Miltary Numbers?

[Marcurix]

Well I’ve been trying to sort out my Military for some time now, and im wondering if i could get a little help.

As it stands i spend over $1 Trillion on my Military, which comprises of:

The Armed Forces of Marcurix
400,000 personnel

Royal Air Force
80,000 personnel

Royal Marines
30,000 personnel

Royal Navy
80,000 personnel

the Royal Reserve Army, the Royal Naval Reserve, Royal Marines Reserve and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force puts total active and reserve duty military personnel at approximately 830,000 plus a 240,000 militia force giving a total of 1,070,000 personnel. The Navy is classed as Blue water.

Now the question I’m looking to ask is are these numbers good for an effective force? I’m hesitant about putting too few or too many men within the armed forces. The force itself has to have the men, flexibility and training to respond well to a variety of security threats, lets not be so large it struggles to properly feed and equip its troops, along with dragging down the economy.

Thoughts?

[Itinerate Tree Dweller]

You might want to look into determining logistics. One infantry soldier needs a number of other non-combat persons to keep them in the field.

[Bafuria]

Giving a peasant a rusty old AK-47 and sending him to battle is a waste of human life.
Spending 900000 $ on a single soldier is a waste of money.

Find the middle ground.

[Poorisolation]

How big is your Merchant Marine? When deployed in home waters you won't need that need that many support vessels but if you want to deploy a Task Force an ocean away you could well need as many four supply ships for every one you send (one going out, one coming back, one on station with the fleet and one either loading or having its keel looked at by some naval engineers). Now if your MM is big enough you can just take up some of those in war time "hey quit complaining this is regular work for a change" to fill in.

Also expect about one ship in seven to be in need of some time in dry dock at any given time.

As for your army 400,000 looks about right if you want to deploy around 8 active divisions, remember a division includes a lot of organic service and support personnel.

[Bears Armed]

Whether the numbers are good for an "effective" force rather depends on what you anticipate needing to use them for...

[Marcurix]

For logistics

200,000 support/logistics personnel for the Royal Army
60,000 support/logistics personnel for the Royal Air Force
15,000 support/logistics personnel for the Royal Marines
53,333 shore personnel (supply clerks, drivers, administrators, etc.)for Royal Navy


The Merchant Marine numbers just over 1,000 ships of 1,000 Gross Register Tonnage.

Well I would anticipate a number of situations, peacekeeping and home defence are preferable but hostile overseas operations must also be anticipated.