World Army Sizes?

[jawillroy]

Just for a ballpark, how big do you make your planetary armies in relation to the rest of the population? (understanding that this will vary some according to tech, government and law level; also, that a country's standing army is liable to be a sight smaller during peacetime than when at war)

I don't need to get too too detailed in this, because I don't forsee running a mercenary/military campaign anytime soon, but it makes a difference for my overall background.

The setting I'm developing right now is non-OTU, and worlds won't be able to count on the Imperium to bail them out of anything since IMTU there isn't one - though there are local treaty organizations. The subsector I'm focusing mainly on is pretty undeveloped, with few planets over TL 9.

Posting here on account of the marines and planetary invasion threads.

 

[Gallowglacht]

From Traveller New Era(path of tears);

Balkanised World 1% of pop. (varies 50% either way)
Non-Balkanised 0.25% pop.(varies 50% either way)

High population Worlds have half of this.
This is total personal of all armies, navies etc.

Composition of each arm depends on world and tech (also detailed in path of tears).

 

[The Oz]

JTAS #10 had these tables:

Planetary Defence Battalions
This table indicates the defence battalion factor for a world by comparing the world's tech level with its population.

Tech
Level                           Population 
0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A
0	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	10	1C	1K
1	-	-	-	-	-	1	5	50	5C	5K
2	-	-	-	-	1	5	50	5C	5K	50K
3	-	-	-	1	10	1C	1K	10K	50K	100K
4	-	-	-	1	10	1C	1K	2K	20K	200K
5	-	-	1	2	3	30	3C	3K	30K	300K
6	-	-	1	2	3	30	3C	3K	30K	300K
7	-	-	-	1	2	20	2C	2K	20K	200K
8	-	-	-	1	2	20	2C	2K	20K	200K
9	-	-	-	-	1	15	150	15C	15K	150K
10	-	-	-	-	1	15	150	15C	15K	150K
11	-	-	-	-	1	12	120	12C	12K	120K
12	-	-	-	-	1	12	120	12C	12K	120K
13	-	-	-	-	1	10	1C	1K	10K	100K
14	-	-	-	-	1	7	70	7C	7K	70K
15	-	-	-	-	-	5	50	5C	5K	50K
16	-	-	-	-	-	5	50	5C	5K	50K
17	-	-	-	-	-	-	5	50	5C	5K
18	-	-	-	-	-	-	5	50	5C	5K
19	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	10	1C	1K
20	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	10	1C	1K

For hostile environments (Atm 0-4, 7, and 9), shift the Population column one to the left (effectively reducing the number of battalions present).

Mobile Defence Battalions
This is the portion of the planetary defence forces available for off-world deployment. This table shows the number of units of the noted size that are available for deployment, calculated directly from the number of planetary defence battlions.

Battalions
   On-World                         Off-World Unit Sizes 
#	1	2	3	5	10	20	1C	5C
1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
10	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
12	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
15	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
20	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
30	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-
50	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-
1C	-	-	-	2	-	-	-	-
120	-	1	-	-	1	-	-	-
150	-	-	-	1	1	-	-	-
2C	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-
3C	-	-	-	-	1	1	-	-
5C	-	-	-	-	1	2	-	-
1K	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-
12C	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	-
15C	-	-	-	-	-	2	1	-
2K	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	-
3K	-	-	-	-	-	-	3	-
5K	-	-	-	-	-	-	4	-
10K	-	-	-	-	-	-	5	-
12K	-	-	-	-	1	-	5	-
15K	-	-	-	-	-	1	6	-
20K	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1
30K	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	2
50K	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3
100K	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	4
120K	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	4
150K	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	4
200K	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	5
300K	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	6

This is, of course, for worlds of the Imperium, and YMMVIYTU.

 

[rancke]

JTAS #10 had these tables:

Planetary defense Battalions
This table indicates the defense battalion factor for a world by comparing the world's tech level with its population.

Keep in mind that these tables are from before the population multiplier was introduced, so in practice they indicate how many battalions a world with PM 1 will have. Multiply by the PM to get the total number.

Also, ISTR, that Chris once told me that each battalion represents (or ought to represent) three times as many additional people in support roles, but I may be misremembering.



Hans

 

[jawillroy]

So, by "defense battalion factor" do we mean "# of defense battalions"?

Thanks, fellas.

 

[veltyen]

Since you are talking non-OTU then looking at the real world and extrapolating is a valid way to go.

Percentage GDP spent on military forces by nation coutesy of the CIA
Factbook

This percentage ranges between 0% (for a tiny country protected completely by powerful friends) to 10+% (for a tiny country without reliable friends and with belligerent neighbours). For modern democracies at relative peace then 2-5% is more valid.

You then need to start thinking about national service/conscription and the balance between capital and labour. For a high tech and high capital military force the actual boots on the ground will be a far smaller then that percentage. If the make up of the military matches the make up of the rest of the society then that percentage will be approximately the percentage of the society under arms including support and construction teams.

With national service and a distinct lack of high capital military toys the percentage of the society may be higher then the percent spending on GDP. In most cases it would be the inverse - fewer better equiped soldiers.

 

[The Oz]

So, by "defense battalion factor" do we mean "# of defense battalions"?

Thanks, fellas.

Yes, the number of battalions of troops.

 

[whartung]

Those are percentages of GDP, not the size of the forces themselves.

The US is at ~4% GDP, but 1% population (active and reserve, roughly 50/50 split).

The Battalion numbers above, if we used "Tech 8, pop 9, multiplier 6" would be 120K battalions, ~400 per battalion, or about 48M troops. And that's about right for the world right now (active and reserve). And that almost tracks with the 1% for a balkanized world (we're actually at .8%)

So, you have some game data and "real data" as well.

 

[Bob Weaver]

I just ran a few numbers for my TU and found that at the lower population levels, calculating army size by the Striker/GDP method and the table shown above (from FFW) produce quite different results. A planet with TL 8, Pop 4, multiplier 6 gets 6 Btn from the FFW table, but using the Striker GDP method they get less than one. But at higher Pop levels, the two line up more closely.
Also, the text around the table in JTAS # 10 notes that it ignores troop strength on worlds of TL 5 or less "such troops would have little influence on a war of inter-stellar proportions. They are shown in table 1 for completeness". Jawillroy, if you have really low-tech planets in YTU, don't go with the table guidelines.

Cheers,

Bob W.

 

[dccarles]

IMTU, Islands Campaign

Warning: personal campaign-wanking ahead.

I use the Striker campaign rules for my Trillion Credit Squadron game, since they account for both army and naval spending.

Sample stats from my Islands Campaign:
Esperanza spends a full 5% of its TCr262 GNP on defense, with 58% of that on the army (TCr7.6) and 42% on the navy (TCr5.2). The reason Esperanza spends so much on the army is the necessity to maintain a very large internal police force - in Striker terms, the troop quality of the police is one level lower than regulars for the same cost, making them conscripts rather than long-service professionals. Esperanza's army, then, is huge: about 125 million long-service professionals, assuming Cr60,000/annum to pay for the troops and their equipment. In other words, anyone who wants to invade Esperanza had better think twice.

The reason for this is Serendip Belt. A feudal society, it conquered Esperanza in 5526. As a asteroid belt, though, the Serendip army was tiny, composed mainly of noble men-at-arms (again, long-service professionals) who fought largely ceremonial wars before the acquisition of jump drive. To subjugate Esperanza, then, they resorted to a massed draft of feudal levy troops (militia.)
As an equation, inexperienced troops x massive insurgency = disaster. (Imagine Lt. Calley with nuclear weapons, and multiply by a million.) Esperanza only managed to throw the Serendips out in 5535, and the new ruling regime has used the memory of the occupation to reinforce its grip on power.
Much has changed since then, but the poor quality of Serendip Belt's troops haven't. The modern Serendip Levy Infantry Corps is half militia, half conscripts, and is built expressly to hold ground - their standard APCs are equipped with engineering equipment and carries prefab armour plate.

(I wrote up a breakdown of Serendip Belt's military budget, but I seem to have lost it. Suffice to say it's much, much smaller than Esperanza's, and that's even with their troops costing half as much as Esperanza's.)

--Devin

 

[Peter Schutze]

Gurps traveller ground forces has a system for calculating troops but I designed my own for a variant of 2300 since i didnt need one for neo-barbs or supertech worlds just TL7-12:

take the pop in thousands as the 'base force', apply modifiers for situation to increase that by about 25% max or decrease by up to 75%
Depending on the space facilities, they might grab up to 20% but 5-10% is common for TL9+
Depending on TL and planetary situation wet navy gets between 25% and 100% of the hydro rating
The air/interface force gets 5-20% depending on TL and situation
The grunts get the rest including the change from the others in the next step - equipping

Each force has a cost per unit size .... space ships cost about 10x their crew etc etc and modifiers for quality .... militia / reserves cost 1/4

obviously local situations take precedence eg landlocked countries dont get a navy regardless of the hydro and positioning of that low pop colony also matters ...... in the middle of a world continent they wont even need to pick a few patrol / rescue ships. Balkanised are also are the most likely to get the increases even if there is not even a good cold war to keep the people "under arms"