NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm curious to see what other people do when they are figuring out their military. Personally, I take .5% of my population. Those are the amount in service. Then, I designate about 1/4 to 1/3 of them to being random personelle, being the members who are trained but do not specialize in combat such as: Mechanics, cooks, base managers, janitors, ect. The rest are then divided up into pilots, gunners/tank operators, general infantry, and special ops. From there I create an amount of vehicles that sounds accurate according to my GDP, and designate the gunners, pilots, and random personelle to their vehicles. I was wondering how many of you do something like that and how many take all units available, make them all combat realated, and put them on the machinery most needed...

I use about 5% of my population in the active military. Roughly a third are in the Navy. The rest are spread through the Space Fleets, Mobile Suit Corps., Regular Army, and Airforce.

I use about 5% of my population in the active military. Roughly a third are in the Navy. The rest are spread through the Space Fleets, Mobile Suit Corps., Regular Army, and Airforce.

Isnt 5% too much? I dont know much about FT nations, but i would think the max 1-2% rule for military including the logistics would be aplied there too.

Not if your nation requires most men from 18 to 40 to serve a minimum of four years in the military.

Not if your nation requires most men from 18 to 40 to serve a minimum of four years in the military.

hmm...yeah...so if you have a nation of 1 billion, you got 40 mil more people that are useless and suported by the rest of the population
In FT i guess it could work if the society is based on automatic factories, replicators that just make the food and stuff needed.....i guess it could work in those terms....if everything is done by machines/robots or require very little input from humans....

Anyway...to answer the original question.....depends on your priorities...for ofensive wars you need lots of marines and carrier groups.....for defensive you need air-defenses, lots of fighter aircraft to protect the land, usual army well trained and equiped.

I for one have about 60% in the land army, 10 % manning the air-defenses, a small contingent of marines and paratroopers, and the rest in navy and aviation. Strictly defensive army with some contingents for peacekeeping. I have projection power through the carriers, but an assault on another country would be difficult due to small numbers of marines.

For light infantry divisions i use 50% combat infantry, for mechanized and armored divisions i use about 15-20% combat infantry, with the rest beeing crews for vehicles, and about the same 50% for logistics.

I use %5 of my population, just so I have some chance of competition with bigger nations.
It comes out to about 2,000,000 extremly vicious, but very badly equipped, Goblins.
Of course, occupying a Goblin nation is a very unpleasant affair, because Goblins are, by nature, guerillas. And they live in tunnels, which are inside mountains.
Guerilla fighters + Expert tunnellers + natural defences proof against anything short of a nuke (mostly :P) = ?
Do the math :P

Of course, King Krark is a very progressive leader and there should be no reason for anybody to invade me :)

In peace I use .1% of my population and divide them into the fleet and the MC. In times of war it would increase to four to five percent.

Just remember that the more high-tech you are, the higher the ratio of support to combat personnel will be. All that fancy technology has to be kept in working order, after all.

I started off using five percent, but I haven't increased my numerical size since. I just can't be bothered.
As for non fighting men, the storefront I bought from supplied in divisions, which included logistics.
But we're past tech so we don't need serious amounts of maintenance personel

I don't really use a set amount. The majority of my ships and factories and such are run by slaves and machines, so I don't worry about the whole 5% thing. I keep it reasonable though and try to play fair.

When I first started playing this game (even before I RP'd), I came in with the idea of using no more than two percent of my nation's population in the military. I also figured that as I got larger, the percentage of population would go down, but I could still grow the military.

However, there's more to it than just taking two percent of your population or less. You have to decide if you're an island country, if you're landlocked, etc. If you're landlocked, you aren't going to need a navy, but if you're an island, you need to put more emphasis on the navy than you do the army. Once you decide that, you can start building.

One thing to keep in mind is logistics. Besides having container ships, refueling planes, and enough ambulances, you're going to need to remember that each different rifle, tank, fighter, and warship is going to need different calibres of weapons. To ease the difficulty that your forces would have with something like eight different rifles and twelve different main battle tanks (not only with providing weapons, but also with service and repair, not to mention training on them), focus on getting no more than one or two main rifles (perhaps one for standard infantry and one for urban warfare), one or two classes of warships, etc.

One comment to make about warships: I personally don't like multi-roled ships. Granted, if your country can't afford to have three or four different classes of frigates, you may not have much of a choice. But beware of the old adage that a jack of all trades is a master of none. Your ships can fill multiple roles if they're designed that way, but they won't do any of them particularly well. Perhaps you can have a cruiser for anti-ship warfare, a destroyer do anti-aircraft combat surveillance, a frigate handle anti-submarine combat, etc. And perhaps you could have a different frigate or a corvette for scouting missions.

In the end, however, it's not about the technology and who's the better wanker. It's about who can tell the story the most effectively. But having at least a basic understanding of military matters is a huge help to your RPing effectiveness.

I run around a 3% to 4% for my nation. I'm moving people away from the Army though and toward the Marine Corps (it will be my main military group within 1 RL month) and will be dismanteling my air force and possibly my navy (will move to Post MT, HALO 2 type stuff).


Although i haven't really bought any new weaponry for my military in over 2 RL months. But as of right now i have the following:

Army (Dismantling within 1 RL month)
Navy (Possibly Dismantling)
Air Force (Possibly Dismantling)
Marines
Space Fleet (In Planning and R&D Stages)

I use 10%. In all of my armies everyone fights. From the chaplins to the cooks to the guy who files papers. The divison of power is 70% Army and 30% Air Force/Space Fleet (depending on what tech level I'm playing.) A good idea for military orginization is the book Starship Troopers. Not only is it a good read it gives ALOT of information on orginization in the military og the future.

I roughly use 1% of my nation:

4.57 million men
1.38 million fighting

I have about 500.000 men in my army
I have 380.000 men in my airforce
the rest is in my navy.

Books are just slight blueprints of how to make an army of the future. And 10% of a persons population for their military is just outrageous. You need to make sure that your Budget can support the amount of people yo have in your Military.

Including our militia and reserves, we use about 2% (~85 million in ~4.1 billion), though I personally never count our forces solely by number. A much higher percentage will have several undesirable effects on not the economy but also the work force and the industrial capacity during wartime, and this is including about 20 million in the army. However, one note is that there we never use 20 million to fight, as the actual combat personnel only ranges from 2-5 million (a very rough estimate), including division-level support and combat support. Nor do we ever use massed infantry forces with a greatly incompatible armour and artillery support (i.e. 1 million troops with support from 10,000 tanks, 10,000 155mm howitzers, and 1000 AH-64s), as that is in our view, highly inefficent and a waste of planning time when it's prefectly possible to use smaller but highly efficent and centralized forces to achieve a greater firepower.

Books are just slight blueprints of how to make an army of the future. And 10% of a persons population for their military is just outrageous. You need to make sure that your Budget can support the amount of people yo have in your Military.

10% is not outrageous. That means that for every 1 soldier there are 9 Civillians. Also military service is cupulsory and my nation is rasing kids from birth to fight. Just like the Spartans.(The Greeks)

10% is not outrageous. That means that for every 1 soldier there are 9 Civillians. Also military service is cupulsory and my nation is rasing kids from birth to fight. Just like the Spartans.(The Greeks)

It is outrageous, because for every 1 military there are 4-5 people in your country(the rest are children and old people) that have to cover the salary, equipment needs, ammo, fuel of that 1 soldier. And we`re not even talking about the fuel and procurement for airforce and navy yet. In case of a war your military forces would collapse within a couple of days because they wouldnt have ammo, fuel, training, equipment to wage a war. If you manage to win the war in couple of days by sheer numbers, without gaining air superiority then good for you. But honestly, you have a worse army then North Korea who has 5% soldiers, your airforce lacks maintenance and the pilots dont have training due to lack of fuel. Thats the general picture for your 10% army.
And besides the needs of the soldiers, those 4-5 people also have to support the health system, education, pension plan and any other expenses a country has.

It is outrageous, because for every 1 military there are 4-5 people in your country(the rest are children and old people) that have to cover the salary, equipment needs, ammo, fuel of that 1 soldier. And we`re not even talking about the fuel and procurement for airforce and navy yet. In case of a war your military forces would collapse within a couple of days because they wouldnt have ammo, fuel, training, equipment to wage a war. If you manage to win the war in couple of days by sheer numbers, without gaining air superiority then good for you. But honestly, you have a worse army then North Korea who has 5% soldiers, your airforce lacks maintenance and the pilots dont have training due to lack of fuel. Thats the general picture for your 10% army.
And besides the needs of the soldiers, those 4-5 people also have to support the health system, education, pension plan and any other expenses a country has.
That's assuming the army doesn't contract much of that out to civilians.
The fact is, that healthplans, education, pensions and other benefits are contracted out to civilians to run which frees soldiers for the front lines. Even food services will eventually be civilian contractors. The only thing that won't be is maintenance, ordinance and supply.

Well, the US contract much of that out to civilians doesnt it? Private health plans, private pension funds. And it has more then half of the worlds military budget. Still, it doesnt keep more then 1% of its population in the military. What would happen to America, though self-suficient as she is, if it would employ suddenly 10% of its population in the army?. I think it would be around 28 million in the Army? It would collapse, no mather that its the 1st world power at the moment. North Korea is at light years away from South Korea in development, and though it has 5% i think of its population in military, due to poor funding and low funds for procurement, it wouldnt be able to wage war for more then couple of days, while more then half of their equipment probably woulnt even move because they`re either lacking spare parts or fuel, or the shells to fire at the enemy.
My 0.02 $ is that having 10% in the military its like having an extra 20% unemployment rate, with those 20% beeing fed, payed, and spent on much more then a simple social welfare would do.

Well, the US contract much of that out to civilians doesnt it? Private health plans, private pension funds. And it has more then half of the worlds military budget. Still, it doesnt keep more then 1% of its population in the military. What would happen to America, though self-suficient as she is, if it would employ suddenly 10% of its population in the army?. I think it would be around 28 million in the Army? It would collapse, no mather that its the 1st world power at the moment. North Korea is at light years away from South Korea in development, and though it has 5% i think of its population in military, due to poor funding and low funds for procurement, it wouldnt be able to wage war for more then couple of days, while more then half of their equipment probably woulnt even move because they`re either lacking spare parts or fuel, or the shells to fire at the enemy.
My 0.02 $ is that having 10% in the military its like having an extra 20% unemployment rate, with those 20% beeing fed, payed, and spent on much more then a simple social welfare would do.

Well, it depends on how productive the army is. As we have the best trained and most advanced fighters in the world, we don't really need that many people. You also have to account for the national guard and reserves both of which, though they are not active, are actually counted as part of the army. Both inflate the military numbers that is why many sites give you a break down between active army, reserve, or national guard.
It is very unwise to make assumptions about North Korea's military capabilities unless you are in the intelligence community. Especially as we know the North Koreans can last for a couple of weeks with their current levels. If you are facing 1 million + army, it doens't how bad ass your tech is, you are going to get to be very bloodied. This is why, though we have been handed every excuse you could ask for, we have not gone to war with North Korea since the 50's nor have we sought to bomb their nuclear facilities. Cause if we did, we would lose a lot of men. Americans won't be able to tolerate a third front.
We keep things very very simplified here on NS. But in the real world it is much more complex.
In rl, there are hundreds of factors that determine how many troops a nation has. On NS the only thing that matters is economy. But in the real world, the economy is only one of many factors. One of the major factors is how secure do your people feel. North Koreans feel the world is out to get them so a larger number of them are in the military than is the case with the US, where people feel their nation is very secure. Other factors, (again relating to how secure you feel your nation is) are: technology, training, moral. Morale is especially large and (unlike civilians) is not dependent entirely on economic well being. Morale depends mostly on things like support for the soldier's family, whether his wife or girlfriend dumpted him for someone else. Family issues affect the moral and fighting capacity of a soldier more than anything else.
But you can't tell any of that when you are rping fictional nations with fictional armies, so you have to have set % limits. And 5% is a good rp number depending on your NS nation page. I don't recommend going over 2% as your base percentage with a point being added for draft, increased military spending, defense being the main issue or one of the three top issues. So tht you can have a percentage of up to 8%.

10% is not outrageous. That means that for every 1 soldier there are 9 Civillians. Also military service is cupulsory and my nation is rasing kids from birth to fight. Just like the Spartans.(The Greeks)

Nope. Sit down with a calculator and figure it out.
The population under and over military age is about 20-30% of your population.
The physically and mentally infirm are about 15-20% of your of age population.
Assuming the best, you have about 55-70% of your population that's productive.
10% of your population would be roughly 15-20% of your productive population. That's 1 in 5 or 6, higher than North Korea.

All this ignores the question of the place of females in your society.

If you really wanted 10%, you should play your economy as signoficantly lower (at best), or you are likely to be ignored.
(We all know how "strong" the DPRK's economy is, right? That's what an excessive portion of population taken out of production means.)

Nope. Sit down with a calculator and figure it out.
The population under and over military age is about 20-30% of your population.
The physically and mentally infirm are about 15-20% of your of age population.
Assuming the best, you have about 55-70% of your population that's productive.
10% of your population would be roughly 15-20% of your productive population. That's 1 in 5 or 6, higher than North Korea.

All this ignores the question of the place of females in your society.

If you really wanted 10%, you should play your economy as signoficantly lower (at best), or you are likely to be ignored.
(We all know how "strong" the DPRK's economy is, right? That's what an excessive portion of population taken out of production means.)
Those numbers you give are more likely to be intermingled. You can't say that your handicapped are seperate from the old or young or middle age population. Indeed, as recent US experience, some handicapped people can still fight even though they only have one arm or one leg. We have a lot of handicapped people who are wanting to go back to the front and the government is granting their request.
The statement that 10% of your population is automatically 16% of your productive population makes no sense whatever. Handicapped people and the elderly are just as productive as someone who is 18. In fact, many 18 year olds tend to be pretty unproductive. Don't forget that there are many kids under 16 who are also productive. Heck, I was working when I was 8.
Population stats are really much more complicated than you posted.

I`m sorry, but 8% is still unrealistic. Even as you RP as a NS state, not a real one, i presume you still accept some terms of comparisson with the RL. If everyone starts pulling out of their backyard 50 mil armies with excelent training and as much ammo as one can fire in a year of combat then you really wouldnt have too much strategy in the RP`s. All you`d have to do is arm all your soldiers with anti-tank or SAM missile launchers, and you can honestly tell your enemy that your 100.000 tank army with unlimited fuel is killing all of his. If you accept that logistics are important, and you cant have all military personnel in combat, then you have to accept also that you cant have 8%-10% of your population armed and ready to go overseas to fight, and still expect to win a war against a smaller but better prepared army, while saying that your economy and military budget is increasing every year.
I give you that, you`re right when you say that those 8% would do enourmous damage by sheer numbers, but their advance would be stopped relatively fast if they dont have the money to keep it up. Ammo and fuel for million men armies is not cheap.
Though NS is not RL life, some rules are needed to regulate RP, and i dont see any other valid ground for comparison then RL armies and nations. A minimum at least.

It is very unwise to make assumptions about North Korea's military capabilities unless you are in the intelligence community.
What i said was based on a report i read some time ago from the intelligence community. I`m sorry i dont have the link.

I'm curious to see what other people do when they are figuring out their military. Personally, I take .5% of my population. Those are the amount in service. Then, I designate about 1/4 to 1/3 of them to being random personelle, being the members who are trained but do not specialize in combat such as: Mechanics, cooks, base managers, janitors, ect. The rest are then divided up into pilots, gunners/tank operators, general infantry, and special ops. From there I create an amount of vehicles that sounds accurate according to my GDP, and designate the gunners, pilots, and random personelle to their vehicles. I was wondering how many of you do something like that and how many take all units available, make them all combat realated, and put them on the machinery most needed...

I work at it from both ends. (note the following links are out of date by almost a billion population.
First I figured out in detail the % in the military.
http://www.angelfire.com/dragon/daistallia/military/etc/conscription.html

Then I designed the military units bottom-up. I started with the basic squad, built platoons, companies, naval squadrons, air force wings, and so on, adding the appropriate HQs, attatchments, weapons units, and support units. Once I reached the corps level, I figured rough approximation of non-divisional support, based on looking at US DOD personnel numbers (for a Pentagonesque staff).
Then I took the % figure, minus the staff, and figured out what I needed and how much I could have, accounting for the military budget.

Some rough ideas:
Organize your forces. It makes it easier to keep track of everything. It also makes for cleaner RP.
Which sounds better:
A) I land 20,000 soldiers armed with M-16s on your beaches.
B) Elements of the 1st, 3rd, and 7th Marine Divisions have established a beachhead.

You absolutely don't have to be as compulsively accurate as I am (I am admitedly on the extreme end of detailing - I don' know many others who go down to the fire team level. Or detail their support forces as much as I do. And my latest upgrade is even better/worse. That's my thing. :) If you want to be that compulsive, I can help you out a lot. :))
A simple Order of Battle (ORBAT) listing your divisions, keeping it simp;e (armored division=15,000, infantry=12,000, for example) is quite sufficient.

The "tooth-tail" ratio for modern units should be 1 to 8-10. FT should be higher.

Divisions (formations of 10,000-20,000 soldiers) should have extensive suppoort forces (80% or more). Higher formations will have more support.

Support units include:
Signals - providing communications
Engineers - building and demolishing things
Chemical - protecting against and using chemical weapons, including smoke screens
Medical
Military Police - providing security, collecting prisoners, traffic control and direction, and all sorts of regular police functions
Intelligence - spies, recon, analysis
Transportation
Maintanance
Headquarters

Daistallia 2104 can you TG me your ID? MSN, AIM, YahooMess. :) Thx

Daistallia 2104 can you TG me your ID? MSN, AIM, YahooMess. :) Thx

No MS or AIM, and rarely on messy yahoo ;) but sent.
Off to bed soon - work early tomorrow, but I could be available on YM most of Sunday (that's local time in Japan).

I`m sorry, but 8% is still unrealistic. Even as you RP as a NS state, not a real one, i presume you still accept some terms of comparisson with the RL. If everyone starts pulling out of their backyard 50 mil armies with excelent training and as much ammo as one can fire in a year of combat then you really wouldnt have too much strategy in the RP`s. All you`d have to do is arm all your soldiers with anti-tank or SAM missile launchers, and you can honestly tell your enemy that your 100.000 tank army with unlimited fuel is killing all of his. If you accept that logistics are important, and you cant have all military personnel in combat, then you have to accept also that you cant have 8%-10% of your population armed and ready to go overseas to fight, and still expect to win a war against a smaller but better prepared army, while saying that your economy and military budget is increasing every year.
I give you that, you`re right when you say that those 8% would do enourmous damage by sheer numbers, but their advance would be stopped relatively fast if they dont have the money to keep it up. Ammo and fuel for million men armies is not cheap.
Though NS is not RL life, some rules are needed to regulate RP, and i dont see any other valid ground for comparison then RL armies and nations. A minimum at least.


What i said was based on a report i read some time ago from the intelligence community. I`m sorry i dont have the link.

50 million is a bit much unless you're a 3 billion + nation. You have to remember that on NS everything is determined by your population since even your economy goes up as your pop increases. What you describe is unrealistic and I doubt anyone is going to do that.
But you must also remember that logistics is dependent on much more than how much money you have in the bank. Money is good but it don't won't help if foreign suppliers won't sell to you. Another factor is your capability to create and deliver your own supplies. This is where NS rp differs from the real world. In NS, most people require that you buy all your ammo and what not from another nation. In World War II and in most modern conflicts, all ammo, food, water, weapons, etc. are generated by the countries doing the fighting for their own troops.
Course that's the main problem with a lot of these war rps, is that no one rps their nation's switching to war time economies. If you were at war, your govt. would switch car factories from making cars to making tanks and ammo. Aircraft makers would switch from making passenger planes to making stealth fighters and JSFs. Etc. Also, you would go into automatic rationing of everything, even if you had plenty of stuff when the war started. This is especially so as the war goes on.
That's why, after you hit the radar installations, anti air sites, air fields, and command centers, you want to hit the factories even if they are in civilian neighborhoods. That's why the US hit the auto factories in Serbia. Cause they had switched from making cars to making tanks. And a factory can usually churn out about 2 tanks a day during wartime.
Wars of themselves don't destroy your economy, what does is the outcome of the war. If you're doing horribly in the war, then yes your economy will suffer. But you are on the advance and you are capturing resources, your economy will survive and grow until such point as you start losing the war.
That's why you want to attack enemy controlled oil fields, iron mines, etc. Its about resource control. And control resources is more important military wise than whatever your national defense budget is.
Using RL, however has major setbacks. Its a good guide but you don't want to rely on it for an rp game. Otherwise, even if you follow it, you will still end up with incredibly large 100 million man armies eventually. I ran into that problem with the formula I was using.
The higher your population gets, the lower your percentage needs to be to keep your military size within reason. What you do is you lower your percentage so that your military is no bigger than 10 million troops for active. Including reserves you shouldn't go higher than 50 million.
Heck anything over 10 million active is over kill.
I myself prefer a set number of troops than a percentage. I know that in Earth V the limit is 5 million for everything.

If you can find that link I would like to see it.

should be noted that administrators, as a seperate job in the military are being eliminated in the US army. Now regular troops are going to be doing the HQs work that admin do.

My military is a small military. Roughly 4-5% of the population. My main most basic military unit is a marine. My military from the start has strained a extrenuous amount of training, therefore, army, is a little more skilled than other nations. As for marines, they don't exist in my military. We have an equivilent called the Rangers. Our Rangers are highly skilled and we have a combination of numbers and skill in our Rangers Special-Forces Divisions. Our navy is somewhat powerfull, being the Riconiaa is a penisula nation, we don't need to maximize a hugly powerful navy. Our airforce is very impressive. The Airforce uses quite skilled personel to "own" the skies. Being such, our standard numbers of aircraft and pilots falls a bit lower than other nations.

As I have emphasized before, our military does not just do normal training and gets by with averagly trained soldiers and definatly does NOT rely on numbers alone. Our military is ready to defend Riconiaa as well as fight in conflicts abroad. (which is more likely to happen than assualts against our nation.)

My military is a small military. Roughly 4-5% of the population.Given that western democracies, IRL, are usually having between 0.2 & 0.5%, this isn't small. It's excessive 'Conscription for everyone, the economy can kiss my ass, AK 47 ripoffs can do the job just as well as artillery!' excessiveness.

Please, before throwing around percentages, do some fucking research.

Given that western democracies, IRL, are usually having between 0.2 & 0.5%, this isn't small. It's excessive 'Conscription for everyone, the economy can kiss my ass, AK 47 ripoffs can do the job just as well as artillery!' excessiveness.

Please, before throwing around percentages, do some fucking research.
i agree on the percentages. Its better to have a set maximum number of troops.

I wouldn't say that 5% is hyper excessive, assuming that he takes logistics and all out of that. I use afixed number because I couldn't be bothered to keep updating it.

The guy who said that 50 million man armies are only feasible at about 3 billion was a bit out, as at 1 billion you can field that with 5%. Not the most effective 50 million, but still 50 million.

I use 25 million in my armed forces, which does make it small, given that I'm almost 3 billion. On the other hand, I have a gargantuan defense budget, and so can easily afford to train and equip these men, and I have a very high logistics train, leading to just 2,187,500 men actually on the front line, but these men are very well trained, equipped, and supported. Anyone who wants to mess with me, my average soldier is equal to or better than a Paratrooper/Marine, and the Paragons are comparable to Sentinels. See my NS Wiki page for more details

I wouldn't say that 5% is hyper excessive, assuming that he takes logistics and all out of that. I use afixed number because I couldn't be bothered to keep updating it.

The guy who said that 50 million man armies are only feasible at about 3 billion was a bit out, as at 1 billion you can field that with 5%. Not the most effective 50 million, but still 50 million.

I use 25 million in my armed forces, which does make it small, given that I'm almost 3 billion. On the other hand, I have a gargantuan defense budget, and so can easily afford to train and equip these men, and I have a very high logistics train, leading to just 2,187,500 men actually on the front line, but these men are very well trained, equipped, and supported. Anyone who wants to mess with me, my average soldier is equal to or better than a Paratrooper/Marine, and the Paragons are comparable to Sentinels. See my NS Wiki page for more details

Er, your spotlight lists your population as 16 million, and the NSwiki doesn't have an article for Pralkinen...

About two years or so ago there was a stickied thread on realistic armies, naming 0.5% as a good amount (and that's what I've always stuck with) as well as many other awsome tips. What ever happened to that, and should we take the time to create guidlines for new players?

Eh, do you guys think 1% NOT including logistics would be logical? I do have compulsory military service and all that jazz, after all....

1% standing military, mostly navy and airforce.

I wouldn't say that 5% is hyper excessive, assuming that he takes logistics and all out of that. I use afixed number because I couldn't be bothered to keep updating it.

The guy who said that 50 million man armies are only feasible at about 3 billion was a bit out, as at 1 billion you can field that with 5%. Not the most effective 50 million, but still 50 million.

I use 25 million in my armed forces, which does make it small, given that I'm almost 3 billion. On the other hand, I have a gargantuan defense budget, and so can easily afford to train and equip these men, and I have a very high logistics train, leading to just 2,187,500 men actually on the front line, but these men are very well trained, equipped, and supported. Anyone who wants to mess with me, my average soldier is equal to or better than a Paratrooper/Marine, and the Paragons are comparable to Sentinels. See my NS Wiki page for more details

I have a different ratio:
38million for support and logistics
and about 7.8 million for direct combat operations

Eh, do you guys think 1% NOT including logistics would be logical? I do have compulsory military service and all that jazz, after all....It depends on how big your country is. When you're a small country of about 5 million people, you would use roughly two percent of your population to cover your military personnel, but that would include logistics. As you get larger, the percentage of your population decreases, but your military size increases.

As for logistics, if you're a huge country, one percent of your population without accounting for logistics personnel would not be a good idea.

I use only 1.3% of my population for my entire military. I think the idea of a small but highly-trained army will always beat a bigger, less-trained army.

I use only 1.3% of my population for my entire military. I think the idea of a small but highly-trained army will always beat a bigger, less-trained army.
In reality it doesn't. Just take a look at the second world war, the highly trained but nummericaly inferior troops of Germany were beaten by the not so highly trained byt numericaly superior troops of the Soviet Union and the allies.

In reality it doesn't. Just take a look at the second world war, the highly trained but nummericaly inferior troops of Germany were beaten by the not so highly trained byt numericaly superior troops of the Soviet Union and the allies.

The Soviets were losing until they got that great general (forgot his name). Germany had superior commanders and tactics. Tactics is the keyword for a smaller well-trained army.

The Soviets were losing until they got that great general (forgot his name). Germany had superior commanders and tactics. Tactics is the keyword for a smaller well-trained army.
Germany had superior coomanders (until Hitler decided to intervene) and superior tactics sprung out of the Sturmabnds used during the Great War, yet the numericaly superior Soviets using the All-at-a-time-no-turning-back-shoot-the-traitors-tactic won. Now, I'm in a very cynical mood today so I'm going to say that of you throw enough troops at the enemy, he will eventually run out of ammunition.

Are you referring to Zhukov, Konev or any other great commander of the Soviet Union?

Because my nations are usually peaceful, I don't go into any real detail about my armed forces, which usually leads to my defeat :D

My TOTAL military is 16 million people. I have no plans what-so-ever to increase or decrease that number. I wont go into details on how I get my total number of combat soldiers(including sailors, pilots, tank crewmen, etc.)(because I havent... and dont plan to because I am not that smart :P ).

Germany had superior coomanders (until Hitler decided to intervene) and superior tactics sprung out of the Sturmabnds used during the Great War, yet the numericaly superior Soviets using the All-at-a-time-no-turning-back-shoot-the-traitors-tactic won. Now, I'm in a very cynical mood today so I'm going to say that of you throw enough troops at the enemy, he will eventually run out of ammunition.

Are you referring to Zhukov, Konev or any other great commander of the Soviet Union?

It was Konev I think. He was the one that captured Berlin for Soviet Union. Anyways, the Soviets tried that technique but lost until the German's were bogged down because of the winter. Then that technique worked because Konev was in-charge. See tactics will win always no matter the size.

OOC:No... it was Zhukov. Konev ALMOST captured Berlin, but Zhukov beat him to the Reichstag. They had some sort of competition over Stalins approval.

OOC:No... it was Zhukov. Konev ALMOST captured Berlin, but Zhukov beat him to the Reichstag. They had some sort of competition over Stalins approval.

I can't remember. I remember yes that both were competing for capturing Berlin but one of them was the man that defeated Hitler at Stalingrad and then commanded 3 Armies before being depromoted by Stalin to only 1 Army before he could capture Berlin. But he successfully captured Berlin for Stalin, though.

I use only 1.3% of my population for my entire military. I think the idea of a small but highly-trained army will always beat a bigger, less-trained army.Hence why you will generally lose in your escalated conflict RPs?

Seeing as 1.3% is, well, more than twice of what the standard western nation uses... The term 'Only' doesn't really apply to it.

RL Western Nations are geared towards fighting different wars than those found in NS, namely terrorism. A large conscript army doesn't help you here, unless you plan on locking down an entire country and thus removing means of support (ala the British in the 2nd Boer War). Also political realities prevent western democracies from having large armies, just look at how much of a stink a few deaths causes in America.

1%?!?, 3%!?!, I don't know about you guys, but I keep 10% of my population in the armed forces at all times!

Hence why you will generally lose in your escalated conflict RPs?

Seeing as 1.3% is, well, more than twice of what the standard western nation uses... The term 'Only' doesn't really apply to it.

Like said before, NS is far different from RL. Here 1.3% is small while in the RL, 1.3% is big. Anyways its below the standard 2% during peacetime.

RL Western Nations are geared towards fighting different wars than those found in NS, namely terrorism.Not really terrorism... But still, partly correct. Given NS' somewhat WW1esque tendencies, somewhat larger militaries might be a better idea than actual RL western standards.

But even this 'larger' militaries will still have to recognise basic economic realities. Everything over 1% peacetime remains unsupportable, if you want to keep a decent standard of living (And, together with that, a decent quality of your equipment), barring outside support, outside support that has to come from nations not suffering from the inherent problems large standing armies bring with them.

Which is to say, if you want to run an Israel deal, find yourself an EU and an US to support you with their monetary resources.

The funny thing being that in NS, this doesn't work, given a lack of powers capable of supporting multibillion nations in this way.

Of course, there are other problems. Given deterrence, it is completely unnecessary for an isolationist nation to keep an excessive military. you can easily go down to 0.1%, keep a significant nuclear arsenal, and call it good.

Interventionists will have another problem: Deterrence makes interventionism impossible.

Imperialists, are, well, completely fucked in the head, since imperialism in NS is quite possibly the most laughable idea I can think of. Sure, NS is a kinda ww1esque scenario, but it kind of lacks the technologically, economically and demographically inferior potential colonies. And those are the ONLY ones an imperialist could take.

In the end, you have a europe ww1 design lacking the desire for colonies (Can't have a desire when you don't have examples or possibilities) while having lots of deterrence.

And amazingly enough, this is actually suggesting militaries that are smaller than the ones you find IRL, since even the small 'crisis-management' you see IRL isn't actually present.

Like said before, NS is far different from RL. Here 1.3% is small while in the RL, 1.3% is big. Anyways its below the standard 2% during peacetime.Odd standard, you have... I have something between 0.1% & 1% (Depending on how you count). TIOR has 0.2% (According to what he said on IRC). And so on. You aren't claiming that your forces are better equipped/ trained than those, are you?

Thus, your 'small and well trained' claim is, quite simply, falsified. If anything, it is so when compared to certain, even more excessive nations, but it is most definitely not a statement having any kind of vaguely universal validity.

Odd standard, you have... I have something between 0.1% & 1% (Depending on how you count). TIOR has 0.2% (According to what he said on IRC). And so on. You aren't claiming that your forces are better equipped/ trained than those, are you?

Thus, your 'small and well trained' claim is, quite simply, falsified. If anything, it is so when compared to certain, even more excessive nations, but it is most definitely not a statement having any kind of vaguely universal validity.

Take into account they are much bigger than me. I also am not adding any new soldiers so gradually it will fall under 1%. I give it 3 RL days to fall under the 1% margin. Also could you stop putting words in my mouth. I never said I had the best trained army or anything like that I said I keep to the ideology of smaller forces equal better training. I can spend more on training of individual forces more. But most people in NS have a 2% peacetime military with going above only in war-time. I think 1.3% and sliding is good. That number allows me to maintain an economy while a small force.

For the navy I took the number of carrier groups in the USA's navy, increased it slightly because of Nianacio's unusual style of carrier (small, conventionally-powered, multipurpose), and then adjusted it for my nation's population.
For the army I counted the USA's divisions and adjusted the number for Nianacio's population. I haven't updated it for a long time though, so the personnel in combat groups (who aren't all combatants) make up less than 0.02% of the population. They're likely the world's best if they stay away from areas open enough for highly mechanized combat, though.
The air force is part of the army, and I don't remember coming up with a number for it.
The space force is basically just a bunch of satellites; I looked at the GPS system to see how many I'd need to cover the whole planet.
The militia is every citizen, but of course it can't all fight at once, and it isn't really under control of the government, anyway.

I don't have numbers for the number of people in the military, or how many of X system it has, but this method is much easier for me and makes more sense. ("I attack with 5 million soldiers and 1,000 tanks." "...It's just a mob with no support...?") Ideally I'd have numbers for both major units and whole military branches, but I have no clue how many non-combat personnel outside the divisions there should be.

For the navy I took the number of carrier groups in the USA's navy, increased it slightly because of Nianacio's unusual style of carrier (small, conventionally-powered, multipurpose), and then adjusted it for my nation's population.
For the army I counted the USA's divisions and adjusted the number for Nianacio's population. I haven't updated it for a long time though, so the combat personnel make up less than 0.02% of the population. They're likely the world's best if they stay away from areas open enough for highly mechanized combat, though.
The air force is part of the army, and I don't remember coming up with a number for it.
The space force is basically just a bunch of satellites; I looked at the GPS system to see how many I'd need to cover the whole planet.
The militia is every citizen, but of course it can't all fight at once, and it isn't really under control of the government, anyway.

I don't have numbers for the number of people in the military, or how many of X system it has, but this method is much easier for me and makes more sense. ("I attack with 5 million soldiers and 1,000 tanks." "...It's just a mob with no support...?") Ideally I'd have numbers for both major units and whole military branches, but I have no clue how many non-combat personnel outside the divisions there should be.
Your noncombat ratio for your land forces should be 4 to 1.
Navy should be 3 to 1
and air force should 9 to 1.
And space forces should be 20 to 1.

I don't have an army yet, but I am going to as soon as I hit 500 million people. I was thinking about a FT nation.

Your noncombat ratio for your land forces should be 4 to 1.
Navy should be 3 to 1
and air force should 9 to 1.
And space forces should be 20 to 1.There are noncombatants within divisions, though. In infantry regiments from WWII, the combat infantry ranged from 34% to only 15% of the division (source (http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/stuff/bayonet_strength.htm)). The remainder does include combat support, but that's a lot of people within the division who won't be fighting in any way.

There are noncombatants within divisions, though. In infantry regiments from WWII, the combat infantry ranged from 34% to only 15% of the division (source (http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/stuff/bayonet_strength.htm)). The remainder does include combat support, but that's a lot of people within the division who won't be fighting in any way.

Yep. And a modern division has an even smaller amount. At the corps level, it will be further reduced.

4:1 works at the combat battalion or brigade level, because support units are usually at the division and corps level.

Here's a run down of the percentages of a division dedicated to support, as listed by Jim Dunnigan in How to Make War (a book I advise any armchair general to buy, or at least borrow from the library), with some notes:

Engineers
2-10%
1 battalion minimum, up to a brigade
These guys build everything your forces need - roads, bridges, fortifications, entrenchments, etc. They also maintain and repair those.
They also provide utilities such as power and water.
Plus, they're very handy for defeating enemy fortifications and defenses.
And they are the people to call on when dealing with mines.

Without a minimum number of engineers, your units cannot manuver due to lack of facilities, have no power, running water, or any other utilities, have no fortifications or defenses beyond a simple trench, have no means of defeating wire entanglements and other defensive obsticals, and are stuck with good old "Polish mine deterctors".

Signals
3-12%
1 Battalion

Signals are your communications units. These should be embeded at the platoon level , with an RTO, at least. Higher level signals units operate your radio nets, satellite communications, and so on.
Without these units your commanders have no means of relaying orders or recieving information.

Chemical
1-4%
1 Company or battalion
These units employee chemical weapons and defenses (incliuding decontamination). They are also responsible for smoke scree generation
With all the WMDS running around in NS, you should definately consider having some.

Transport
8-16%
1 Battalion
The delivery units.
Without these you aren't going anywhere. Plus, you'll be out of supply - no ammo, food, or anything else.
Remember that tanks cannont move long distance on their own.

Military Police
1-2%
1 Company
The cops. They direct traffic, hold prisoners, investigate crimes, provide security, and conduct counter intelligence.

Medical
2-5%
Battalion
Does this need any explanation?

Maintanance
3-10%
1 Battalion
Again, this shouldn't need explanation.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/intro.htm is a good place to start.

The military of a nation (to me) depends upon three key factors.

Tech Level-The more advanced the technology, the fewer the troops needed to control such things as generally one would think that the machines and such would be more simplistic to control. Also, because of the increased power and cost, there would be less need/ability to purchase such things. I as an FT nation use a mere .025% of my total population, the majority of things being run by robots.

Location-Also very imporatant. As stated earlier, depending on where you are, certain aspects of your army need more or less emphasis. An island nation would want a greater naval force than army, a planet-controlling nation would generally want a space fleet as opposed to naval one,etc.

Funding-Whether or not you have the funds to equip and pay for your army correctly will also effect it. However, if you choose to use a draft, the problem is a lesser one.

The military of a nation (to me) depends upon three key factors.

Tech Level-The more advanced the technology, the fewer the troops needed to control such things as generally one would think that the machines and such would be more simplistic to control. Also, because of the increased power and cost, there would be less need/ability to purchase such things. I as an FT nation use a mere .025% of my total population, the majority of things being run by robots.

Your second and third points were good, but this is a problem.

More technologically advanced forces have a larger amnount of equipment to operate and maintain. Compare the late 20th century kit for a soldier to the combat suits (Land Warrior, FELIN, etc http://www.defense-update.com/features/du-4-04/feature-combatsuits.htm) that are starting to come on line. The later have many more components that will need maintainance. Then compare powered armor. The same goes for AFVs. In fact it has been suggested that future AFVs may well need a ground crew similar to combat aircraft, due to their complexity.

You're right. I was tired last night, and I wasn't quite sure of what I was typing in the first place. Go figure. :rolleyes:

You're right. I was tired last night, and I wasn't quite sure of what I was typing in the first place. Go figure. :rolleyes:

:D No probs.