as HQ and administration troops at the Bonstocknian military headquarters in the capital, Port Yuko.

That evens out to 15 million active service people. Thats not counting for the men in training, so about 30 million men total, of which about 25 million are conscripts, the rest are officers.

OOC:

If someone says to me that they have a "million man" army, I assume that only a fraction of that are frontline troops. Sadly, however, many folks believe the million man number to be the front line.

The British Federation: Personally, I have 2% of my total population in the miltary, but only 0.8 percent are active duty. And a fraction of those are combat personnel. Considering that I share a land border with about 6-7 nations, I feel that it is necessary.

Anyway, my military has a very specific organization; there are 120 divisions organized into 24 corps into 6 armies into 2 army groups, for the army. Each corps has two mechanized divisions, an airborne division, a light division, and an air assault division. In addition, for every man in a combat division in the Army, there are three non division support personnell. So there are five divisions and 75 support brigades, each 3000 strong. These support brigades include signals brigades, medical brigades, engineers, transportation, chemical, air defense, etc. There are 7.2 million people in the Army.

The Air Force and the Navy each have 3.6 million people. The Navy is centered around 72 carrier battle groups, each with a carrier, six destroyers, two subs, a support ship, and a LHA with Marines aboard. We assume that it is crewed by 10,000 men each. We also assume that for every 1 ship crew, 4 people are in shore support roles at ports. I'm not sure if that's correct, but its what I go by. There are six fleets, each with twelve carrier groups, and each grouped with one Army, and two commands, each corresponding to an army group.

The Air Force is a force with 1200 wings each 3000 strong, of which 900 are deticated to support roles, like signals, medical, space, whatever. That leaves 300 flight wings. There are 150 Fighter wings, 60 Airlift wings, and 90 Air refeuling wings. Each fighter wing has 60 fighters in three squadrons, and air refeuling and airlift wings each have 30 aircraft in 3 squadrons. They are all grouped into six air forces, each with 25 fighter wings, 10 airlift wings, and 15 air refleuling wings, and each corresponding to an Army and a Fleet. Then there are two commands that correspond to naval commands and army groups.

In addition, there are 600,000 men who serve as HQ and administration troops at the Bonstocknian military headquarters in the capital, Port Yuko.

That evens out to 15 million active service people. Thats not counting for the men in training, so about 30 million men total, of which about 25 million are conscripts, the rest are officers.

OOC: 72 aircraft carriers? How can you support it?

Anyway, my military has a very specific organization; there are 120 divisions organized into 24 corps into 6 armies into 2 army groups, for the army. Each corps has two mechanized divisions, an airborne division, a light division, and an air assault division. In addition, for every man in a combat division in the Army, there are three non division support personnell. So there are five divisions and 75 support brigades, each 3000 strong. These support brigades include signals brigades, medical brigades, engineers, transportation, chemical, air defense, etc. There are 7.2 million people in the Army.

The Air Force and the Navy each have 3.6 million people. The Navy is centered around 72 carrier battle groups, each with a carrier, six destroyers, two subs, a support ship, and a LHA with Marines aboard. We assume that it is crewed by 10,000 men each. We also assume that for every 1 ship crew, 4 people are in shore support roles at ports. I'm not sure if that's correct, but its what I go by. There are six fleets, each with twelve carrier groups, and each grouped with one Army, and two commands, each corresponding to an army group.

The Air Force is a force with 1200 wings each 3000 strong, of which 900 are deticated to support roles, like signals, medical, space, whatever. That leaves 300 flight wings. There are 150 Fighter wings, 60 Airlift wings, and 90 Air refeuling wings. Each fighter wing has 60 fighters in three squadrons, and air refeuling and airlift wings each have 30 aircraft in 3 squadrons. They are all grouped into six air forces, each with 25 fighter wings, 10 airlift wings, and 15 air refleuling wings, and each corresponding to an Army and a Fleet. Then there are two commands that correspond to naval commands and army groups.

In addition, there are 600,000 men who serve as HQ and administration troops at the Bonstocknian military headquarters in the capital, Port Yuko.

That evens out to 15 million active service people. Thats not counting for the men in training, so about 30 million men total, of which about 25 million are conscripts, the rest are officers.

OOC: 72 aircraft carriers? How can you support it?

I sorta based my military on the US, but because I'm six times as large as the US, I assumed my military was six times as large. The US has 12 carriers, I think, so I have 72 (six times twelve).

Just to add...

You should base your amount of tanks on divisions, not men. Lets make an example army, with say 1 million men in the army.

Now, lets assume that on average, divisions are 16,000 men a piece.

This would equal about 63 divisions. Now, decide how many of those do you want to be armoured divisions? I would say a good ratio is 1/5 divisions, if they are heavy armoured divisions, which I will use for the example.

So, we have about 13 heavy armoured divisions now. I got these numbers from ww2, but they seem to be fairly good for large armys. A heavy armoured division would have about 300 Main Battle Tanks, and 200 Medium/Light tanks, as well as Infantry fighting vehicles and trucks to transport all of the troops. When one says tanks, one thinks main battle tanks, so we will deal with that number for 300.

For 13 divisions of armour, this would mean you have 3,900 main battle tanks. This isnt all though.

We should also assume that another 2/5 or so of your divisions use Main Battle tanks, although not as a heavy role. Say thats 26 divisions, this could be mechanized division tanks, light armoured, etc. Say about 100 tanks for this 2/5's. This is another 2,600 Main Battle tanks. You can dip from this pool for National guard tanks, etc.

Your final number, in this case, would be 6,500 Main Battle tanks. This is a similar number to how many MBTs america has, and it has around 1m men in its army also.

Using similar numbers, for example, Chellis has 1120 divisions, as well as 380 volksjaeger divisions, for a total of 1400 divisions. This means we have about 140,000 main battle tanks, not counting light tanks, IFV's, etc.

If you want to calculate light/medium tanks, do the same thing, except multiply 3/5's of you divisions by 200. You should get slightly more than the number of MBTs. Chellis has 168,000 for example.

"Personally, I have 2% of my total population in the miltary, but only 0.8 percent are active duty. And a fraction of those are combat personnel. Considering that I share a land border with about 6-7 nations, I feel that it is necessary."

Sounds fair to me, Vrak. NS is a lot different to the real world, I suppose. I'm grudgingly accepting that I shall need more than 100,000 army soldiers and about two thousand marines as the UK gets by on. I'm thinking of cutting my population off at about the real UK level, though (just over sixty million), but I'm not sure I'll be able to survive or get anyone's attention if I do. I don't want to get into any wars where I need a million man army, because it makes my head ache, heh. Plus the UK's been there, done that. Does NS ever see smaller, realistic conflicts? I mean, I would like to have a few Falklands-like conflicts now and then, or to take part in coalition operations where no one country can be bothered to commit the forces required, so a lot chip in a tiny degree. I'm about to deploy about half a battalion into possible action, but I'm rather afraid it'll just get me up the creek with a nation that outnumbers us over a hundred to one.
I might just stop waffling on and check out that link from The Macabees.

better than nothing. They should sticky this.

The US literally had 4 million troops in World 2. And the Russians had a lot more than that.

Us had many more than that in ww2. Im talking modern numbers of the us army. I can see you got confused, cause the tank amount is based on ww2.

Im really new here and even after reading this have no clue how to start an army, airforce, or navy. If anyone could help me out like one on one help it would be greatly apreciated.

The British Federation: Personally, I have 2% of my total population in the miltary, but only 0.8 percent are active duty. And a fraction of those are combat personnel. Considering that I share a land border with about 6-7 nations, I feel that it is necessary.

[OOC: I've been debating whether or not to push my army's total (including support personnel) to 5 million since I'm RPing Sarzonia to be in peacetime at the moment. With a 5 million man army, I'd have roughly 2 million on the front lines with close to 5,000 tanks/smerches, etc. Considering my population is 466 million, that works out to just over 1 percent of my country's population being in the army.

I've been much quicker to build my navy and at my estimate, I have about 1,000 ships in it. If we took an average of about 1,000 sailors per ship, that would be roughly 1 million on ships. That doesn't count people at the shipyards who are there to maintain the ships that are docked.

My air force, on the other hand is pretty small for my country's size. That would mean that I might not even have 1 million people in it if you included all the support personnel.

All told, a fairly decent estimate of my military personnel numbers would probably be 8 million.

I think those overall numbers are fine in peacetime, and obviously, I'd increase them dramatically in a wartime situation. But then again, that air force has to improve!]

Im really new here and even after reading this have no clue how to start an army, airforce, or navy. If anyone could help me out like one on one help it would be greatly apreciated.

[OOC: Right now, if you were founded yesterday, you'd only have 6 million people. That would likely mean that you couldn't afford to build much more than a tiny army of, let's say 35,000, not all of which are front line troops. As your population grows, you are able to build your military up. It's recommended that you not focus on that if your economy rating isn't very high.

Having said that, there are a lot of different ways to build a military. The way I did it was to start with the navy and go from there. I think I started by buying the biggest ships that were available to me at my budget and then worked my way down. You might want to start with the smaller ships and work your way up since you can then get more ships at lower prices until you get your navy large enough.

I then worked toward building my army by buying guns, tanks, equipment, etc. I used the figure of 2% of total population for my total military (all four branches, plus support personnel) in peacetime and 5% of my population during wartime. If your country is on the brink of being invaded, you can increase even beyond 5%.

After that, I started building the air force, which is still a work in progress. You'll need fighters, bombers, refueling planes and attack, scout, and cargo helicopters, among the aircraft you'll need.

Browse this forum for storefronts. Find one you feel comfortable with and purchase from it. Keep in mind that you'll likely not want to spend more than roughly 15% of your country's overall budget (found on GNP calculators like Pipian or Third Geek) on defense unless you're in imminent danger of being invaded. I purchase ships, aircraft, and equipment from several different storefronts (telling the storefront "owner" that I'm wiring the money upon confirmation... protocol here is that the money is assumed to be paid.)

If you want any more information than I've already given, feel free to telegram me!]

In fact I suggest my storefront: http://s6.invisionfree.com/International_Mall/index.php?s=d012b942a480ec06eb100914a64ff9b9&showforum=15

In any case... I suggest you start out with a corp of 10,000 front line men. About 9,000 Infantry, the rest armor. Build that up with the best ordnance you can find out there and use it as your core military. Once your population skyrockets to around 60 million you can expand this to about 200,000 total men - where upon you're going to want a navy and an airforce, however small... smaller, I believe is way better... in WWXIII I never invade with a force greater than 400,000 front line A division troops.

My active military now is about 1 million only because of my major military presence in Zarbia, which will soon leave once the war there is over.

The US literally had 4 million troops in World 2. And the Russians had a lot more than that.

Then again you have to understand that during the Second World War Mechanization levels were not as advanced as those of today. Hence meaning more men could be supported by less people. However, as I attempted to stress in a previous post the more advanced your army gets the more logistics it requires - in the case of the United States, 9 to 10 personnel per soldier.

That's why everyone is so tense about conscription in the nation. The United States simply does not have the population to support an army in both Afghanistan and Iraq without some sort of conscription plan.

Im really new here and even after reading this have no clue how to start an army, airforce, or navy. If anyone could help me out like one on one help it would be greatly apreciated.

This seems to be a relatively good starting point here: Be familiar with the NS stickies, there are several posted and the definitions of the stats of your nation, ie econ, pol free, civ rights.

Take 2% of your pop, decrease it by .2% for every level of econ below good and up .1% for every level above good. Increase by .05% for every level of CR above good and drop .1% for every level below good. PF would impact the desire of people when war is started to support their nation and be called upon to defend it. To support this, imagine the impact the US citizen would feel if the US was invaded, compare that to how the citizen from Italy when invaded. Resistance would be stronger the higher the freedoms.

Take this number and divide by 4, these are your branches of the service. Of course, there can be more emphasis on one branch over another, but not an elimination. For example, say I have 1 million to play with. I obligate more to navy, hence 400K to there, 100K to the marines, 200K to the AF, and 300K to the army, all tallies to 1 million.

For the army and marines, take roughly a 1/5 role to front line, that would be 60K active and mobile units for actual combat for the army, reserves would be another 1/5 as needed, ie: a supply clerk can fire a gun, just not as good as the trained soldier.

For the navy, take 5% for capital ships, these are carriers, battleships, nuclear subs...etc, the big ships, so that is 20 capital ships. Another 50% for other warships, cruisers, destroyers, gators, frigates, etc. The rest would be support units.

AF would be 10% aircraft..all aircraft and not just fighters. Just fighters would be roughly 4% or 8K total (remember, carriers need planes too and compensate for that out of the navy portion).

This might be a good starting to understanding this and a simple breakdown. As the nation gets larger, the much more complex it would be.

People do it differently and there will be disputes, this is roughly how I do mine. jmo

ok, well I kinda want to have a set plan for a military so that when I do reach a higher population I wont have to change alot of stuff around.

What I am looking for at the moment is a higly mobile force of well trained troops. So would a 10/1 logictical (repair, refuel, ect) personel per each tank be too much or would it be about right. And on things like apc's and items like the Bradley Fighting Vehicle would it take less or the same as say, something like an Abram MBT?

I've got 5% of my pop as regular army, but all of my citizens are required to undergo basic training (ala current U.S Marine Corps). Would it be reasonable to say that I can mobilize 5% for an offensive operation, but 50% for repelling an invasion?

I've got 5% of my pop as regular army, but all of my citizens are required to undergo basic training (ala current U.S Marine Corps). Would it be reasonable to say that I can mobilize 5% for an offensive operation, but 50% for repelling an invasion?

Well, 50% of your population means all working age people in your nation. Everyone from 20 to 60, everyone who can possibly bear arms (including women). I don't think its really possible, unless you have a bunch of partisans armed with knives and pistols, wearing t-shirts and jeans. You still need an industrial base, to produce ammunition, tanks, and other military goods. 5% is good for repelling invasions, because the rest are supply/industrial.

The British Federation: Personally, I have 2% of my total population in the miltary, but only 0.8 percent are active duty. And a fraction of those are combat personnel. Considering that I share a land border with about 6-7 nations, I feel that it is necessary.

[OOC: I've been debating whether or not to push my army's total (including support personnel) to 5 million since I'm RPing Sarzonia to be in peacetime at the moment. With a 5 million man army, I'd have roughly 2 million on the front lines with close to 5,000 tanks/smerches, etc. Considering my population is 466 million, that works out to just over 1 percent of my country's population being in the army.

I've been much quicker to build my navy and at my estimate, I have about 1,000 ships in it. If we took an average of about 1,000 sailors per ship, that would be roughly 1 million on ships. That doesn't count people at the shipyards who are there to maintain the ships that are docked.

My air force, on the other hand is pretty small for my country's size. That would mean that I might not even have 1 million people in it if you included all the support personnel.

All told, a fairly decent estimate of my military personnel numbers would probably be 8 million.

I think those overall numbers are fine in peacetime, and obviously, I'd increase them dramatically in a wartime situation. But then again, that air force has to improve!]

OOC: Sure, I could push my numbers up - a helluva lot actually. But then, I have to supply my troops and equipment with guns, ammo, gas, food...

My goofy combat ratio system looks like this:

combat:support

infantry 1:5
tanks 1:10 [based on crew numbers. 3 men that run one tank need 30 support. Total personnel = 33]
artillery 1:10 [same as tanks]
aircraft 1:25 (per plane or helicopter; this doesn't include the number of crew needed to maintain optimal flight time, but I'm still tinkering with that)
ships 1:15 [a Sovremenny class destroyer has 344 personnel, so 5160 are support. Total overall: 5504]
aircraft carriers 1:20

So, I guess going my my system I can't understand how folks can field uber armies. Maybe it needs more work because I may have too much overlap. I also lop 30% right from the top for support (military academies, etc...). I mean, I have 2.8 billion with a frightening economy (for over a year) and I can't field numbers that nations 1/4 of my size seem to come up with. To be fair, my active troops have about $450,000 per soldier.

TAG :!:

I use .02 times the my population. I add .01 for draft, or defense as priority or defense spending goes up, patriotism and stuff like that. This can give me up to .06 to multiply my pop by. The problem is when you get to the 3 billion mark like I have.
What I started doing just a couple months back is including a defense budget. Cause now 1% of my population might be more than my budget can support.
What I do in my budget, is instead of just budgeting for equipment, I also budget for salaries. Troops who have big salaries have higher moral and better combat abilities than troops that are forced to fight for free.
Now if you have religious fundamentalist government, that helps troop combat effectiveness a lot. So does a strong sense of patriotism.

That's the problem economists are just now learning about. Big populations don't lead to stronger economies but weaker economies. China is starting to suffer severe economic problems cause it has way too many people.
They have a strong economy but when you calculate their GDP per capita, their economy is actually among the weakest in the world. Cause they still have over 70% of their population that is poor. This is despite that they considered the third most economically powerful nation on earth.

I still think this should be a sticky.

I'm thinking of a new organization plan for militaries... we have a brigade of say, 5,000 men, of which 500 are combat troops. So, we have 50 tanks with a crew of 5 and an infantry detachment of 5 troops.

Then we add an airforce. A Wing 5,000 men, 500 combat, supporting 50 planes, each with a crew of one and a support detachment of 9 specialists.

Then a Navy can be added. A flottilla of 5,000 men, of which 500 will be embarked, say on 5 destroyers each with 100 man crews.

So, this going by the "9 support troops per combat troop" organization, we have a troop to tank ratio of 300 to one, a troop to airplane ratio of 300 to one, and a troop to ship ratio of 3000, similar to the US ratios.

So, the joint brigade/wing/flottilla force is 15,000 men, of which only 1500 are combat troops, and 50 tanks, 50 planes, and 5 ships. Sounds good, right?

Well, apart from the utter lack of field artillery, naval aviation, and some other things, I think its a good organization for "n00bs." If a nation has a "1.5 million man army" then this means they have 5000 tanks, 5000 planes, and 500 ships. The US has about 1.5 million people in its army, and about the same amounts of tanks, planes, & ships.

Give me some feedback on this... I'm experimenting with different organizations, like I've been for the past year or so.

(God, I wish there were some storefront that sold packages last year... It was because I didn't know how many tanks to by from all the storefronts that I got so involved in organizations... its too late for my GPA, though...)

Well, that sounds good, Bonstock, perhaps a battery can be added to the brigade, maybe of 10 or so guns, maybe a few MRLS units. A group of flotilas can be given a carrier and some larger vessels, or maybe a smaller flotila a larger ship.

I think the ratios as compared to Russia and America can be tweaked somewhat, someone relying more upon are or sea power could make the naval ratio higher and the rest of everything lower. I suppose it all depends on how you organize an army.

But, since all the data was taken back in 2002 for this stuff, the US at the time of the publishing of that almanac or whatever (the link in the first post), had about 2 or so million men (active and reserve from all services, I think it was), roughly 0.68% (not 68%, it is .68%) of the population.

OOC:

Well I'm not a milatary expert so I don't get much into divisions, things of the same. Generally I don't state numbers (number wank) unless someone asks me for it. If so I state it. Really I'm in the game for the RP portion, describing my men on the frontlines, their reactions the moral judgement commanders have to make as they call in that airstrike a little too close to their own men but won the day. Things like that. The only preset divisions I have is for my navy. My navy is divied up into carrier groups. Carrier, battleships, AEGIS, subs and I have what each aircraft generally carries on deck. I like my system because its the most fun for me, but I have to admit the effeciency of it is sometimes lacking because right now I have to hold back my troops due to lack of air support craft (ie A-10) but to me SNAFUs like that are fun to RP with, logistics planners aren't god why are you?

What I run at is I use a budget calculator, divise out what each division of government spends and then allocate the funds from there. My milatary is currently recieving 16.95% of the government budget, this is high but it'll go back down when if and when my pro milatary government gets elected out.

Any purchases for armed forces are recorded, as well as special cases (I recently modified some B-2s to serve a special one time purpose then modded them back. $$$) Now that I have purchased all of my millatary a permanent (repeating, once per NS year) entry goes in of 10% the cost. Meaning that B-2 I bought for a billion dollars costs me $100 000 000 every year for misc costs associated with it. This is high I realize but since I use my B-2s now and again I figure it works out. (ex. I was in a war these 5 years but I was just at peace for 20, meaning the war was a larger expense. (more wear and tear on my equipment) but the years at peace even it out) I also have six million people in my army and a frightening economy. Meaning my GDP is higher so I have to pay my soldiers more. So I pay my soldiers and average of 55K, some more some less.

So all of my pluses, (income from the government) go in one column and all my minuses (everything else) go in the other (as a pretty red colour) and I run a balance for my armed forces dept. Right now they have a stockpile of cash (to dip into come a war where I'll add in more moola) and that's how I run my milatary. As far as how much of what I can have anyways.

I dunno I'm a bit of an accounting geek so,...

**OMG Bumporz!**

<bump>

Even 30% of your budget dedicated to the military is insane. Hell, I mean, the Soviet Union was spending less than that during the Cold War. Current US military expenditures, including funding for Iraq, are around 17%, and are around 12% in peace time.

taggggged

And now for Crookfur's pet theory of the moment!!!

it is claimed by some that the higher your economy rating the more troops you can have...

Well i claim the inverse is true!
the reasons are:
In a poorly performing economy vast sectors of your 18-60 year olds (your work force and manpower source) are simply not contributing anything to the economy, they could be mere subsistance farmers, shanty town gang members or similar (depending on how you veiw your antion is it the case where you have a very rich but small middle/upper class which generates huge income per person along side a massive zero productivity lower class or is your entire nation at a simialr level).
in these cases the removal of a worker from the work force is of little consquence to your economy and you can remove huge sections without serverly affecting your over all economy (think china).

The direct opposite is true in powerful NS economys where even the average lower class worker is likely to be skilled and actively generate resources in this case the removal of large sectors of the work force will simply cripple the economy.

I will admit that this does depend on a soemwhat idealised model but it does work to a degree.

Also the economy does affect the cost of feilding an army. Troops from a poorer back ground are as likely as not desire only to be fed and given enough training and equipment to survive where as your rich(relatively speaking) soldier will expect a heck of a lot more as an already educated individual he will likely demand (or rahter the population as whole demand) that he gets the best training, equipment, leadership and support that is possible (think abotu the west where the minutest issue of perfromance of a basic rifle is headline news or almsot headline) he will also have to be paid at a rate that will provide an incentive not to take his skills into the marketplace (assuming you don't use conscription).



As i said just my pet theory which i willa dmit does have holes and is based more on RL examples than NS where a strict comunist nation can ahve a frightening economy, i suppose my issues also reflect political issues aswell.

Oh and finally as to setting up your army, take a few basic biudling blocks (say a couple of divsions) and just expand them as you need to. hence why Crookfur seems to again a couple more disvsions when ever we get near a conflict (marines and airborne being the main culprits).

As for small scale conflicts they are fun i had a nice one going with an M8 over TG its a shame i got a bit carried away and attacked his small 5000man brigade with marine and airborne divsions...

Try this page for army unit organisation:

http://www.army.mil/organization/unitdiagram.html

This definitely should be stickied.

Try this page for army unit organisation:

http://www.army.mil/organization/unitdiagram.html

This definitely should be stickied.

All this talk about nine support personnel per soldier is a little odd don't you think? How ever you view the ratios none of them really make sense, the ones based on actual RW figures are just estimates and averages so don't treat them as something set in stone as that's just daft.

If one man in a tractor or some other modern mechanised agriculture machine can keep several large fields of crops growing and have them ready to harvest he can feed many more, such is the way really in supporting people.

Think about it though, when you get your car fixed or whatever there are lots of other cars getting fixed and that doesn't mean the garage or whatever has to have dozens of people waiting to do each car, no instead there's a smaller number of people doing lots of jobs. Which would of course translate quite simply in to military terms, you have vehicles and you need people to repair them and so you decide X people will be needed to keep X vehicles operational, during in X amount of time.
Course under extreme circumstances everything is pushed further than normal.

The UK has, on paper, a total army strength of 100,000 however the actual numbers are in fact closer to Napoleonic War numbers, the Army is currently at its smallest size since that time. The Royal Marines actually number 4,000 in strength.

sorry for the multi of multiness

There is also the fact that all your support troops (bar your doctors and chaplains) are (or should be) armed at least with a PDW or SMG and everyone should be trained to use your standard rifle and have gone through bootcamp.

There is also the fact that all your support troops (bar your doctors and chaplains) are (or should be) armed at least with a PDW or SMG and everyone should be trained to use your standard rifle and have gone through bootcamp.

Also you have airborne units where even the cooks have to jump...

gah quad post

Logistics is the single biggest issue in any army, at any time during the history of warfare. In ancient times logistics was solved by simply training your soldiers to repair their own equipment, do their own laundry, build their own housing etc.. (like the Roman Empire's legions).

Now as history progresses and technology and weapons improve, the number and specialization of logistical support increases. During the middle ages at the time of the Crusades , the best trained and most effective european force were mounted knights. Even lesser knights had with them a squire, a retainer and a personal servant......better off knights had washer women, and any number of armourers and attendants.

Moving along the number of logistical attendants increasedc even more, by the Napoleonic era the quartermasters corp was a standard part of any military and often each man in the field would be support by an additional 5 to 6 professionals who handled everything from cooking to preparing and distributing ammunition.

Now Tom Joad says 'there are a smaller number of people doing lots of jobs' but in a modern, technically advanced military this is incorrect. More expensive and more complex military hardware means more specialization. In today's airforce ,for instance, a mechanic trained to repair an A-10 cannot repair an F-15 ( I have a friend in the airforce who is incidentally a mechanic....), there are all sorts of jobs that can only be handled by specific technically trained staff. In a modern hi-tech military 9-10 support per man is not all that high considering the advanced and complicated communications equipment, the increasingly complex computer systems in tanks, planes and ships , all these things require specialists to keep them up and running.

At no time should you imagine that when you deploy a man that he has 10 hangers on clustered behind him, but instead it needs to be seen as a chain of support that reaches from where that soldier is standing to where ever he is based. Someone tested,bought and distributed his weapons and equipment, someone shipped him to his destination someone prepared and his food, someone shipped and delivered his food, someone prepared and shipped his ammunition, someone planned his deployment, someone is going to evacuate him when he's wounded, someone is going to care for him in a field hospital that was erected by others and on and on.........you can have less support for a soldier, but the quality of that support and the quality of that soldier will suffer drastically.

You should train your soldiers to fight and you should train your logistical personnel to take care of all the other stuff. Let a soldier concentrate on his job. Perfect example: the US military MP that plead guilty to abusing prisoners (Sivits was it?) He was trained as a mechanic, sent to Iraq as a mechanic, waht happens when you make a mechanic do a job he wasn't trained for? Now , true he was an MP, but he was an MP motor pool mechanic, he had little to no training in actually handling prisoners. Would you expect an MP trained at enforcement and handling a prisoner to go out and fix a humvee?

I like your post so much, IV, I shall edit it into the first post.

See what happens when I have nothing to do at work?

P.S. I agree with Crookfur-more prosperous nations would have more trouble with a larger military (who wants to give up their job for the military pay on a conscript?) and with Fluffywuffy-military size should be dicatated by need and not by percentages of population, support higher number effectively is of course an economic matter

Very valid points, complex machinery requires highly trained and equipped personnel but that doesn't actually mean that every single example of an aircraft needs its own personnel team of specialists, that would seem rather outlandish. Instead it would be better practice to have a few personel dedicated to a few aircraft, akin to a squire of knights, being supported by roaving squads of support personnel covering lots of aircraft.

Which is very much different from the practice put forward so far. Ten tanks with each tank having ten support personnel and those ten support personnel having X number to support them, which would leave you with no actual multi-tasking as every group would need to be supported. So far no one has actually noticed, and pointed out, this rather glaring flaw.

Actually in the case of a tank, it has a crew of 2-5 (depending on the tank) and up to three mechanics per tank (ideally. The reason most militaries don't like to employ 'roving bands of specialists' is:
a.)limits to range- a unti of tanks with broken or damaged tanks that must wait for mechanics who may be busy elsxewhere must either abandon it's disabled tanks or move on without them, most tank battalion commanders don't like either of those choices.
b.) increased vulnearability- imagine, fighing an enemy who's tank battalions rely on on bands of mechanics! Kill them, and the tanks will follow! Keeping your logistics behind, but close to your tanks allows the tanks to protect them. Roving bands would suffer when they moved out of one 'protected zone' to move and repair other battalions.
c.) technically evolved tanks-modern tanks like the M-1 were designed by people with doctorates in engineering , computers etc... once again a single mechanic cannot possibly service the whole tank, one would have to be a computer engineer, a mechanical engineer, a welder, and a whole bunch of other things, so your roving band would have to be considerably sizeable and would have it's own logistics issues , the roving band would in turn require support fot it's vehicles and it's re-supply.
d.) accessability- in critical instances the roving band may be nowhere near where they are most needed, or unable to get to a battalion in a critical position that needs help now!

I just used tanks as an example, but it applies to planes and helicopters etc.... If you've ever seen a tank battalion on the move, you'd see there are more trucks and jeeps than tanks! Smart commanders keep their logistical support as close as possible.

OOC: Well, I'm thinking that support personnel already have support "built in" as it were. Otherwise it would be support ad infinitum (not too sure on my Latin but I hope you get the idea).

Anyhow, I'm basing my ratios on what William Frisbee said:

It has been said that for every fighter there are five to twenty rear echelon non-combatants that support him and the other rear echelon non-combatants. Cooks, finance clerks, lawyers, chaplains, doctors, dentists, military intelligence specialist, cargo plane and helicopter pilots, military police, technicians, mechanics and more.

Logistics is the life blood of a military. If logistics is poor or nonexistent than the fighters will be severely vulnerable and unable to fight effectively.

http://web.qx.net/warcat/milsf/logistics.htm

And who is Frisbee?

I was US Marine Non-Commisioned Officer and a squad leader. I served in Desert Storm and Desert Shield. While I was in the Marines my hobby was small unit tactics. I enjoyed learning about all manner of small unit fighting from guerrilla wars to large scale conflicts. I was an NCO, not an officer so my viewpoints are that of a small unit leader who loved his job and strove for excellence.

http://web.qx.net/warcat/milsf/index.htm

As well, to take your farm example, farmers can't always repair their machinery. Heck, with some big equipment, they can't even change a tire. They also have to buy their seed, herbicide, pesticide and other chemicals. They need to buy land to grow their crops, which includes legal and other government officials. And I don't think logistics is necessarily limited to "repairs" but includes the whole picture of "support" including training, procurement, etc...

The main point that I'm driving at is that while perhaps one mechanic can service two tanks, it's more than just mechanics that keep the tanks running. A whole lot of hands are involved in the making of a soldier and equipment. Basically, that's what I was trying to do with my support ratios.

c.) technically evolved tanks-modern tanks like the M-1 were designed by people with doctorates in engineering , computers etc... once again a single mechanic cannot possibly service the whole tank, one would have to be a computer engineer, a mechanical engineer, a welder, and a whole bunch of other things, so your roving band would have to be considerably sizeable and would have it's own logistics issues , the roving band would in turn require support fot it's vehicles and it's re-supply.


OOC: I understand what you mean here and from this point I'll be talking out of my hat. I think that the folks who designed a tank can somehow make it easy enough to be fixed by a "general" mechanic- say for field repairs. But if the repairs require more work (that is, beyond the capabilities of a general mechanic) then the specialists are called in - with the appropriate tools. But you're right in saying that a complex piece of equipment would most likely have different kinds of mechanics to keep it going. I'll use a crude analogy here with something that I'm a bit more familiar with - cars. A "backyard" mechanic can often fix most repairs on an automobile but, if the repairs are extensive or the job requires a different set of equipment, they take it to a specialist. I haven't met a backyard mechanic yet that has all the necessary stuff to do a proper wheel alignment. And a car is not as complex as a tank or a helicopter.

In LRR there is conscription, but it is never used except in circumstances of national defense.

But the active military is a good 3 million troops.

Here's my military, open for review:

Note: APCs are deployed as part of infantry units as support vehicles, ATGM carriers, and mortar carriers, whereas IFVs are deployed with tanks. Tank destroyers are usually deployed with infantry units. The LRRA would, in the event of an invasion, use infantry and armored assault units in large combined-arms formations. The infantry units use light trucks and jeeps, as well as helicopters, to get around when APCs are full. In practice, any APC can carry around 20 troops, while any tank can carry around 10. As long as the infantry gets off before the unit takes fire, the system works pretty well.

LRRA:

Active Troops:

3,000,000-4,000,000

APCs/IFVs:


30,000 M113X APCs (each one carries 10 troops {infantry squad=8 rifles 1 ATGM})
8,000 BMP-2 (modifications) IFVs
6,000 M113X Tank Destroyers
900 M113 AMOS variants
5,000 M113X ambulence variants
2,000 M113X variants

1,500 L&F AMVs (each one embarks 15 troops)

1,500 BVS-10 APCs

6,000 PTS-M amphibious carriers

Artillery:

1,000 Pzh-2000 155mm howitzers
2,000 Various towed artillery systems
250 BM-21 MLRS systems
300 Urgan MLRS systems


Tanks/Tank Destroyers:

500 LT-7 Light Tanks
500 MBT-4 Tanks (mostly recovery and engineer's vehicles)
3,000 MBT-5A MBTs
500 MBT-5B MBTs
450 MBT-6 MBTs
3,000 T-72/80/90 MBTs

5,000 Wiesel 3 Infantry Support Tanks
3,000 XA-180 series support vehicles

Logistics:

800,000 various trucks


Helicopters:

450 BO-105-2 ATGM carriers
180 Tiger PAH-3 Attack Helicopters
800 Mi-24D MOD attack helicopters

900 Mi-8L Transport Helicopters
40 Mi-26 Transport Helicopters

LRRN:

Active Personnel:

90,000-100,000

Patrol Boats:

20 Rauma Class Missile Boats
50 Super Dvora Patrol Boats
150 Skjold MOD Missile Boats
40 Tern SAR boats
20 Tarantul Missile Boats
60 CB-90 Patrol/Assault Boats

Frigates:

40 Robert Byrd coastal defense frigates
40 Howlin' Wolf coastal patrol frigates
26 De Zeven Provincien Frigates
7 Karel Doorman Cutter/Frigates

Destroyers:

30 Sovremenny Class Destroyers
7 Udaloy Class Destroyers
13 Iroquois Class Destroyers

Cruisers:

3 Kirov Missile Cruisers (two more on the way)

Carriers:

2 Clemenceau Class Carriers
3 Kuznetzov Class Carriers
1 Orel Class Carrier

Submarines:

30 U-212 Attack Submarines
10 Aluka MOD attack submarines

Helicopters:

300 Lynx II ASW helicopters
70 Sea King SAR Helicopters
30 Panther ASW helicopters

Aircraft:

10 E-2 AWACS Aircraft
100 MiG-29KI fighters
120 Jaguar IIN Attack Aircraft

LRRAF:

Active Personnel:

50,000-80,000

Fighters:

700 Super Gripen Air Superiority Fighters/interceptors
500 F-3 Air Superiority Fighters/interceptors
70 Su-15Z interceptors
30 MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors

Attack Jets:

500 Jaguar II CAS jets
250 Tornado II Interdiction jets
300 Su-25 CAS/wild weasel jets

Patrol Aircraft:

180 Il-80 AWACS aircraft
30 Il-83 Long-range Surveillance aircraft
200 Nimrod 2000 Patrol Planes

Tankers:

40 Il-81 Tankers
10 KC-130 Tankers

Transports:

500 An-2T Colt Light Transports
80 Il-79 Heavy Airlifters
200 C-135 STOL Airlifters
120 An-72 ESTOL Airlifters

Helicopters:

400 Sea King SAR helicopters

BUMP

**New Forum Bump!**

I have a question for everyone. Say I have 2% of my population in the military- that includes reserves, combat troops, logistical people, maintenance people- everyone. Now- what percentage of the military would be reserves? What percentage would be frontline combat troops? Logistical and maintenance people? Thanks.

nice

I have a question for everyone. Say I have 2% of my population in the military- that includes reserves, combat troops, logistical people, maintenance people- everyone. Now- what percentage of the military would be reserves? What percentage would be frontline combat troops? Logistical and maintenance people? Thanks.

Modern tech? Probably around 60/40 or 70/30 for logistics/combat troops. Reserves is another matter. You can train just about any number of people in a basic manner and make them available to call up, depending on your morals. For reserves you should decide on a likely age group, are they conscripted or volunteer, do you accept women and men and go from there.

I generally don't consider even whopping reserves (technically Ilek-Vaad has 10-20 million reserves in their Velite Guard) a problem, so long as everyone understands that if reserves are pressed into combat against standing, well trained soldiers, that they are cannon fodder.

In Ilek-Vaad every citizen is enlisted into the Velite Guard at 18 and serve for at least one year and can be recalled until the age of 58. Contrast that with the career volunteer Retaliatory Guard that receive 3 years of combat training before even receiving an assignment. The Retaliatory Guard number just over a million front line combat troops, even though my nation has more than 3 billion people.

The training and technology that can be pooled and concentrated on this small number of troops far offsets any lack of numbers. That and instead of being 'cream of the crop' they are 'cream of the cream' and can be more selectively weeded out.

The ratio of reservists vs regulars largely depends on your nation's politcal and social landscape.

Off the top of my head i would geuss that the US/UK model would have soemthing like a 3 reserves per 1 regular (including teritorial/national guard/weekend warrior type reserves). On the other hand you have switzerland and isreal where your reserves theoretically include most of your adult population under 50-60years old. it all depnds on the style you want do you envision your military being alrgely volunteer or will you make national service mandatory?

We -being the UK thrust back into a world full of big scary nations- use the model promised at the end of the cold war, with 116,000 regulars and 69,000 TA. As is the case in Britain today, there are actually more regulars than territorials. I am wondering if it might be sensible to revise this, given that I plan to stick around 60million in terms of population. Apparently the NS world is a lot less stable than the modern one in reality, and there's a lot of Soviet Union-alikes stomping around. Of course we're slightly increasing defence spending as a % of GDP, but I wonder, what's normal for Western-European-type nations in this universe? Perhaps I should bring back national service to compensate for the population defecit.

Ich. Well, time to create a British armed forces thread, methinks.