Post/Author/DateTime	Post
im_robertb 07-31-06, 11:32 PM	I honestly have no idea about what sorts of numbers are right for this, so I'm hoping someone has a bit more insight or knowledge of historical army sizes. At the height of the Last War, about how big do you think various countries' armies were? I'm just writing up a military heirarchy for Thrane, and at the end of it, I haven't got much more than 25000 regular army soldiers, in a nation which, shortly after the Last War, is at 2.3 million? About what percentage do you think would be right?
ekomega 08-01-06, 01:02 AM	The last battle in the Last War (Keldan Ridge), which happened in what is now the Field of Ruin in the Mournland, is said to have tens of thousands of troops from several different nations: Breland, Cyre, Darguun, and others. This is mentioned in 5N. So at the "end" of the War (which doesn't mean the end, since no one knew what was going to happen) a major battle would be ten thousand or more troops on one side alone. Contrary to that, the battle of Arjon Ford (also from 5N), which took place in Northern Cyre/Southern Thrane 3 days before the last battle, had 300 thranes vs many Karrnathi (IIRC). The thranes were rescued by the Cyrans. This was clearly a very minor battle compared to Keldan Ridge. I'm surprised by the huge discrepancy in troop numbers, as Arjon Ford was a betrayal/ambush. Who would risk betraying their own nation, and what nation would be eager to convert someone, for a battle that only involved 300 enemy troops? You'd think they'd want a huge victory. Anyway, if Cyre and Breland could muster 10,000 to 20,000 troops (or even 5,000) for one battle in one part of the country, their army must've been at least ten times as large. Each of the Five Nations had to protect large amounts of border territory from several potential threats, all the time. Every nation of the Five ended up being surrounded. They had to have huge armies if they were defending on two, three, or more, fronts at once.
Korhal_IV 08-01-06, 02:02 AM	As with many other things regarding Eberron demographics, various sources are in disagreement (ekomega found the "mass betrayal" of a tiny number of troops, for instance). Make up however many you think were needed, honestly.
Syltorian 08-01-06, 08:18 AM	Does anyone have any data of what percentage of any given nation's population in a given year was (a) actively fighting (b) part of a militia staying at home (c) in some kind of military training or part of the reserves in the Great War? Given that we cannot work well with percentages for earlier wars as (as far as I am aware) we do not have any full census records, this might be the best comparison. The Great War is also a war intensive enough to compare to the Last War. Of course, Khorvaire is feudal and the lords could call on the local peasantry and draft them into militias, and we know many non-combattant Thranes train with the longbow on a regular basis. They could thus use a large part of the adult population in defending their homeland, at least, unless those not used to combat start panicking. That said, taking a city often causes huge casualties to the invaders, if the civilians take to the roofs and throw down whatever comes to hand. If you draft militias or rely on feudal war-duties, this will leave your fields unattended at home, and cripple your economy, so I assume the militias and levies will be mostly defensive. Then again, if you look at the problems Rome ran into when sending its citizen soldiers further and further afield, one could also assume that the Five Nations are repeating that error. This would mean that many fields in the Five Nations are barren, or have been gobbled up by the rich, and that misery is even more rampant than we assume. Some other inditation: One of Breland's most formidable forces, the floating forteress of Argonth, has a (admittedly peace-time) garrison of 1,600. It can take on more soldiers, but the scale is still rather small. And if population numbers are anything to go by, this is the largest army on the continent. Valenar, one of the best armies around which has so far stood up even to the militaristic nation of Karrnath, has a total population of 70,000, of which 43% are elves. Thus, an absolute maximum of 30,100 Tairnadal make up the army of Valenar, provided there are no non-combattants amongst them. This should help put some things into proportion, both because so far nobody has overcome the Valenar in battle, and also seeing as these forces were originally mercenaries for Cyre and did not win them the war. The Valenar are considered a fairly small military force, but of great quality. At Arjon Ford, the 300 men mentioned were only the unit commanded by Kalion Adara. There were two other captains. Assuming their units were of roughly the same size, and that the men Kalion was leading were her full regiment, and not a specially selected corps, we have 900 men, plus whatever men the general himself was commanding. All in all, and to go for a round number, Thrane's 1000 soldiers would have oppose an "evenly matched" army of of Karrnath. That is a small skirmish, but the soldiers might have been elite, which would explain why Thrane was so upset. Edit: Answering my own question: This is based on the website Great War Statistics (http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetDkjs/figures.htm). Please point it out if you have other data. Omitting India, by November 1918, the total recruits of the British Army were (percentage of Male Population): England: 24.2% Wales: 21.52% Scotland: 23.71% Ireland: 6.14% Thus, not counting Ireland, there seems to be around 22% of the male population actively engaged in the war. In Khorvaire, there is no reason to limit this to the male population. For ease of calculation, let us thus say that 20% of the population somehow ended up in the army. This would give us the following numbers: The Five Nations Aundair: 400,000 soldiers Breland: 740,000 soldiers Cyre in 994: 300,000 soldiers Karrnath: 500,000 soldiers Thrane: 460,000 soldiers Others Darguun: 160,000 soldiers Eldeen Reaches: 100,000 soldiers Mror Holds: 140,000 soldiers Valenar: 14,000 soldiers Zilargo: 50,000 soldiers The Demon Wastes, Droaam, Q'Barra, the Shadow Marches did not directly participate in the Last War. The Lhazaar Principalities and the Talenta Plains are not unified countries. Also, the Valenar probably have a much higher percentage of soldiers than 20%. The Reaches were also leading a war of independence, so their militia might have been much higher than elsewhere.
Kreistor1 08-01-06, 10:45 AM	The proportional army size chages with the economic output of the state. In the middle ages, England had a couple million people but armies measured in the 10000 range at maximum for a fraction of 1%. That then compares to the 24% (which I think is proportion of potential recruits, so it would exclude children, women, and the elderly) figure for 1912. Also, the capacity to supply those armies becomes an issue. You need to be able to move food long distances without rotting in order to keep large armies alive in a single place for any length of time. Until preserving came along (Napoleonic invention), feeding Napoleon's armies was a serious issue. Getting the food there was alway an issue, of course. And note that in modern armies, not everyone in the army fights. The ratio is something like 1:9, if memory serves. For each person fighting, there are 9 people in supporting roles in the modern army. Anyway, my point is that to support a WW1 sized army, you'll need WW1 level tech. I personally think Galifar tech has reached the 1850's stage, so my armies are considerably smaller.
Syltorian 08-01-06, 11:39 AM	The armies of the Hundred Years War could be pretty large. England seems to have been around 10,000 as a rule, (12,000 at Crécy), as you say. But they could be more numerous. At Calais they supposedly had 34,000 combattants. As for the French, they regularily outnumbered the English, with armies up to 30,000 or 40,000 men. France was fighting on home-ground, of course, which makes logistics easier. But they were also a France that did not include Burgundy and other stretches that make up modern France. Besides, the medieval wars were never "total wars", which seems to have been the case with the Last War. Until the Mourning wiped out so much of their armies, the nations seem to have been pretty happy to go on with the war-effort, and even after the Mourning the war continued for two years. There do not seem to have been as many lulls in the fighting as there were in the Hundred Years War, either. The nations must have pumped out all they had to win. Normally, of course, an army would never reach 23% of the adult population, and the 1% sounds reasonable for most of history. But if Karrnath only had 1% of their population engaged, why were they forced to add undead troops, instead of going up to 2% and doubling their forces? Why were the warforged becoming so popular? Sure, neither needs to eat, and they are thus easier on the logistics, but to me it seems that they were mostly created because the nations were running out of manpower. They must thus have already invested a big part of their population in the war. I don't think Khorvaire was that bad at logistics; they might even have been better than we are today. The reason for this: magic. Orien teleportation. Jorasco healing. Ghallanda create-food-and-water. The dragonmarked houses profited immensely from the Last War through the selling of these services. Their items (bag of bounty, for example) could have helped the logistics along greatly. Non-dragonmarked spellcasters of the warring nations, and the priests of Thrane would have helped too. Items such as "everlasting rations" (Heroes of Battle) are not very expensive (comparatively spoken). Granted, most armies will have relied on mundane logistics, as the magic does not come that cheap. But these magical methods could have saved an army if the state finally becomes ready to pay Orien's rates to teleport, and prevent an Eberron equivalent of Stalingrad or Moscova/Beresina. They could have supported a major invasion which was not intended to last for long, but rather to shock-and-awe and take Korrth in two weeks. There is another reason I would argue for the larger armies. If 20% of the population fought in the war (or was a non-combatant part of the army, even), you get a much different roleplaying situation when you meet people than if 99% have never come near a frontline. With the first, everyone knows someone who was part of the war. With the latter, some villages will have been virtually untouched. Personally, I like to have memorials to the fallen in even small-sized cities, such as you can find in almost every village here in Europe (not sure about the States, though I'd be interested if someone could tell me). If one in five people was drafted into the army, it increases the effect of the war on every-day life tremendously. (Also, note that I am not saying that Aundair had 400,000 professional soldiers. Rather, they would have had 30,000 professional soldiers, along with 370,000 peasants given a brief introduction into how to wield a spear.)
Roxlimn 08-01-06, 12:20 PM	Given that Khorvairian seems to be underpopulated as it is, it probably wouldn't be altogether inappropriate to posit armies in the hundreds of thousands. Certainly, large states the size of the Khorvairian nations have created such armies in the past. Given that Aundair's "best of the best" unit numbers around 400, I would say that they probably field about 40 000 professional troops, more or less. Many of these would be magic-wielding troops of some sort, in keeping with Aundairian nature. Karrnathi armies would probably have a correspondingly larger number of professionals in it, given the martial nature of the country and their military academies and traditions. Of 500k troops, I would say that maybe 25-30% of that is professional.
maollelujah 08-01-06, 12:42 PM	The armies of the Hundred Years War could be pretty large. England seems to have been around 10,000 as a rule, (12,000 at Crécy), as you say. But they could be more numerous. At Calais they supposedly had 34,000 combattants. As for the French, they regularily outnumbered the English, with armies up to 30,000 or 40,000 men. France was fighting on home-ground, of course, which makes logistics easier. But they were also a France that did not include Burgundy and other stretches that make up modern France. But France is estimated to have had a population in the Middle Ages of around 18 to 20 million, which is greater than all of Khorvaire. My guess is that major battles one might see large concentrations of men (say 25,000 a side), but these were rare occasions. Most engagements were likely between troops of men in the hundreds, with the most common tactic of invaders being a chevachee (a destructive raid). Sometimes villages (towns or cities) might've been captured, but they would've been lost probably as fast as they were conquered. Overall, I think that the 5N would've been hard pressed to put even 3 or 4% of their country under arms for extended periods of time, let alone 20%.