A question about military manpower vs population
 

Hey all this is an actual literal post don't worry I'm NOT screwing with you here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Anyway I have a few questions I'd like to have answered before I continue writing my story because it is a question I find very important.

On the subject of military manpower vs population size and planetary resources. I am going to break this down into several sub-subjects as follows:
Universe (which sci-fi verse)
Size of Stated nation/empire
Estimated or Stated size of population
Size of Military or at least assumed size
Question for you guys.

Universe: Star Wars
Nation: Galactic Empire size (a thousand thousand worlds)

Estimated Populace: Several trillion sentients

Size of Military (est.): Several hundred thousand starships, tens of thousands of star destroyers, 4 SSDs, 2 Eclipse class, 1 shadow clas SSD. Tens of millions of soldiers.

Summery: Okay now aparently the bulk of the Imperial Armed Forces are Human, however we are talking about a galaxy of trillions of sentient beings, now excluding the "grown" ranks of stormtroopers we know that there is a regular army, and even more massive fleet.
Question: How could the galactic Empire EVER have held it's self together as it apparently is a Humans only club and humans would be dramatically outnumbered, take into account that the Imperial Military is apparently always stretched thin even fighting such a tiny foe as the rebellion.
Question 2: Is the Imperial Military too small to begin with or is it too big for reason?

Universe 2: Honor Harrington
Nation: Star Kingdom of Manticore (Size 3 planets+ several small outposts)

Estimated Size of Population: 10 billion between Manticore, Gryphon and Sphynx

Size of Military: 2,000 capital ships at it's height including over 200 SDs with crews of 6,000 to 6,200, plus the fortresses that the navy has established which have about 2 million people spread across them.

Question: The constant complaint of the Royal Manticoran armed forces is a shortage of Manpower, isn't this a bit blown out of proportion considering the Royal Military includes females in it's drafts? I mean a population of 10 billion with a military population of about 20 million and still complaining about manpower shortages? Wouldn't it simply be a matter of building the ships and guns then training the people? I think a population of 10 billion could easily put about 400 million men and women in uniform without dramatically effecting their economy.


Universe 3: Star Trek
Nation: UFP (size 150 planets)

Estimated Population: Maybe 4 trillion

Estimated Military Size: LOL none! they have the "starfleet" which is not military. But anyway aparently they have about 70,000+ starships and no ground forces except in wartime where they create a temporary Star Fleet marine Corps.

Summery: Okay the federation is by and far one of the SMALLEST nations out of any Sci-Fi universe yet during the dominion war we hear projected casualties number 900 BILLION not MILLION, but BILLION!
Okay now assuming 150 worlds with an average population of 2 billion we get a grand total population of about 300 BILLION now assuming most of the Fed worlds number more like 10 billion we still only have about 1.5 trillion people which means just about what 90% of the entire Federation population should be obliterated during the war.

Question: The Starfleet apparently has billions of people yet only tens of thousands of ships, does this make sense for the small number (galacticly speaking) of worlds within the Federation?

Universe 4: Andromeda
Nation: All Systems Commonwealth (Size 1,500,000 worlds)

Estimated Population: Stated about about 9 trillion

Military size: 150,000 warships divided into 10 sector fleets with additional support ships such as haulers, engineering ships, repair ships, crew transports, non warships.
We know that the Nitechean fleet at Hephestus was 10,000 ships with a total manpower of 1,000,000 now dylan states they had over ten times as many ships and a hundred times as many men this puts the High Guard manpower at 100,000,000 personnel of a great many species, and this excludes the Home Guard fleets and Militias.

Question: For a population of 9 trillion, isn't a military of 100,000,000 spread over 6 galaxies and several "non-combatant" occupations a little small? Considering the High Guard was actually apparently smaller then the estimated size of the Federation Starfleet and protecting a vastly larger territory?


Universe 5: Warhammer 40k
Nation: Imperium of Man (1,000,000 worlds)

Estimated Population: quadrillion (considering a single hive world has a population of about a trillion or more and there are several hundred hive worlds within the empire)

Military size: Estimated Fleet size is stated at tens of thousands of capital ships, I read several estimates that place the number at about 50,000 capital warships spread throughout the five battle fleets.
Now the ground forces of the empire is where it gets complex so here's a small breakdown:

Imperial Guard: Several billion soldiers mainly male

Space Marines: 999 chapters of roughly 1,000 marines each plus the Crusade chapter which has about 3,000 marines for a rough marine count at just over 100,000.

Sisters of Battle: Again about 100,000

Planetary Defense Forces: This is actually BIGGER then the Imperial Guard.

Question: Is the Warhammer universe' military just a little over the top or would this be a realistic possibility to have UNTOLD BILLIONS of soldiers, so many in fact that only 3 or 4 people in the entire universe knows the exact number considering the nature of the Warhammer universe and the bloodthirsty nature of the Empire?


Universe 6: Icaran Universe
Nation: Icaran Star Empire (Size 358 planets)

Population: 303.9 Billion (258 billion humans (est.))

Size of Military:
176 SD (1,073,600)
20 DN (106,000)
4 Minesweepers (2,000)
1 Super Monitor (10,100)
6 Troop ships (600 crew+ 24,000 regimental soldiers)
6 repair ships (6,000 crew)
5 Flag Monitors (75,000)
6 Raiders (SuperMonitor) (66,000)
6 LC raiders (9,300)
10 Construction Ships (50,000)
59 Shipyards/Combat Bases (1,475,000)
Total Ships: 240- 62 other support craft such as population transports miners and warpers
Total Manpower: 2,897,600

State Security: About 2,000,000
Planetary Defense Forces: Let's say 10,000,000
Total Fighting Population: 14,897,600 (all human)

Question: Is this military-v-population thing worth mentioning as a "major trait" of the Icaran Empire or would it be a rather small/normal sized military for an Empire with Icara's nature/size

Overall Question: How big is too big or on the flipside how small is to small for sci-fi military's and empires? Please post on your opinions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

Technology is a force multiplier. The current state of the military is undergoing a shift towards smaller numbers of more highly trained professional soldiers with a lot more investment in weapons and technology. There is some disagreement about the best way to effect this change, but almost noone disagrees that it's coming. And we are just at the start of this trend now. Forecasted hundreds or thousands of years into the future of your sci-fi universes it's not at all unbelievable that the numbers of military forces needed to conquer or protect populations in the many trillions would seem pathetically small by our current standards. Considering that you can sit in orbit and obliterate a population that won't submit, it doesn't seem like it would take all that many boots on the ground anyway.

Of course conquering and controlling are two different things, but populations can be controlled in other less violent ways for the most part. An empire that's growing will understand this. To the average Joe and Jane in the population it doesn't matter if the seat of the governemnt is on your continent, the other side of the world, or the other side of the galaxy. If they aren't too oppressive you can get along ok.

On the other hand the logistics of supporting a military that is a significant portion of overall population would be simply staggering. And considering that all those support personell and vehicles have to be supported as well and you can see that it's quite possible that a point of diminishing returns could be reached where it's just not practical to get a larger military, even as your empire continues expanding.

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

Simple Answer: Rule by Fear. That and most ships are tied down as garrison fleets to stop anything from even starting to happen so the actual available fleet is fairly small. Hence why the Rebellion manages to do anything, they're massively outnumbered but only on paper. If the GE ever gathered its fleet to crush the Rebels they'd risk rebellion in most sectors.

Uhhh. Because Honor once said so, hence the universe warped itself so that she'd be right. I admit that confuses me. Perhaps half the population is frightened of space?

Because continuity is a very dirty word in ST. If there is ever any agreement between adjacent episodes you should count that as a rare blessing. One writer thought that massive casulaties would emphasise one point without ever thinking of the actual consequences.

But if you think TNG had a tiny fleet take Kirk's day with only 12 Constitution class! Still they were the 'Uber Connie 'o' Doom' TM capable of traveling further and faster and with bigger weapons and shields than anything in Trek before or since.

Uber tough ships that are very fast maybe? The ships did look quite pricey so building a new one wasn't something you do lightly. Someone who knows more should probably answer

WH40K is skewed by its obscenely Gothic nature, rest assured it can only be a matter of time till it turns out the Emperor is agent of Chaos, the Space Wolves rebel or something equally depressing. OK maybe a bit too far. Anyway the tag line ~ish 'In the future there is only war!' should be a clue. There is no real other career choice as far as I can see, your in the Imperial Guard, Planetary defence force, Fleet, making weapons in some way or mining. There's nothing else as far as I can tell.

The actual percentage is tiny, it's a lot of people to be sure, but it's not a society geared up for war. Maybe industrially as churning out SDs etc takes alot of resources and maintenance just as much. But actual human population, well 0.005% says it all. For the UK at the moment say 190,000 total in the armed force (accoring to the MoD) out of 60 Million. Thats what 0.3% in peace time and after almost a decade of constant cuts (let's be honest here an increase in the budget less than inflation is a cut)

So if anything Icaran society is very unmillitary, people outside of the shipyard/fleet base planets could probably go years without even seeing any evidence of the millitary.

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

Yes but on the other side of the equation what kind of military would actually count as "Large" or "small" in terms of trillions of people?

As I said the Star Trek universe for example the Federation has something like 70k starships each wtih a minimum crew of about 50 and on several occasions we hear that starfleet personnel number in the billions.
Now add to that the very inconsistant number of planet-v-population-starfleet size and star trek just gets confusing.
I mean as I said unless the Federation has a few hive worlds how could they lose 900 BILLION people in a single war and not be utterly and totally destroyed as a people?


Well another argument Geoschmo is that technology has a way of winding back around in a circular pattern by that i mean eventually technology would nullify it's own effect, some say that we may eventually see the return of WWI and WWII style warfare someday in the future, not because the technology has become primitive again but because both sides having that kind of tech may very well result in a return to the old style of fighting.

Likewise it is not always a good idea to destroy a world, especailly one with billions of people because if you think about it Empires are not built by destroying those you seek to conquer. Just like the US and Russia don't go around nuking everyone we find a threat as that would hurt everyone in the long run and in the end increase future resistance against your nation/empire.

Now assuming a planet would have it's own military forces (lets say even a few hundred thousand) then you WOULD need ground forces to seize a planet from your enemy, of course an orbiting warfleet could help but it would likely be in the tactical sense not the strategic sense, I mean a well placed kinetic strike or energy strike could be very effective in haulting an enemy advance but the odds of friendly fire risks would skyrocket.

And if you look at it the threat of utter annihilation usually drives people to greater resistance not passivity as they may well begin to think you would destroy them anyway.

So if you think about it wouldn't military forces increase again as this "circular" pattern of technology countering it's self equalized the playing fields?

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

The actual percentage is tiny, it's a lot of people to be sure, but it's not a society geared up for war. Maybe industrially as churning out SDs etc takes alot of resources and maintenance just as much. But actual human population, well 0.005% says it all. For the UK at the moment say 190,000 total in the armed force (accoring to the MoD) out of 60 Million. Thats what 0.3% in peace time and after almost a decade of constant cuts (let's be honest here an increase in the budget less than inflation is a cut)

So if anything Icaran society is very unmillitary, people outside of the shipyard/fleet base planets could probably go years without even seeing any evidence of the millitary.

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Yeah I suppose you are right about that I mean granted in the Icaran Empire there are whole worlds that are devoted solely to the production of weapons for the Empire but for the most part the average citizen would only see the signs of the military in Planetary Defense Forces (which are not "regular" military) or if a division of warships dropped by.

You actually gave me a great idea El_Phil I should point out how for the most part most worlds in the Empire go decades without seeing any signs of the Royal Military beyond what they see in the news.

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

There is a cycle, offence and defence. When one improves the other reacts to it. Whether in weapons or tactics. Faced with charging knights? Longbows
Faced with armoured charging knights? Shoot the horses.
Armoured knights and horses? Gunpowder

Over simplified maybe but that's the principle. This held true until nukes against which a ballistic missile shield might work and only Moscow with 100 dedicated ABM batteries is really safe at the moment. However that doesn't stop a nuclear tipped cruise missile ruining you day.

The big trend that I see is the consequence of a small failure in defence:
If an archer missed one knight at Agincourt it wouldn't change much.
If an anti-tank crew missed one tank in North Africa it could ruin their day, but someone nearby could cover.
If your SAMs miss an F/A-18 you'll have a hole in your defence network eveyone else will steam through.
If your ABM shield missese one nuke...
If your fleet misses one ship on a 'glassing' mission.....

Re: A question about military manpower vs populati
 

Humans populate most of the Star Wars galaxy, I'd guess around 80% of the population is human. The alien populations are repressed by means of fear, and controlling laws. The Rebellion is viewed by the empire as a minor threat, and very little resources are used against them, most of the forces are used for tyranny and conquering new systems.

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

Technology never has and never will eliminate the need for technology in battle. Individual pieces of tech can nullify each other's effects, but then another technological advance will come along and upsets the balance. It's a cycle, not a cirlce, between technology to kill and technology to protect from being killed. It's been going on since the second guy used an animal hide to block the first guys stick.

Re: A question about military manpower vs populati
 

As for the SW Galactic Empire, simple:

The larger part of the population is human or at least looks *exactly* like a human. Han Solo looked like your ordinary, everyday Homo sapiens sapiens, yet his species is stated as Correlian. If we take this into account, and the fact that the Empire also hires mercs (like Greedo and IG-88), AND the fact that their ships are designed for "fear effect" you get a pretty powerful force. ISDs could strike fear into the hearts of almost any independent star system with a rather small defense force. In the Expanded Universe, we read that after the fall of the Empire, there were still Imperial commanders controlling entire star systems *simply by having an ISD present for fear effect*. And an ISD is more of a carrier than a "true" warship. OK, so they've got turbolaser batteries, but at longer range they're pretty ineffective. However, a single ISD can carry dozens of wings of TIE Fighters and Bombers, which can operate at long range if necessary. If a squadron of TIE Bombers does a flyby of a city, they'll very likely surrender unless they've got either ample ground defense turrets or fighters of their own. Now, if they have ground turrets, that's simple; the TIE Bombers come in, evading as much fire as possible, and pelt the batteries with their weapons, or they're simply obliterated from orbit by the ISD. If they've got a fighter defense force of their own, well then, simply launch all 70(!) wings (IIRC) of TIE Fighters present on the ISD (and considering it's 70 *wings* and not 70 *fighters*, and taking into consideration the fact that a wing is 5 or so fighters IIRC.....) and simply overwhelm their defenses by sheer numerical advantage. That way, they were able to keep the Empire under their heel for so long, until a foolish group of idiotic youngsters were so dumb to try and challenge the might of the Empire itself.

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

Oh you misunderstand me I did not mean that technology becomes irrelivent I meant that I've heard/read/saw people who argue to the fact that okay say a hundred years from now side

A. Has lasers, tanks, armor that protects against lasers, nukes and nuclear defense systems.

Side B: Also Lasers, tanks, armor that protects agaisnt lasers, nukes, and nuclear defense systems.

Side A- v-Side B
Laser Anti-laser armor
Anti-Laser armor Laser
Nuke Anti Nuke
Anti Nuke Nuke
Tank Tank
Airpower Airpower
Sea Power Sea Power

Now what they said is basically that because both sides become roughly equal do to the very technology that gives them an advantage their "advanced weapons" are neutralized as "advanced" by the fact that they have "advanced countermeasures" and likewise these "advanced countermeasures" are rendered un "advanced" by the weaponry employed against them.

Basically it's like pitting two WWI era soldiers against one another they are both now just rendered into just "grunts" fighting one another on such a level playing ground that trench warfare may again rear its ugly head.
Or more likely not a WWI but a WWII because the sides would indeed have tanks and mobility warfare.

So the argument is that the very technology that makes them advanced compared to us levels them out with one another to the point where it would likely come down to attrition warfare again one way or another, where one side simply tries to find the other's technological/numerical breaking point.


Did that make sense this time? (seriously I'm asking because some times I don't type as well as I speak or think)

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

It makes sense.

But I think it's wrong. You will never get then anti-technology evolving at the same rate as the technology. It's not until you know what your fighting against that you can develop an effective counter-measure. So the first use of a clever technology will normally have the edge as no-one has developed the appropriate counter-measures.

So very rarely have a force with a clever weapon and only that clever weapon met a force with the exact clever anti-weapon. In fact the counter-tech tends to be cleverer than the tech it was designed to counter. Take the tank, originally designed just to cross no-mans land and beat machine gun emplacements. Look what it became.

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

With regard to the Icaran military only:

Yes, by World War II standards it does seem extremely low in manpower relative to the population, although as El_Phil pointed out there are a lot more people "behind the scenes" supporting the military: R&D, construction, merchant navy (moving resources back and forth), supply, maintenance, etc. that SEIV doesn't explicitly include.

Note that even this minuscule military is probably an overestimate. Given likely advances in 25th Century automation, a crew of 6,000+ for a super dreadnought seems wildly excessive. Personally I don't have a clue what the 25th Century will look like, but I'll bet it includes AI's with REAL "I" and highly advanced robots/droids of some sort, capable of far more than Star Wars-type comic relief.

On the bright side, having a small military means the Navy can recruit the best of the best of the best; probably the lowest swabbie on the ship is an Olympic-class athlete and chess grandmaster with a Ph.D. or three. You won't find this guy swabbing decks, either.

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

Well in regards to the Icaran Empire and AI to put it frankly they don't trust AIs and they believe in the "Supreme Dominance of Man" so basically trusting a machine over man is considered utter foolishness.
BTW they are more like 32nd century tech as they never had the dark ages in their history http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But again basically for them it's a matter of "God made man supreme among creation so we should not trust a computer to perform those jobs man should do himself." By our standards Icaran factories are also remarkably unautomated except where necessary, this serves the double purpose of making sure very few Icaran citizens ever have to fear homlesness as there is literally a job for almost everyone in their society.

Being that a SD is just over 2km long and has actual gunnery crews among other things I decided a crew of 6,000 is pretty reasonable.....especially when compared to how cramped I thought an ST star destroyer must be what with it's crew of 40,000 odd people crammed into 1km.

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

SH, no offence, but for some reason, when I read your last post the Icarans inevitably remind me of Nazi Germany.....

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

They have been edging more and more that way over the course of the story, maybe it was intended but lots of little things have come together and the parallels are becoming striking.

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

Well the belief that "God made man supreme among creation." was actually far against what Nazi Germany beleived as they were atheistic for the "official" part of their politics.

In truth the Icarans are sort of a mix of our best and worst parts of humanity, worst in that they are some of the most fanatical and specist bastards you'll ever meet, best in that they treat other humans with absolute and unswerving equality, every citizen whether noble or common born is equal in the eyes of the law.

And they have very little crime because of how strict and harsh their legal system is towards criminals.

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

Fair enough. Luckily the Icarans haven't run up against the evil Wintel Empire. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Having a human do a machine's job isn't necessarily the best way to ensure full employment, but that's a whole 'nother discussion. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

The only thing is in star track universe i believe you are saying they hae too many ships with a number more aroud 10,000. Also starfleet is considered the military of the federation. Also i believe the dominion war casualty projections were for the entire alpha quadrant, which would include federation, klingon, cardassian, breen, romulan and all the other losses which could get you somewhere up there bt still not the 900 billion.(i also thought it may have been 90 billion in the episode or something similar

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

With regards to your numbers for the Honorverse, I don't have the books with me at the moment, but it is actually spelled out in one of them - the limitation isn't in getting the bodies, it's getting the bodies without wiping out the tax payers. No tax payers, no income. No income, no military budget. No military budget, no fleets of superdreadnoughts to go boom.

Re: A question about military manpower vs population
 

That was basically the theme of historian Paul Kennedy's book "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers". In the beginning of the book he showed how 16th Century Spain, probably the wealthiest European nation at the time, eventually bankrupted itself through economic mismanagement and overly lavish military expenditures relative to its financial resources (i.e. taxpayers). In more recent times, the attempt to maintain an oversize military was a factor in the economic collapse and eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union.

With regard to Starhawk's story, the fact that the fictional Icarans can fight successfully with a relatively minuscule military is probably a major factor in their ability to sustain the war decade after decade.