Military Size

[Curufea]

Re: Military Size

 

Okay, leaving aside fictional cultures.... I like the stats that megaplayboy suggests.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Military Size

 

I did some thought on this for the Savage Earth, since the set-up is pretty much exactly what you're positing. Isolated city states. I basically was modelling this on the admittedly unrealistic genre convention in most Edgar Rice Burroughs novels of the lost cities that dot Africa/Venus/Mars/etc. They have no support structure to speak of (trade, outlying towns, etc.) yet they always have large armies.

 

Why support a huge fighting force if you are so isolated? My solution was to use the military to combat other threats (barbarians and monsters), and as a auxilliary public works department (we build bridges and walls). You need some reason for the rest of the populace to support the army, which doesn't really produce much.

 

I think the numbers I came up with were:

City Population - 80,000

Outlying Population - 200,000

Standing Army - 6000

Standing Navy - 2000

In time of war, the military can swell dramatically through emergency conscription.

 

Which are just about as good as any other numbers someone pulls out of the air.

 

Keith "In the end, nobody but the GM cares" Curtis

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Military Size

 

The Nobility and Knights strickly controlled the use of Crossbows. They are like modern day firearms. Anyone with a minimal amount of framiliarization and training could use one effectively and they were a serious threat to Knights (20yrs Training and Fighting cut short by a 16" Shaft fired by a peasant levie).

 

Crossbows are surprisingly difficult to maintain and supply. They also take longer to reload and ready than a Bow.

 

 

Cheers

 

QM

[keithcurtis]

Re: Military Size

 

I think SS said that crossbows were limited by resources in the first post. What does that have to do with the size of the military?

Not trying to be antagonistic; this just sounded like a non-sequitur.

 

Keith "?" Curtis

[Markdoc]

Re: Military Size

 

He's the question man, not the answer man!

 

cheers,Mark

[Agemegos]

Re: Military Size

 

In the modern era' date=' after the invention of the reserve system in the 1800's, you're probably right. Before that, though, societies lacked the cohesion to trust that large a segment of the population with weapons skills.[/quote']

 

Mediaeval England managed. Under the fyrd system it was in theory compulsory for every adult male to have weapons and to train with them every week.

[Agemegos]

Re: Military Size

 

I've read arguments that suggest that no society can maintain over 10% of their population under arms for any extended period (and I think "extended period" means "longer than the soldiers can go eating food they carried in themselves"). That's the full population' date=' including all ages, both sexes, and all social stations.[/quote']

 

That sounds about right. I remember having an argument once in which I claimed that no society with pre-steam train logistics could sustain an army as large as 1% of the population in the long term. It turns out that I was wrong. The Southern Song Empire in China managed to field a standing army of 1% of population in garrisons along the Yangtse Kiang, and it took about a generation for the economic burden to ruin the state. Troops spread out in the productive heartland (and used in a peacekeeping/law enforcement role) would be somewhat easier to support.

 

On the other hand, pre-modern societies whose armies didn't need a lot of industrial backup could sometimes produce enormous militias for emergency service. Ancient Athens and mediaeval England for example had organised militias that were in theory fully armed and that in theory mustered every week (England) or month (Athens) and that in theory consisted of every able-bodied man.

[Agemegos]

Re: Military Size

 

Or you could model the culture after the Spartans.... where every male was required to be a soldier

 

Not every male in the community. Only every male in the ruling class (the homoioi (Peers)). A large majority of the population of Laconia was of the helot class, forbidden arms. And a majority of what was left were perioiki, allowed arms but not required to be soldiers.

 

I gather that the homoioi never numbered more than about 8,000 men under arms (aged 20 to 60), and by the end of the 3rd century BC they were down to 600. I don't know what the total population of Spartan territory (Laconia plus Messenia), but I would guess at least 300,000.