NationStates Jolt Archive

Are there any rules governing how many soldiers/tanks/ships/nukes a nation has? Obviously it cannot excede the nation's population, but is there any limit?

Yes there is. Mostly a nations army, is around 2 to 5% of the population.
But societys, you know, somebody who is called like: soviet society, is a organisation, that means that every man in it is fighting, but a narmal nation, lets say 5%.

So, my nation of 7million has an army of 350,000, right?

Yes. That is a normal thing to have at 7 million.
And i think like 2000 tanks, 500 ships and 0 nukes. You first need to build nukes.

How do you build nukes? Are there rules governing this?

There can be separation between peacetime/wartime army. For example, Finland had population of 3,7 million and standing army of about 30 000 before WW2. After recalling reservists and training new troops at 1944 it had 540 000. Plus 300 000 woman auxiliaries. Which caused considerable trouble, and lack of food.

Yes, but this is a game. You got like 5% right?
But he is right, In a war, you can send boys of 18 to fight. But if you are in peace you wont make 18 year old fight for you right?

However many you like, if you can justify it and RP the consequences. The 5% rule is thrown around a lot, and most recognise that having one in twenty of your people in the military is a strain... but 2% is also crazily high. Most developed nations these days have closer to 0.25% or something. Getting even close to 1% generally requires a draft in some degree, and pisses everyone off no end (then puts guns in their hands).

But he is right, In a war, you can send boys of 18 to fight. But if you are in peace you wont make 18 year old fight for you right?

My nation has national service so maybe...

Would you add an extra percentage for nations with National Service?

I think than it is like 6% but if you send EVERY man, it coud go around 35%. I dont think that is true, but it coud.

There aren't any real "rules" about how many troops you can have, but you do have to be slightly realistic. For example, real world figures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_total_troops) show most nations with <50 troops per 1,000 citizens (the U.S. has 43), so if you had the same as the United States, your army would be about 300,000 strong. You could also assert a more militaristic style of roleplay, and assume 100 or 150 troops per thousand (roughly 700,000 to 1,000,000 strong). But you also have to take your budgetary stats (http://nstracker.jfsoftware.com/index.php?nation=Parilisa) into account. If your economy is only average and you're only spending 13% of your budget on defense, you can't claim to have a 700,000-man army. You don't have the funds to support them.

I think that there are kind of rules. I mean, you cant by yourself choose how many you spend on it. So it wont be fair. I got like 5% of my nation, and that is enough.

yeah 5% is big enough any bigger and its just too unrealistic

If you've got the money then you could also make up for a shortage of domestic manpower by hiring LOTS of foreign mercenaries: That's what RL Sweden did during the 'Great Northern War', and at one stage they had an army equal to about 10% of their national population in size...

yeah 5% is big enough any bigger and its just too unrealisticWhy? Iran's military is 18% of its population. If you have the money to do it, you can build up quite an army. But I'd wait until your population is at least into the hundreds of millions before you start setting definite figures.

Iran's military is not 18% of it's population - that's what Iran claim's to have. I'm not sure what the US/EU/UN says they have but It'll propbably be closer to 5% with most being reservists.

That's probably a fair point, but it doesn't mean an NS nation can't build up an army larger than 5% if they have the economy and budget to support it.

I'm from II, so I know this stuff by heart, technically.

The most a nation can have without straining their economy is 5%. However, during a foreign invasion against a nation, the miltiary can temporarily expand to 12%- You simply can't have more than that, however.

As for nukes, the general rule of thumb we follow in II is this: No nukes at all until you reach 100 million, unless another nation that can make nukes sets them up in your nation.

I haven't seen you around II though, so I don't see why that would matter.

As for nukes, the general rule of thumb we follow in II is this: No nukes at all until you reach 100 million, unless another nation that can make nukes sets them up in your nation.Which, incidentally, is pretty damn stupid.

Which, incidentally, is pretty damn stupid.

In keeping with the rest of the post and indeed this thread. 5% without straining your economy? What the hell does, "straining your economy" mean? Compared to having nobody in the military, 0.001% is a strain... or a boon for the government spending it induces. Don't we have some sort of common-sense stick to break-in newcomers?

I'm from II, so I know this stuff by heart, technically.

The most a nation can have without straining their economy is 5%. However, during a foreign invasion against a nation, the miltiary can temporarily expand to 12%- You simply can't have more than that, however.

As for nukes, the general rule of thumb we follow in II is this: No nukes at all until you reach 100 million, unless another nation that can make nukes sets them up in your nation.

I concur with MGH on this one 100 million before you can have nukes? Israel has nukes yet doesn't even have a population of 10% of this 'rule'.

What about countries, in the way they have RPed and decided on issues have spent most of their money on defence and related issues, or even having their country as a sort of military community?

While I understand the basis of some guidelines, to suggest that people shouldn't RP with nukes unless they have at least 100 million people is a bit absurd, my nation has had nukes for awhile now despite being under the so called rule of thumb, of course I have RPed it like that as my nation didn't just appear out of thing air IC but has been around for hundreds of years, in saying that I also RP a set population despite what the NS might tell me.

Iran's military is not 18% of it's population - that's what Iran claim's to have. I'm not sure what the US/EU/UN says they have but It'll propbably be closer to 5% with most being reservists.

I dont really trust the US. But i agree that iraq dont got 18% of its population.
However, i think that most of iraq man are terrorists, not all ofcourse, but it isnt really a... you know... peaceful country; blowing yourself up, killing 8 innocent...

I dont really trust the US. But i agree that iraq dont got 18% of its population.
However, i think that most of iraq man are terrorists, not all ofcourse, but it isnt really a... you know... peaceful country; blowing yourself up, killing 8 innocent...

Unless I'm underestimating your sense of humour, I... well, apparently I don't quite know what to say. That post sets a new benchmark in fail, anyway.

O come on. Everybody know that the US isnt realy nice right? All those wars, and i dont mean that the people in the US are evil, but bush is very evil you know.

Are there any rules governing how many soldiers/tanks/ships/nukes a nation has? Obviously it cannot excede the nation's population, but is there any limit?

There are no rules persay, just agreed upon norms.

Realistic players generally tend to accept 5% of the pop. as the maximum total war limit, with >1% as the peacetime standard.

Most people here don't play for realism, and accept 5% as a peacetime limit and 10% as a total war limit.

A few really wanky players claim 10% as acceptable in peacetime.

If you make every man older than 18 to fight it is not.
Than it coud be more.

Countries that have recently lost a war often have sanctions stopping them from having a large military. Germany after WWII for instance.

This is not a Gameplay issue. You're talking about roleplaying your armies, so I'm moving this to II.

O come on. Everybody know that the US isnt realy nice right? All those wars, and i dont mean that the people in the US are evil, but bush is very evil you know.

For only this post, just this one time, I will break character to contest every contention made in this statement.

In the interest of not going off-topic, I invite Roef to make another thread in the proper board, link to it here, and this discussion may continue.

On Topic:

My military's operating at about the 1.5% level, which is a lot of troops to provide logistics for, even when they're deployed at home. How some tiny nations can run around with millions of men, thousands of tanks and thousands of ships is simply mind-boggling. My defense budget is nearly 40% bigger than the current U.S. budget, and I can't even afford all of that stuff.

Well, i'm a small nation and have enough troops. It's all about keeping it realistic. Don't say you have 1 million Bismarcks, when your pop is like 5 million. Keep it small, and just slowly build it up. You need to keep in mind the logistics needed, the crew, the cost, and the time.

I concur with MGH on this one 100 million before you can have nukes? Israel has nukes yet doesn't even have a population of 10% of this 'rule'.

That's because the US set them up...

For tanks, roughly speaking, depends what you want in an overall military.

For an American-style military with great naval power projection, air cover, great tanks and well trained and supported troops, take a ratio of no less then 350 troops per tank. That includes stored reserve tanks, training tanks, and active tanks. Generally about 15% of them will be stored, another 15% training/reserve, and the rest active. That's total troops of all armed forces, so if you have 350,000 troops total, you can have like 1000 well maintained and supported high-end tanks crewed by great crews.

Or you can go the Soviet model, lots of cheap crappy tanks poorly supported and crewed by conscripts. You can get as many as one tank for say, every 130 troops, doing this. But at minimum 50-60% of them are in storage, with maybe 10% of those stored tanks rotated around for reserve or training, with another 10% dedicated training/reserve, and the rest active. But keep in mind you're running around with vastly outdated designs making up the bulk (60% or more) of your forces, and designs outdated by a generation making up the rest with maybe a tiny tiny current generation number in active use (Like, 1%, usually less).

And that's a rough rule of thumb. The better the tank, the more people you need to support it, the less you can have for a given troop number.

If you make every man older than 18 to fight it is not.
Than it coud be more.

Take a look at a typical age distribution (http://www.censusscope.org/us/chart_age.html). Roughly 30% of the population are productive/military age (18-65) males. There's roughly the same % of females. And 40% are outside the age limits. Generally speaking, about 15% of the population's unfit for various reasons. That gives you 25% of the pop. available for economic production, given that you've excluded women already. That gives you zero economic/productive base if you put all your men in uniform. Even if you piut all the women to work, that's still not doable.

(It's this sort of wankery that, in part, keeps me from RPing here...)

O come on. Everybody know that the US isnt realy nice right? All those wars, and i dont mean that the people in the US are evil, but bush is very evil you know.

Oh. It wasn't your sense of humour, then. That's sad.

I dont really trust the US. But i agree that iraq dont got 18% of its population.
However, i think that most of iraq man are terrorists, not all ofcourse, but it isnt really a... you know... peaceful country; blowing yourself up, killing 8 innocent...

I was no getting at your distrust of the US (on the figures), rather on the fact that you don't seem to have grasped that everyone else was talking about Iran, not Iraq, and that you think, "most of iraq man" are terrorists.

Arr, this thread has drained much of my life-force.

Simple advice: read the stickies, particularly in International Incidents. This (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=543994) is definitely the one to browse through to seek the answers you find. In particular the Unofficial guide to war in nationstates (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=380336) that most of the received wisdom about percentages that has been said in this thread comes from.

As for nukes, the general rule of thumb we follow in II is this: No nukes at all until you reach 100 million, unless another nation that can make nukes sets them up in your nation.
In RL the United Kingdom developed & built its own nukes after WWII, at a time when Congress was (despite there having been British & Canadian support for the Manhattan Project) banning the transfer of the relevant knowledge & weaponry from the USA to any outside nation, and did so with a population of about 50 million... So I'd say that that would be a more reasonable threshold, although the project might well strain the economy of a nation of that size...

I hope this of use to some of you.

Just consider the average income for every person in your country, unemployment level, industrial and technological power of the nation.

A third world country could reasonably afford to arm and train a large number of light infantry to fight, where as a rich industrialized nation would shirk at the prospect of arming their citizens due to the upkeep involved.

The third world country could buy a huge stack of AK47's and pay their soldiers a few thousand dollars a year to hold their country. The soldiers could fight on as guerillas even after the country was invaded by a large neighbour.

The Industrialised nation would be different however. Who would want to get killed in combat for $150 a week when they can earn $500-2000 in the private sector? Richer countries must pay much more to maintain their soldiers, plus give them incentive to get killed. (I have heard that some US troops and mercenaries in Iraq are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to serve there).
An industrialized nation would make up for this by purchasing support weaponry for its better armed and trained troops, relying on force of arms rather than sheer numerical force.


Nuclear weapons require hundreds of kilos of uranium to make the simplest nuclear device (1 megaton). That uranium must be refined into a weapons-grade material (a proccess that takes considerable time) and unbelievable amounts of power to run the refinement proccess, made in an immense plant that is difficult to hide from prying eyes.

Now you have the fuel, you must tinker around to create the exact circumstances required for a nuclear reaction to occur, requiring testing of the device(it's no good to you if it is a dud...) which means you need to permenantly destroy a large section of land to blow the thing up. That means you have to now build a second bomb, which now takes you nearly as long to build as the first one you tested, longer if the first one didn't work like you wanted it to.

Finally, you must build a delivery device. That requires the ability to build rockets or jets capable of carrying not just a few kilos of explosives, but need to be able to carry TONS of payload over long distances with a degree of accuracy that your typical bottle rocket can't do. Essentially that means that you pretty much need a Space Program to build a Nuclear missile capable of hitting a target more than a few hundred miles from where you launch it from. You could use a bomber, but the bomb needs to be delivered at extreme altitude to protect the crew from the effects of the bomb, plus you must hope that the plane isn't shot down en route.

Suitcase Nukes are essentially a pipe dream created by someone who doesn't understand what is involved in creating a nuclear reaction. What IS possible however, is a "Dirty Bomb", a large case of normal explosives that is packed with radioactive or biological agents, designed to contaminate an area with nuclear waste.

A third world country can easily create a dirty bomb (especially in nation states, too many rogue nations selling uranium illegally i'm afraid...) provided they can find a seller of uranium and a suitcase of C4. The problem is the stupid terrorist carrying the uranium has to get it through customs without first setting of every alarm in the airport and not dying of radiation poisoning before he gets out of the luggage return (and killing everyone in the area as well).

I suppose your military could be bigger then 5% of your population, but keep this up for a long time, they'll be luckily enough just to get rifles.

I RP my nation as a huge nation with a population millions more than China, 1.064 Billion, with my army being 5% I worked out it would be 53,200,000 strong. Is this correct or did I make a flaw with saying 1.064 billion is 1,064,000,000?

(My NS nation is larger)

I RP my nation as a huge nation with a population millions more than China, 1.064 Billion, with my army being 5% I worked out it would be 53,200,000 strong. Is this correct or did I make a flaw with saying 1.064 billion is 1,064,000,000?

(My NS nation is larger)

Technically, you're right. However, food for thought: China has a military of 2.2 million, or .2% of its population. The United States has an active military of 1.6 million, or .5% of its population. Only second or third world countries have militaries more than a couple percent of their population.


In RL the United Kingdom developed & built its own nukes after WWII, at a time when Congress was (despite there having been British & Canadian support for the Manhattan Project) banning the transfer of the relevant knowledge & weaponry from the USA to any outside nation, and did so with a population of about 50 million... So I'd say that that would be a more reasonable threshold, although the project might well strain the economy of a nation of that size...
Ah, but you're forgetting that the Brits still had a considerable portion of their empire at the time. They'd just lost India, but still were able to draw from a considerable amount of resources. Altogether, the British Empire was probably easily over 100 million.

They'd just lost India,

Jai Hind!

O come on. Everybody know that the US isnt realy nice right? All those wars, and i dont mean that the people in the US are evil, but bush is very evil you know.

Ahem. I've got dibs on destroying this moron's nation.

0.2% of the population in my case. Fully standing army which functions like a business(literally), very selective, heavily mechanized and focused on mobility and on a variant of the People's War to overcome superior numbers. Or basically, it is trained to avoid major confrontations while recruiting guerrillas and teaching liberated people how to fight on their way against a dictatorship. Or to work together with local militias and reserves in the case of an invasion against the Confederacy.

I have a 30 soldiers per tank. I know it's excessive, but they manage to afford it. And that 0.2% can raise to 2% during war, specially because the payment of the soldiers is a share over the profit of the Private Defense Agency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_defense_agency) that employs them.

Ahem. I've got dibs on destroying this moron's nation.

Leave me some leftovers.

Here's a good look at what a 5% standing army would look like, done up by a highly respected old poster who knew what was what.

The rest of tha thread's good as well.


North Korean Military
WARNING: Long Post Ahead!!!!

Well, with me being gone for some time due to my computer troubles, and with the acquisition of a few new sources, I decided it might be time to take an in-depth look at some armies that your nations’ militaries might be modeled after. For starters, we’ll take a look at the now famous North Korean (DPRK) military, the one that breaks the rules.

Some Basic Stats:
Country: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (aka North Korea)
Population: 22.5 million
GDP: $22.26 billion
GDP Per Capita: $989.33
Active Military: 1.1 million
Portion of Population: 4.89%
Military Spending: $5.2174 billion
Portion of GDP: 23.4%
Spending Per Active Soldier: $4743.09
Military Nature: All-or-nothing offensive
Infrastructure: Poor
Logistics Support: Poor
Experience: Low
Training: Low
Equipment: Obsolescent


What it Means:
North Korea is a relatively small nation with a very big army. However, the military is poorly funded, and thus training and equipment suffer. Only a small fraction of the equipment found in the DPRK military is less than 30 years old now, and much of the equipment dates all the way back to the Korean War or World War II. Due to lack of capital, attempts to rearm the military have been largely unsuccessful, and indeed, a good portion of the equipment has had to be discarded due to the inability to maintain it. Also, due in part to the high proportion of the population serving in the active military, there is a distinct lack of support services for the military, including spare parts and munitions as well as medical supplies and food. Obviously, with little infrastructure and extremely limited air and sea transport, North Korea has virtually no capability to launch major operations outside of the Korean Peninsula, and even there, they are extremely limited.
Now, despite this, the DPRK military is entirely offensive in nature, with almost its entire force being within a few dozen kilometers of the border with South Korea. However, with such poor infrastructure, North Korea must rely on a blitzkrieg-style attack and a swift victory if it is to have any hope of conquering its neighbor. Due to the deficiencies listed above, there is no way of providing for a protracted war or a second offensive. If North Korea fails to achieve a knockout blow on the first try, it is extremely likely to face total defeat at the hands of its intended targets.
On the other hand, it’s important to remember that North Korea has a strong ally to its north in China, leaving only 1 hostile border-South Korea, which is the only place that needs any real forces. China can easily help their North Korean allies in protecting both the air and sea around the nation, helping ward off intrusions even in times of war.

Equipment:
Again, North Korea relies mostly on cast-off equipment provided by China or the former Soviet Union, or license-built copies of such equipment. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to find accurate information on even the relative numbers of various units in service, owing to the secrecy of the regime, and the best info is already four years old, but for lack of better info, that’s what I have to work with. Now, though they rely heavily on them, the most modern tanks in the North Korean arsenal are vintage T-62s, dating back to the beginning of the Vietnam War. Even worse, these only make up 1/5 of the 3500 strong tank force. These were once closer to 1/4 of the total force, but there was a phenomenal decline (1800 to 800) from 1995 to 2000. Increases in Type 59s (a Chinese copy of the T-54), combined with a reduction in overall forces have helped compensate for this gap. By contrast, T-54 tanks and their derivatives (T-55, Type 59), which date back to the 1950s, make up some 60% of the North Korean tank force, with the remainder being light amphibious tanks (PT-76 and the slightly more modern M1985) and vintage WWII T-34s.
For those units that actually have mechanized infantry, the primary force comes from VTT-323s (license-built Chinese YW-531 tracked APCs) backed up by a small force of BMP-1s. In lesser units, these are replaced with Soviet BTR series wheeled APCs, or even trucks. With the exception of a handful of BTR-80As supposedly in service, all APC designs in DPRK service date back to at least the 1970s. As such, there are often survivability issues. Mobility could be an issue to, but since the tanks are just as old, this doesn’t really matter.
The main strength of the North Korean military is their artillery force, and while the systems are rather old, sheer numbers give them potent firepower. As part of a modernization effort, many tank chassis were stripped of their turrets and mated with towed artillery guns to provide quick, cheap self-propelled artillery (possibly explaining what happened to those 1000 T-62s). Because of this, there is now a much greater proportion of mobile, and thus more survivable, artillery. The primary forces here are self-propelled 122mm and 152mm howitzers, with their towed variants also being prominent in the infantry divisions. This is backed up by a relatively small force of 170mm field guns with impressive 50-60 km range, and a decent force of older Soviet 130mm field guns, primarily self-propelled, but with a few towed units still around. Finally, there are a large number of 107mm, 122mm, and 240mm rocket systems, and a handful of SSM launchers that fire SCUD/Na-Dong or shorter-ranged FROG missiles.
Air defense for advancing forces is made up primarily of towed antiaircraft guns, many of which date back to the Korean War or WWII, and these are backed up by shoulder-fired SAMs, primarily old Strela missiles, though with some newer Iglas. There are also a few hundred self-propelled antiaircraft guns to defend mechanized forces. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the North Korean arsenal to protect maneuver units from targets beyond 15 km, and very few defenses against something as close as 10 km. This leaves ground units extremely vulnerable to air attack.
Finally, anti-tank forces round things out. A few hundred towed 76.2mm and 100mm guns are backed up by a number of vehicle-mounted and infantry-carried ATGM systems, the most modern of which is the Soviet Konkurs (AT-5), yet another vintage 1970s unit, this one in the class of early TOW missiles. Again, this leaves limited effectiveness against heavy western armor, and with the US deployment of M1 tanks, and the subsequent South Korean tanks derived from them, these anti-tank systems are sorely outclassed.

The North Korean Air Force is a little better off, with some 40 MiG-29 fighters and 35 Su-25 ground attack aircraft. Though these designs are becoming a bit dated, they are nonetheless excellent aircraft, especially when the rest of the North Korean military is compared. They also have a fleet of 87 MD-500 helicopters (the civilian version of the US OH/AH/MH-6 series), many of which have been modified as light attack helicopters. These are backed up by about two dozen Mi-24 Hinds. Though both helicopter models date back to the Vietnam war, they’re still among the better performers today. The 15 Mi-8 helicopters are also old but solid machines. On the other hand, the rest of the force is rather low-end. Of the 400 remaining fighter aircraft, about 100 each are variants of the ancient MiG-17 and MiG-19, backed up by 150 MiG-21 variants and 45 MiG-23s. Ground attack is handled by 80 1950s Il-28 Beagle bombers and 20 Su-7 attack aircraft of similar age. The 40 Chinese Q-5 strike aircraft are a bit more modern, dating back to the Vietnam War, but are still rather poor performers. The bulk of the transport helicopter fleet is made up of smaller, and older, Mi-2 and Z-5 (Chinese Mi-4) helicopters, which have only limited capabilities. The primary transport aircraft are the 300 An-2s, which are actually biplanes dating to just after WWII. These are supported by a handful of more modern Vietnam era transport planes. Finally, the missiles employed by the North Korean Air Force are also dated. These include the AA-2 (a copy of the Korean War AIM-9B Sidewinder) and AA-7 (early AIM-7 Sparrow equivalent) for their fighters, as well as the 1960s era SA-2, SA-3, and SA-5 missiles that provide air defense for the country. Most notably, all three of these SAM models are employed from fixed sites, so their locations are easily noted.

And finally there’s the navy. Again, this force is greatly assisted by Chinese naval forces that could aid it in wartime, but otherwise fulfills the primary patrol and local landing operations that could be expected of it. The largest ships are a trio of 1300-1900 ton light frigates, which are notably outdated. These are backed up by a handful of similarly dated small corvettes and a few dozen missile boats, combining to provide the only real ASuW capability in the North Korean Navy. About 100 small torpedo boats, of limited utility, also exist, with about 160 patrol vessels. A modest amphibious force can transport a few battalions short distances, but has no major landing capability. The real terror of the North Korean navy is the two dozen or so Soviet Whiskey and Romeo class submarines, dating back to the 1950s. Though outdated, water conditions around the peninsula allow these units to become a potential threat to modern naval forces. The primary antishipping weapon is the Chinese HY-2/C-201 “Silkworm” missile, which is a copy of the Soviet SS-N-2 missile, which is similarly outdated.


Requirements for copying the North Korean Military:
1. Fair economy or better.
2. RP a Basket Case economy (if listed as Fair) or similar drop
3. Have 90%+ of equipment at least 30-50 years behind tech level
4. Have someone providing large amounts of civil and military aid, including cast-off equipment at extremely low cost
5. Have a solid dictatorship or similarly totalitarian regime (remember, the more freedom your people have, the less they’ll like the policies)
6. Do not RP any major conflicts beyond your immediate borders.
7. RP extremely limited capacity for sustained conflict (ie, severe supply shortages after a few days)
8. Have a very good IC reason for such an extreme military

If you do all this, you too can have 5% of you population in the military and 25% of your GDP going into the military. But remember, it's a lot more impressive on paper than in reality.
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=297064

Hello all,

Some if not most of you don't know me,

but for all intent's and purposes I'm the Armed Republic of Cascade States,

I have some information on the Realistic creation of Military forces which may be of use to you.

I will give you the short version now,
and if you want I can send you an expanded version later.

Basically The United States of America spends an estimated $ 1 milion USD
for every infantry soldier they send into the field.

Our Marines receive more, I don't know the exact number,
and Special forces receive roughly two to three times that much.

It takes almost a whole year to train a USA infantry men today.
And fighting men only make up about 10 to 20 % of the total USA ARMY
figures.
The rest are taken up in medical, logistals ( Most are logistics supports )
and various other things which keep an army going.
Armor, that is Tanks and Bradly's ect there are only about 3,000-5,000
Abrams tanks for the USA Army, National Guard and Marines.
Each tank takes aproximately 200 men just to support it ( logistical )
and each member of the crew requires More training than an Infantry soldier

Air forces,
Planes cost a huge investment of cash upfront,
and the logistical burden doesn't end there. I've heard from several Air
force friends of mine that the average jet in action.
( Combat or just regular use ) takes about 1,000 man hours of maintainance
per 24 hours of flight time,
More if it is really in combat ( shot up but returned home )
It also takes 200 support men to keep a single Jet fighter in the air,
( this was quoted for the F-15 )
F-22 Raptors, B-52 Bombers and all your "more awesome" air craft will
be much more expensive to maintain.
Don't forget to buy support planes, it's not just fighters,
You need Airborne Early Warning Aircraft,
Mid-air Refuellers, Surveillance planes, transports, usually Jamming planes.
If you want to be " A World Power" air force.

If you are only interested in National defense I can help you build a plan which
will greatly increase your Nation's ability to fight and minimize the risks to
your troops.

Navy's are only good to do two things.
One;
The defense of your coastal areas from casual incidents, piracy and boarder
disputes like underground oil.
these tasks can be done by modern built desel electric subs like the
type 209 built now by the Germans and used by a number of small countries
in the real world.
Or small surface ships which boast Gas turbine Engines to give them the ablility to make fast runs to do interdiction, but limited endurance and smaller
weapons carried on board.
( think 6-12 cruise missiles, a couple of 120mm Cannons, AA systems )
But not dozens of missiles, and other Big ticket items.

Two;
Going out to Punch someone in the nose.
And who doesn't enjoy that?
Everyone occasionally loves a massive battle of deep sea ships...
You've all seen the
" My fleet of ( insert some country ) has
10 USS Nimitz class carriers
30 Areigh Burke fleet defense ships ( think Cruiser sized )
40 Sruance Escorts
50 Oliver Hazard Perry Point ships

4 OHIO class SSBN subs
24 Sea Wolf / Los Angeles / Virginia Class SSN subs "

But almost no one remembers the Henry J. Kaiser ships
to refuel the carrier's jet fuel and replenish fresh water.

My list of errors goes on if you'd care to read it.

It's amusing to see people RP'ing democratic, industrialized nations as having 5% of their population under arms. That's never happened in human history, except when those nations have been involved in wars to the death, such as WWII.

The only time you would see those type of military numbers would be if a nation was on the verge of invading a neighbor, or expecting an invasion. Even then, the large majority of such a military would consist of reserves called up to deal with the national emergency.

Other than as mentioned above, what possible reason would a nation have to keep 5% of its population in the military if no existential threat existed on its borders? That would be incredibly wasteful and harmful to the economy. A modern, industrialized nation can easily meet its defensive needs with a military that is 0.5% of its population, or even less.

And the preposterously large navies are even more difficult to justify. Blue water navies exist to project power, but unless the nation in question has long-term needs to project power across the globe, there is no reason for it to spend decades and potentially trillions of Dollars on a blue water navy. (another pet peeve- people seem to think that putting together a carrier-based fleet is as easy as buying or building the carriers themselves. That is simply not the case- there are only a handful of nations capable of operating carrier-based air, and they have almost all been at it for decades. It takes a long time to develop the institutional knowledge and experience to effectively run such complicated weapon platforms).

Part of the problem, is that people on Nation States use the numbers from their nations as a basis for RP'ing. That doesn't work, IMO- my nation supposedly has a population of over 900 million, but I ignore that and RP it as having around 100 million (New Potomac is an industrialized, democratic island nation, sort of like the UK or Japan). You see nations with 5 billion citizens, with people RP'ing them using those numbers. That's completely unrealistic. I think to make the RP'ing more worthwhile, people on NS should figure out how their country compares to real world nations- are you big but relatively poor like India or China? Small and prosperous like Singapore? A mature mid-size democracy like Germany? An unstable third-world nation like Kenya? But everyone seems to want their nation to be a super-rich country of 5 billion, with 5% of the population under arms. That's completely beyond the pale of realism.

But everyone seems to want their nation to be a super-rich country of 5 billion, with 5% of the population under arms. That's completely beyond the pale of realism.

And people wonder why the good RPers are either very exclusive or wander away...

And people wonder why the good RPers are either very exclusive or wander away... I see some RP threads where every country basically sends millions of soldiers into each war, regardless of national interests, economic considerations or thoughts about what kind of political results that would have back home.

To make the RP'ing worthwhile, I think the most important thing to look at is how nations in the real world deal with various situations. Look at how difficult it has been for the US, the richest, most militarily powerful country in the world, to wage what is a relatively small low level counter-insurgency. And yet people on NS want to RP massive invasions of far-away nations without any considerations of how the heck you could actually make that work in anything close to reality.

There's almost no thought given to realistic diplomatic relations between nations- I've seen RP'ing where one nuclear-armed country rushed headlong into a military confrontation with another. Real-world decision-makers simply do not do such things.

I think RP'ing on NS would be worthwhile if more people gave more thought to the real-world aspects of their respective nations.

On the otherhand, just to defend the multi-billion nations, remember that the NS universe is very undefined geographically. Geographically, it isn't the zero-sum game we have in real life, so there's theoretically room for huge nations here.

Also, nation often play FT, especially bigger ones, and that's OK realistically.

To the extent that I RP, which is mostly the odd bit of FT con-worlding really, My pop. fits what I'm building - a pop. of nearly 10 billion suits a very nesnsely populated NS prime area and the move offworld I'm slowly making IC.

Also note that the dynamics generally work out to function more or less as real life - one way one might look at populations is to divide by 10. (In fact, if I thought there were an easy way of implimenting it, I'd suggest exactly that be done. Max didn't expect such longevity from this game. But it ends up more as a quirk than a flaw, IMHO...)

That is why I tend to send in a few of my BSF squads first, I tend to only do specific objections, protection, delivering something. Not mass invasions with millions. One squad has 9 men, I usually send in 2-3.

I see some RP threads where every country basically sends millions of soldiers into each war, regardless of national interests, economic considerations or thoughts about what kind of political results that would have back home.

To make the RP'ing worthwhile, I think the most important thing to look at is how nations in the real world deal with various situations. Look at how difficult it has been for the US, the richest, most militarily powerful country in the world, to wage what is a relatively small low level counter-insurgency. And yet people on NS want to RP massive invasions of far-away nations without any considerations of how the heck you could actually make that work in anything close to reality.

There's almost no thought given to realistic diplomatic relations between nations- I've seen RP'ing where one nuclear-armed country rushed headlong into a military confrontation with another. Real-world decision-makers simply do not do such things.

I think RP'ing on NS would be worthwhile if more people gave more thought to the real-world aspects of their respective nations.

This is one thing CN does manage to do better (choke, choke) - a more realistic model of IR. (It's accidental, but...)

Thank goodness some folks like Dostanuot Loj mentioned support troops. It's one thing to have xxx troops but a general rule of thumb is that there are at least 10 support for every front line soldier. Now, I'll defer to folks like CSJ and The Evil Overlord, but look at the USA right now. Over a million troops total but they have around 120 K troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and they are strapped. Course, they also maintain many troops all over the wolrd, such as in South Korea, but I think the general gist is clear. You can't have a million troops all driving tanks.

@Daistallia 2104, I completely agree. while I wouldn't put myself in a "very good rper" club, it is frustrating when facing folks who field an enormous miltary when, if using the NS calculators as a rough guide, I have them beat seven ways from Sunday. I have found some folks to be quite reasonable though but some, well, what can you do?

@New Potomac, well said.

Armor, that is Tanks and Bradly's ect there are only about 3,000-5,000
Abrams tanks for the USA Army, National Guard and Marines.
Each tank takes aproximately 200 men just to support it ( logistical )
and each member of the crew requires More training than an Infantry soldier


Not quite. In terms of physical support, including crew, training, and such, an Abrams takes 26-28 people per vehicle to support it. The only way you get 200 is if you add divisional support structure to each tank individually as you go through, and that's absurd at best. Or if you add the civillian industry involved in producing it, in which case you're out of the realm of the military. In terms of total numbers of people divided by tanks, you get something like 260 people per tank, but again that's not what support it that's all people in the forces.

In a simplified NS-applyable form, I put this guide together a while back on what it actually takes to support an armoured force. It's basic, but that's because it's for NS where no one cares for more then easy numbers.
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=543991
Keep in mind it applies to the armoured force only. Not infantry, not air force, just the individual componant.

Thank goodness some folks like Dostanuot Loj mentioned support troops. It's one thing to have xxx troops but a general rule of thumb is that there are at least 10 support for every front line soldier. Now, I'll defer to folks like CSJ and The Evil Overlord, but look at the USA right now. Over a million troops total but they have around 120 K troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and they are strapped. Course, they also maintain many troops all over the wolrd, such as in South Korea, but I think the general gist is clear. You can't have a million troops all driving tanks.

@Daistallia 2104, I completely agree. while I wouldn't put myself in a "very good rper" club, it is frustrating when facing folks who field an enormous miltary when, if using the NS calculators as a rough guide, I have them beat seven ways from Sunday. I have found some folks to be quite reasonable though but some, well, what can you do?

@New Potomac, well said.

Indeed.

Last time I did a mil. RP was the 2nd or 3rd SOF competition, I forget, which fell apart when nobody posted their AARs, and that was back in Jan. 2004. (Another reason I don't RP regular - they tend to fall aprt with frustrating regularity....)

Last time I actually put up a full OrBat, I had everything accounted for - JAGs, engineers, field hospitals, civil affairs, finance, War and Staff colleges, etc.

http://www.angelfire.com/dragon/daistallia/military/armedforces.html That's about 4 years old, but, IMHO, that's how it should be done...

Indeed. My entire military is at around 1.6 million or so and most of those are manning my navy and air force. Blubland maintains about 500,000 combat troops in the army.

With my population, it's about 0.6% (Or six tenths of a percent) in the military. Hrmm. A little bit of Blub goes a long way. :D

With my population at about 1.8 billion, I had figured my military at about 4.5 million in the standing army, with additional reserves of 90 million (Not actually serving in the army, but due to the militancy of the country, these are paramilitary forces, used to keep the country under thumb).
In actual combat troops this is probably closer to less than half a million actual fighting soldiers. The rest are support specialists or just civilians with military badges.

The country spends a staggering amount of money on military expenditure (32%) and produces huge amounts of weaponry. This does not make me a superpower, however. My economy is pretty well handicapped by the army and political system (dictatorship), and probably would be hard pressed to win a prolonged war with an economicly sounder country a fifth of my size.

Imagine something like China or North Korea, prior to the end of the cold war.

basically the more free your people are,
the smaller your military will be ( in theory )
But the more harsh and dictatorial your nation is, the higher your military
will be. ( as per Iraq via Saddam, China & Russia in the cold war )
But that's not always true.

More troops mean less training, and while you might only need 10 million rifles
to defend your nation in a battle of attrition. You will need much better troops
if you want to pull off any kind of operations in a modern war.
Look at the Iran / Iraq war, hundreds of thousands of men. In ditches shooting
at some other guys in ditches. Bombs and missiles and Migs...
Little training and virtually no ground gained by either side.
Look at the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 70's / 80's.
That was a spectacular success when compared to their military efforts before.
I love the Russian's but that was a Rare victory they had.

And look at Desert Storm, Out number many times the coalition forces
took the Time, resources and built a plan which shattered one of the largest
Army's in the world.

So it really depends on whether you want Quality ( really the best way for small nations )

Or Quantity, the choice of some lazy and large nations.

When I play, I still imagine that every soldier I loose is real and that my nation
will have to answer to the people for their losses.
Even if there is NO game mechanic for it.
It makes me more cautious, and affects how I deploy forces.

Look at the Iran / Iraq war, hundreds of thousands of men. In ditches shooting
at some other guys in ditches. Bombs and missiles and Migs...
Little training and virtually no ground gained by either side.


Um, the Iran-Iraq war was not the WW1-esque trench deadlock western media likes to say it was. It was a serious war of attrition on the same scale, with trenches and gas and other such items, but it was far from locked into trenches. In fact it was a more mobile war then Korea, or for that matter this latest Iraq war. The problem was unlike the US, neither side had any real support capability. They made advances, and trench lines were routinely broken like they weren't even there (Both sides poorly manned their lines), and thrusts into the rear lines made. But due to lack of projection those advances were measured in tens of kilometers (With rare exceptions going further).

Um, the Iran-Iraq war was not the WW1-esque trench deadlock western media likes to say it was. It was a serious war of attrition on the same scale, with trenches and gas and other such items, but it was far from locked into trenches. In fact it was a more mobile war then Korea, or for that matter this latest Iraq war. The problem was unlike the US, neither side had any real support capability. They made advances, and trench lines were routinely broken like they weren't even there (Both sides poorly manned their lines), and thrusts into the rear lines made. But due to lack of projection those advances were measured in tens of kilometers (With rare exceptions going further).

your points are good and I accept them.

Indeed.

Last time I did a mil. RP was the 2nd or 3rd SOF competition, I forget, which fell apart when nobody posted their AARs, and that was back in Jan. 2004. (Another reason I don't RP regular - they tend to fall aprt with frustrating regularity....)

Last time I actually put up a full OrBat, I had everything accounted for - JAGs, engineers, field hospitals, civil affairs, finance, War and Staff colleges, etc.

http://www.angelfire.com/dragon/daistallia/military/armedforces.html That's about 4 years old, but, IMHO, that's how it should be done...

What is an ORBAT?

I hear people bringing it up but I've yet to figure it out.

Oh I have been recording my military budgets more or less since
I started this country, ( in a spread sheet on Microsoft word ).
I try to keep records of guns, supplies and such. In the name of
Realistic RP's in Real life tech

The so called "norm" rules are so foolish there's really no point in following them...except for a few

100 million to have nukes...if you rp developing nukes you could do so at any pop level sure you won't have a massive arsenal of hundreds of warheads but a couple isn't as crazy as some people make it out to be...basically the only reason that rule is even followed at all is because some new people come on claim to have a ton of nukes and then use them on someone...just ignoring them would be simple..

I find it ironic the same people who go off about someone having nukes at under 100 million are the same ones using multiple SD's(Superdreadnaughts) larger than barges and ontop of that deploy million man armies on a nation of 500 million and still think they have enough logistics to keep the army in place when its half a world away plus their insanly large fleet..its very laughable really... basically just rp as you want and don't do outlandish stuff and you'll be fine

What is an ORBAT?

I hear people bringing it up but I've yet to figure it out.


Read this: ORBAT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Battle)

I don't bother with Orbat's unless one is requested.....

What is an ORBAT?

I hear people bringing it up but I've yet to figure it out.

Oh I have been recording my military budgets more or less since
I started this country, ( in a spread sheet on Microsoft word ).
I try to keep records of guns, supplies and such. In the name of
Realistic RP's in Real life tech

An ORBAT is exceptionally important when engaging in any conflict. It's basically a listing of all your military units being sent into the fray. Here are a couple NS examples for you:

A Faxanavian ORBAT (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13873878&postcount=1) - This is a good example of one for a war.

However, I, for one, like to keep a comprehensive listing of my armed forces on me; it's not technically an ORBAT, but it's very similar. Here's mine:

Piccavian Bundeswehr comprehensive ORBAT (http://issuu.com/jbabs/docs/bundeswehr)

An ORBAT is exceptionally important when engaging in any conflict. It's basically a listing of all your military units being sent into the fray. Here are a couple NS examples for you:

A Faxanavian ORBAT (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13873878&postcount=1) - This is a good example of one for a war.

However, I, for one, like to keep a comprehensive listing of my armed forces on me; it's not technically an ORBAT, but it's very similar. Here's mine:

Piccavian Bundeswehr comprehensive ORBAT (http://issuu.com/jbabs/docs/bundeswehr)

Indeed. (And mine's also more of a TOE.)