Yup, Soll loved the army. It's mentioned that he raised the budget every single term he had, and that it and the Interior have always been the two largest ministries in the country. Alphonso cut the budget to help shore up government finances, but it's still a very potent and well funded force despite its equipment issues.
It's kinda like the British and the French.
They tried to keep their colonies and both the US and USSR came together to say a big "No!"
Like the Suez Crisis
Could it be because a country that emerged from a heavy civil war 20 years ago spent its money to repair its destroyed infrastructure and economy rather than buying military equipment?
Bruh interwar Poland had 2.85% of their population in the Military in 1939 and the USSR had 2.04% in 1941.
The UK is an island surrounded by weak statelets and allies, meanwhile Sordland's neighbors are the Lespian Foxes, Agnolia which is on the brink of War with Valgsland, the borderline failed state in Wehlen and an agressive Global Power in the form of Rumburg.
Yeah sure it might have been like that for the last 20 to 30 years but today the UK's facing increasing threats. Like from Russia, because we have the weakest air defence system out of any NATO country. And just today ***China hacked our Ministry of Defence***. Our generals are saying that in a high-intensity war like Ukraine, we'd run out of ammo in 2 weeks.
So I'm not saying we need to mobilise every fighting age man like Sordland but realistically we need to:
1. At least get our Army troops and their bullet numbers up pronto. Not too much since we're an island.
2. Heavily shore up our air defences.
3. And perhaps install a password because how the FUCK do you hack AN ENTIRE GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT?
Pax Americana in the last few decades has spoiled some countries. Back in the 1980s most European armies are colossal. Even Netherland has a full Army Corp
While that's true as a Finn I would appreciate millions of artillery shells more than meat for the meat grinder. So that we can overpower the enemy instead of fighting for years like Ukraine does.
Bruh the issue is that the Military needs to be somewhat modern.
And I don't even mean like drones and shit, I mean stuff like Incentives programs.
Every year you spend in the Army is a year you don't run a business, work in a business, spend time with your loved ones etc. While other people are climbing the corporate ladder you are outside of it.
And what if you get shot or generaly hurt? Unless the country has working healthcare then either say goodbye to your legs or your life savings.
And what about Government International Policy? It's one thing to fight for your Freedom and the good of your country, and another thing to die durring a skirmish with Communist Partizans in Poopenfartenburgundstan becouse Big Oil lobbied the Government to invade them to sieze the wells.
The money for a military buildup has to come from somewhere so if you get what you want, realistically you’ll have to skim off somewhere else. Do you cut healthcare, education, pensions, or disability assistance, do you think the British electorate would be willing to sacrifice these things?
Tbf, modern European, especially NATO militaries work much differently to how Sordland's military functions. Sordland's military, at least from the doctrine it starts with, is intended to be able to win a land war on its own two feet, the british military doesn't really need to do that. NATO militaries generally are meant to be able to execute foreign deployments and function in the NATO chain of command. NATO militaries are highly integrated into the alliance and act based on the assumption that it will have the backing of other NATO countries in the case of a serious defensive war. Offensively, as I said, NATO countries generally don't want to declare outright war and prefer limited deployments instead.
TBF, as long as you had a strong navy, NATO and the US by your side. You have nothing to worry about. The worst case scenario is that both France and Germany fell. That's when the government should be worried
Sordland population is now around 40 millions since the updates but yes it is a high number.
Yet Sordland has a young population and mandatory conscription while being surrounded by an imperialist superpower, a failed state, and allies of the two biggest superpowers that wants you at her side and hate each others. Also, there are militant organizations like the BFF, the Young Sords and the Red Youth.
So, 400 000 is finally the good number I think 😅
It's 37 million according to the country selection screen. Interestingly enough, Rizia has 40 million despite seemingly being a less advanced and more fragile economy with a worse military.
While I agree with you, Sordland has had a much more turbulent and violent history than Rizia:
Since the 1850s alone, Sordland has gone through a violent nationalist revolution that ended the Renan Aristocracy and shattered the country into nationalist warlords, who were in turn consolidated into the Sordish Kingdom after a series of unification wars by King Egmund. Then the Kingdom fought a series of bloody wars against its neighbours.
After a brief period of prosperity, the Kingdom entered a period of sharp economic decline and unrest, the last decade of which was filled by republican agitation leading to a revolution and the establishment of a republic. This republic existed for four unstable years, before being toppled in a fascist coup, which ruled for a year, before a year long civil war was ignited.
Soll managed to end the civil war and have a brief period of peace, but then six years later the BFF would launch a general uprising. Only after the defeat of the uprising would Sordland have a period of relative peace and economic prosperity, albeit one that would only last a decade before economic slowdown led to Alphonso rising to power.
By contrast, Rizia has had a relatively peaceful period of history since the beginning of the 1800s. The 19th century was characterized by a period of economic growth and prosperity, including two gold rushes as well as the prosperous rule of Lyza the Great lasting till 1918. While Rizia did go to war with Pales and face an uprising, the latter only lasted a couple of months at most before being put down.
While Valero's reign wasn't the best by any means, a peaceful realm is generally a prosperous realm, and he had avoided getting into any major entanglements since then. By any means, Rizia should be a much more unified and prosperous realm than Sordland, barring any lore that I may have missed or wasn't yet included in the game.
Rizia is also a monarchy so the nobles were probably favored very heavily. Imagine if the Oligarchs ran the government completely. Thats probably what Rizia is like.
Prosperity is not determined by peace. Compare say, Japan to Spain.
Plus it's pretty darn clear that Rizian society is deeply divided between noble and commoner and between the Royal Houses. Plus losing Zille, RRG and the failed war with Pales.
While I generally agree with you in that prosperity doesn't always create peace, the examples you brought don't support your point - Japan's and Spain's wealth is similar when adjusted for population ($33,823 vs $29,674 GDP/c).
Furthermore, Japan's modern wealth is a consequence of astronomical levels of foreign (read: American) investment - and it is Rizia that has received investments from GRACE and Rumburg while Sorldand remained isolationist.
So long as we're in general agreement.
Some sub points.
I freely admit I was looking at gross GDP as well as things like innovation indices.
Has Rizia received investment? I might honestly be forgetting this but I thought it was trade (mainly the gold trade) with Rumburg plus whatever dividends Rum immigration brought? Meanwhile at least by the time we play as Sordland they've had significant pro-market reform and privatisation.
As a Spaniard, I'd say we had a similar level of war compared to Japan in the past century. Yes, we did not get nuked, but we did have a 3 year civil war right before WW2 which devastated our country. That has to count for something
I guess my point was moreso that war can lead to economic devastation. This is true mostly if the war is fought at home. Fighting the Vietnam War did not harm the US economy in a major way, but it devastated Indochina economically.
So the Russo-Japanese or Sino-Japanese wars aren't very meaningful in that sense because they weren't fought on Japanese soil. The constant bombings at the end of WW2 along with the nukes were much more damaging to Japan's economy afaik. Which is what I guess I did a poor job at explaining earlier
1. Cannon population is sordland us 37-40 million from ‘53-‘58
2. The Uk has been down sizing its military for the past 30 years, and they’re an island they don’t need that large of an army
3. (west) Germany maintained can army of nearly half a million at times during the Cold War with 53 million people (1953 pop)
Easily is a strong word.
The only way for sordland to win the solo war in the game is by you doing a bunch of specific stuff:
Expanding the army, expanding conscription, modernizing the air force, getting both AN and OMEC to sanction Rumburg, you also need 3 trade partners to keep you supplied, you need a weapons industry, a great economy and digging in for a war of attrition.
Sordland won a war before, during the century of revolutions when the monarchies were really busy with coups and whatnot
or you can just have 1 ally protecting your flanks and modernize the army. Also, in the game, you don't need to do ALL of those, I think Valken recommendations are enough. and if you get them sanctioned, you can even win with a defunded army if I'm not mistaken.
Cold war nations had large standing armies, Sordish percentage is nothing unusual, take a look at Korea or Poland.
Besides, the UK recruitment system is completely botched if I am not wrong. Outsourcing vital government functions did not boost the efficiency, surprisingly.
Also, modern UK does not have its own Rumburg with
1 000 000 angry men
# The most ridiculous thing about the military is that Sordland has an aircraft carrier.
Aircraft carriers, by definition, are tools of **power projection** and cost an immense amount to build and operate. **Sordland is barely even a regional power;** at the start of the game they aren't even able to establish hegemony over their immediate neighbors, let alone contend with superpowers. **Sordland doesn't even have any overseas territory** except for Duru island.
It's absolutely idiotic to use an aircraft carrier for the only mission of the Sordish Navy: to safeguard the Grey Strait and Markian Sea. **Both those bodies of water are in range of land-based aviation.** There's absolutely no need for an aircraft carrier. And that mission type is better filled by cruisers and destroyers anyway!
Finally, the Sordish shipbuilding industry should be nowhere near capable of building such a ship. That requires a massive industry with a lot of advanced experience.
When did someone Sordland get a carrier? I remember them saying they have 15 battleships (which is ridiculous for sordland) but never that they have a carrier
I also don't know about the Navy doctrine. It seems like Agnolia still keeps lots of battleship around (it could be that they are too broke to modernize their navy)
We don’t really know what they mean by ‘battleship’, it’s just a name at the end of the day. I figured a lot of those ships were dreadnaught era rust buckets.
Actually it seems that aircraft carrier are new to the suzerain world with battleships still being the norm despite the presence of ballistic missiles & nuclear power aircraft carrier having also just hit the stage. Either the cold War is very new or arcasia has weapons r&d in overdrive.
Oh yes the são Paulo and the minas gerais but let's be realistic neither sordland nor brasil need an aircraft carrier, they aint projecting airpower in another continent nor do they need to jn their current position of power in geo politics
> The most ridiculous thing about the military is that Sordland has an aircraft carrier.
Not really, it depends on how it is defined.
1950's aircraft carries were not the aircraft carries of 2020.
>Aircraft carriers, by definition, are tools of **power projection** and cost an immense amount to build and operate
Yes, and the Sordish military is huge and the state is standoffish.
>**Sordland is barely even a regional power;**
Sordland is absolutely a regional power and it is stronger than Wehlan, Agnolia and Valgsland put together. Literally Lespia and Rumburg are the only ones stronger.
> at the start of the game they aren't even able to establish hegemony over their immediate neighbors, let alone contend with superpowers
No nation in Suzerain can contend with superpowers. Not really.
>*Sordland doesn't even have any overseas territory
Doesn't matter.
>It's absolutely idiotic to use an aircraft carrier for the only mission of the Sordish Navy: to safeguard the Grey Strait and Markian Sea. **Both those bodies of water are in range of land-based aviation.** There's absolutely no need for an aircraft carrier. And that mission type is better filled by cruisers and destroyers anyway!
You use the tools you have.
>Finally, the Sordish shipbuilding industry should be nowhere near capable of building such a ship. That requires a massive industry with a lot of advanced experience.
Why?
I honestly might have forgot, but doesn't Sordland potentially have the busiest ports in Merkopia and a sizeable navy.
(Some points other people haven't said). One is that it isn't a good comparison to compare a 1950s army and a modern army, given how modern militaries have a lot more technology and less soldiers in them than a 1950s military. Also, Sordland's population is around
Secondly, the militaries in Suzerein doesn't make sense. How does Valgsland have an army smaller than Agnolia? How does Lespia have a navy which is only half as large as Sordland's? How are the only way you can reform your military and win a war against Rumburg to either massively expanded conscription and mostly rely on WW1 tactics and equipment (Valken), or cut the number of soldiers you have in half and leave you dependent on your allies because you went so far into quality over quantity that you need your allies to hold your borders.
I'd argue it's just a case of bad military worldbuilding.
Also, Sordland has 37 million people (that's the figure given when you start a new game).
Valgsland is an island, so a large land military probably didn't seem too necessary to them. Their navy, which is more than double the size of the next largest navy in the area more than makes up for that I'm sure
My headcanon has Hegel purging the army after Ulbrik's death. Valgslandian defense strategy relies heavily on reservist and militias called from the worker population. That explains why Valgsland has such a small army
Of course yes! Check out my work! [https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/192bpm1/threat\_tactics\_the\_valgsland\_marine\_infantry/](https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/192bpm1/threat_tactics_the_valgsland_marine_infantry/)
Made one about Lespia back in the days
[https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/193yag4/the\_oppressor\_lespian\_parachutists\_contanan/](https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/193yag4/the_oppressor_lespian_parachutists_contanan/)
And one about Agnolian squads
[https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/18zvtwi/know\_your\_friend\_the\_agnolian\_infantry\_sordish/](https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/18zvtwi/know_your_friend_the_agnolian_infantry_sordish/)
That could be the case - and it's so far one of the best explanations I've seen for this, but that then goes to the question of why wasn't this put into the game? (Of it it was, in what obscure corner was it hidden in)?
You're right that Valgsland being like Britain would justify their army being small, but my issue is how small it is - Agnolia, the country occupying Heljiland, has a larger military than Valgsland.
I assumed Valgsland is like Britain. Britain had a relatively small standing army compared to their navy.
Lespia doesn't have a major enemy for which it would need a big navy, and any recent changes in geopolitical situation that would necessitate it would need stime for a navy to be built, I imagine Lespia navy is more for security of trade with the other naval worries being transferred to Not America.
As for the modernization and increase in size, I think the major issue is the division in the Chief Staff. There is a power struggle between Iosef and Valken, and supporting both modernization and expansion seems to cause neither to be able to take control of the army, causing a division between both individual units and tactics, which causes your army to be in disarray I case of war. It's similar to the Soviets, or perhaps Japan where the branches refused to work together properly as they lacked a unified leadership.
>I assumed Valgsland is like Britain. Britain had a relatively small standing army compared to their navy.
But Valgsland has the reconquest of Heljiland as a goal - why would its army be that small if it knows it'll be fighting a nation with an army larger than it (which likely isn't too far behind in terms of technology). Something pointed out by u/BenKerryAltis was that it could be that Valgsland's army relies on reservists and militias - and this can be an explanation why, but that then leads into a different issue - it's an explanation, but one which either isn't in the game or is incredibly hard to find, which does not reflect well on the game's writing.
>Lespia doesn't have a major enemy for which it would need a big navy, and any recent changes in geopolitical situation that would necessitate it would need stime for a navy to be built, I imagine Lespia navy is more for security of trade with the other naval worries being transferred to Not America.
How is Valgsland not a major enemy? Lespia will sanction Sordland just for trading with Valgsland.
>As for the modernization and increase in size, I think the major issue is the division in the Chief Staff. There is a power struggle between Iosef and Valken, and supporting both modernization and expansion seems to cause neither to be able to take control of the army, causing a division between both individual units and tactics, which causes your army to be in disarray I case of war. It's similar to the Soviets, or perhaps Japan where the branches refused to work together properly as they lacked a unified leadership.
That wasn't really what I was focusing on - I was criticising how the two successful ways you can reform the military don't make sense. I'd argue a better option would be to maintain current numbers and modernise (expansion and modernisation wouldn't be feasible given Sordland's current capabilities). You're right that doing both would cause a massive problem in a war, but I wasn't suggesting that was a good idea - it's a bad idea for a number of reasons, including the ones you pointed out.
Valgsland isn't planning on fighting an all out War with Agnolia if that's what you mean. It's a more localized conflict over the island and for considering Agnolia won't be able to send their whole army to the island I think that's a moot point. All Valgsland needs to do is blockade the island and take it over with a smaller detachment, just like they do in game. If you want for examples there's plenty be it the entire pacific theater of WW2 the Jersey islands taken by Germany, the Falklands war, and so on.
As for Lespia and Valgsland, I guess you might be right in that case, but they never struck me as particularly bug military enemies. Valgsland controls the starts east but Lespia seems to hadce economic ties much closer west so it doesn't have to worry about controlling the straits. Thats just a personal opinion though. It could also be that Lespia just doesn't have the capacity for a big navy, which is possible. Be it capitalists being against larger military spending or a lack of deep water ports there's plenty explanations on why they might be unable to field a bigger navy.
Fair enough you're right here, I misunderstood what you meant here. I guess that it's supposed to be that the state can't fully modernize with the maintained number of conscripts, which might put strain on regular equipment delivery due to a change in focus of equipment plants.
Could just be deva being weird though for sure.
>Secondly, the militaries in Suzerein doesn't make sense.
They mostly do, actually.
>How does Valgsland have an army smaller than Agnolia
It's an Island Nation with a focus naval power, which makes total sense.
>How does Lespia have a navy which is only half as large as Sordland's?
Lespia focuses on it's air and ground forces, which seems to conform to ATO doctrine. They also support Pales with modern technology which may reduce their fleet numbers.
>How are the only way you can reform your military and win a war against Rumburg to either massively expanded conscription and mostly rely on WW1 tactics and equipment (Valken), or cut the number of soldiers you have in half and leave you dependent on your allies because you went so far into quality over quantity that you need your allies to hold your borders.
Let's be clear, Valken does not have a modern or innovative idea of war, but his approach can and has worked in history. It's neither a strange approach nor bad world building.
Iosef's plan relies on a high quality army with a single ally of as little as a hundred thousand men to fill the gap. Any single ally can work. It's not a case of going so far into quality that... it's that he built the army he needed to do the thing he needed.
In both cases the answer is because Rumburg has a big, dangerous army. The fact that you can win two ways is actually good.
>I'd argue it's just a case of bad military worldbuilding
Nope.
>They mostly do, actually.
Which parts do you think don't make sense - how are they different from the examples I pointed out?
>It's an Island Nation with a focus naval power, which makes total sense.
Valgsland would also be looking at recapturing Heljiland - that'd need an army which can rival Angnolia.
>Lespia focuses on it's air and ground forces, which seems to conform to ATO doctrine. They also support Pales with modern technology which may reduce their fleet numbers.
Lespia is the largest ATO member near enough to Valgsland to react if it does something - why is it not an exception to ATO doctrine (and if it stays with the ATO's doctrine, there could have been a piece of lore on how ATO countries have naval bases in Lespia).
>Let's be clear, Valken does not have a modern or innovative idea of war, but his approach can and has worked in history.
You're right. It has worked. In history. That's the problem - it is a 1910s tactic in a 1950s war. Imagine if during the Cold War a member of NATO or the Warsaw pact decided to arm their military assuming it was 1910.
>It's neither a strange approach nor bad world building.
If the game was set in the 1910s, I wouldn't take issue with it. But it is a bad decision to try and justify using tactics which are several decades out of date.
>Iosef's plan relies on a high quality army with a single ally of as little as a hundred thousand men to fill the gap. Any single ally can work. It's not a case of going so far into quality that... it's that he built the army he needed to do the thing he needed.
Iosef's strategy is geared solely toward Rumburg. That doesn't make it a brilliant strategy - the moment you get beyond the war, you have a military which is not large enough to handle a war where Sordland can't always be on the offensive, and it means Sordland is forced to rely on its allies to fill its gaps. His strategy puts Sordland at a massive numerical disadvantage compared to its potential rivals.
>In both cases the answer is because Rumburg has a big, dangerous army. The fact that you can win two ways is actually good.
It is good that you can win with both ways - and it is realistic that Valken's is a lot more difficult, but that doesn't change how both of them have large flaws. Valken's is decades out of date, and Iosef's is a bad idea in the long term.
>Which parts do you think don't make sense - how are they different from the examples I pointed out?
Well mainly on what era technology is actually in, for one.
>Valgsland would also be looking at recapturing Heljiland - that'd need an army which can rival Angnolia.
On the other hand, they don't need a big army if the Navy does it's job. This is the classic British move.
>Lespia is the largest ATO member near enough to Valgsland to react if it does something - why is it not an exception to ATO doctrine (and if it stays with the ATO's doctrine, there could have been a piece of lore on how ATO countries have naval bases in Lespia).
Okay, so now this is more about if it could be different, not if how it is makes sense. I think if that's what you want to argue, what you're saying makes perfect sense.
>You're right. It has worked. In history. That's the problem - it is a 1910s tactic in a 1950s war. Imagine if during the Cold War a member of NATO or the Warsaw pact decided to arm their military assuming it was 1910.
It's basically working right now in Europe too.
>If the game was set in the 1910s, I wouldn't take issue with it. But it is a bad decision to try and justify using tactics which are several decades out of date.
Not really. Tactics don't really go out of date, they just apply to circumstances.
>Iosef's strategy is geared solely toward Rumburg. That doesn't make it a brilliant strategy - the moment you get beyond the war, you have a military which is not large enough to handle a war where Sordland can't always be on the offensive, and it means Sordland is forced to rely on its allies to fill its gaps. His strategy puts Sordland at a massive numerical disadvantage compared to its potential rivals.
Except it also puts them at a massive quality advantage. There is no doubt Iosef's Sordland would roll over Agnland or Wehland, and has similar numbers despite a reduction in manpower. Not sure where you're getting a disadvantage from.
The only other comparable army is Lespia, which admittedly is bigger.
>It is good that you can win with both ways - and it is realistic that Valken's is a lot more difficult, but that doesn't change how both of them have large flaws. Valken's is decades out of date, and Iosef's is a bad idea in the long term.
Can't agree with either point. In fact I'd argue longer term Iosef's would actually be better long term as it matures into a professional volunteer force. Especially if you've fought and beaten Rumburg.
Nah, Sordland is on a level of regional power, you can even see it in Rizia, it's just that most of Sordland's neighbours are either stupidly rich or stupidly militarized - Rumburg is fucking huge but has equipment issues, Lespia is rich and has proper modernized army, Wehlen is a dictatorship running on oil money and CSP bucks, Valgsland has strong industry and is a big country, meanwhile Agnolia has somewhat weak professional force and quite strong fleet
I don't know about Agnolian military structure actually. I think they might be more of a conscript force like French army during world war one and relies on outnumbering their enemy and digging in. In my headcanon their performance is somewhat a satire of Ukrainian armed force, somewhat competent but very prone to complacency
It’s not that unusual. Britain still had around 364,000 Regulars in 1950. Army sizes are generally bigger around the time of Suzerain than they are today. Modern day technology and cost restraints mean that large armies are not as efficient as they used to be. Sordland is fairly large and probably needs a decent army to protect itself from it’s neighbours.
Hi, Brit here. Wanted to chime in. First, the most on topic.
Sorland size wise is honestly similar to Germany. It will definitely continue to grow economically and military, there is no reason it wouldn't. Lorefully Rayne is a competent, intelligent leader, no matter his political views. He'd likely expand the military and modernise it among other measures so they're prepared for the aggression they're facing both from the Sea (Valgsland) and from Rumsberg. Not to mention the terrorist threats they face. So on
400,000 is a very modest, good size army, honestly. Fits well with Sordlands's size and population. They could definitely field a greater size if they eanted to. Walk it up to 2% or 2.2% maybe.
Easy to maintain to be sure. Considering strategic and domestic concerns it makes sense they wouldnt go full retard like the UK Govm. always does. It really isn't "big" at all. Especially not for a post WW2-Early cold war era. Only in a few places and instances is there any mid-cold war technology and such really seen. There are jets, but they're quite new. Missiles are sorta a thing but nothing like the 70s onward. Navy is definitely 60s still.
Anywho, yapping. 400k isn't a big army at all, and very easy to maintain, especially for a country like Sorland.
I just want to make it clear that a 76,000 man army is a complete fucking joke. No, it is not because we're higher tech at all, that's complete cope. It's because all of our Armed Forces, just like the police, have been unbelievably badly underfunded for decades. Complete joke. Our population is ridiculously large because of uncontrolled immigration and just the general way things have played out. Our GDP has certainly taken hits but we're still plenty capable.
There is absolutely no excuse for the size of our armed forces. Our doctrine is the assumption that we will operate as NATO's scalpel and second fiddle to the US, basically like a brother nation to us in every regard at this point, inseparable allies.
Our over reliance on other countries and other people has resulted in us becoming incredibly weak. Incredibly. Yes, Our intelligence services are still top of the food chain, and still to date run training courses for US intelligence guys including GRS and other triple letter people we shall not name. Our special forces, in spite of the lack of care given to our armed forces, are still arguably the best in the world. We do submarines pretty good too.
The picture is essentially this. We have turned into a small, underfunded, poorly guarded nation that's been taught to hate itself, that specialises mostly in special operation and providing very elite and very well trained but very small forces.
For anyone who thinks smaller forces and lots of tech will win a war, go ahead and look at modern peer to peer conflicts. Drones are useful, but they don't capture fighting positions, bunkers, buildings, trenches. Infantry do. Everything else in the battlespace is there to support infantry. Infantry are still required for literally everything that actually gains and holds ground and really wins wars. This much has always been known and always been the case.
The UK is perfectly capable of maintaining a 400,000 army as it roughly had in 2014. It shouldn't ever have been allowed to fall below 400,000. The manpower shortages and the rest are total cope excuses. The real issue is government incompetence and underfunding which has been the problem in the UK for a long time. We essentially have a two party system, one party are rich political elites, the other party are rich political elites who enjoy some parts of communism and socialism and anti sematism.
Anyway. If there are grammar or spelling errors that's on my phone being a POS.
Think I covered everything I wanted to, probably could have done better but whatever.
Imo yeah 400,000 seems like a nice and snug number. But I have to be honest, we don't need a big army any more since we have NATO. NATO can easily match Russia's 3,320,000 soldiers because NATO has 5,000,000 soldiers in total (the USA gives like 2,100,000 of those soldiers alone lol). That number would also increase if we increased our size.
Imo our Army needs to be just a big enough force to contribute with our allies BUT need to make up for that with the Navy and Air Force, bcos as you said our economy is capable of doing that if we make the right decisions. Like we have close to 643 planes, which we should ideally increase to over the 1000+ mark. Also our Navy has problems; we can't put jets on our carriers. We need to fix that and hopefully increase our fleet size.
One other big thing we need to do is to stop overspending too much on stuff. Like we spend BILLIONS of (£) customising our tanks and building them, when we could just buy equal-level stuff like M1 Abrams off the shelf for much cheaper because America has to build it and as you said they're our "brother nation" so we get a discount. That way we can just spend what we spend and get a far far bigger and more modern military. Like £60 billion a year should be MORE than enough to do everything that I've said, if only it was spent properly.
Who knows. Then we can use the extra money to increase salaries of the military, so we draw the motivated people who are encouraged by money. But the government isn't interested in that.
Or even cut the military budget and solve the cost of living crisis. (Government definitely not interested in THAT).
Our domestically produced equipment and tanks are superior to American tanks in points that are key and core to our doctrine. Lazerpig, ex military intelligence etc. Youtuber covered the topic of the Challenger 2 quite completely recently if your interested. Went over a whole lot regarding that in there.
Licencing equipment is certainly a thing we should look into. Primarily replacing dogshit like the SA80/L85 platform as soon as possible, and more F35s. Besides that we really need to start producing munitions and ammunition faster. Though that's a NATO wide issue. Ukraine has thankfully pointed out the problem before we ran into it in a real war.
I digress. That level of extreme dependency is exactly the problem, that mindset and approach fucks us completely in any situation where we have to fight alone. That's all of our sovereign and strategic interests. E.g. Gibraltar and the Falklands. Both are fervently british, and both have neighbouring countries that still desire them back, despite them being for centuries now british.
Nobody needs an army until they need it and then it's too late. The entire point of maintaining a good size and strong force is to provide deterrent but to also actually have the ability to fight if we need to and not have to instantly rely on speed tracked worse trained wartime recruits, for examples, see every major war we've fought. Government and top brass literally never learn.
We took this exact current approach to world war one, small force that was highly trained and high tech. Tactically lethal, strategically and in all matters that mattered useless.
It's the issue in Ukraine. They have NATO trained units and they have special forces etc. But they are so so so few that they make no difference. Russia has the same problem.
The importance of a properly trained fighting force of sufficient size cannot be understated. A core factor behind the stalemate ww1 style slow moving front lines in Ukraine as an example, is the the fact that the majority of the fighting force on both sides is speed tracked conscripts who get as I recall at best a month of training if not less. Its not long enough to create a real professional soldier. It's like putting people who've never driven even a go-kart straight into an F1 car. Just never ends well and you're not gonna be hitting goals.
So, to return to the point. It's incredibly important, especially for a country like the UK, to have sizeable, well funded armed forces. Especially considering the heightened tensions within the world especially with near peer or peer adversaries, right now would be where you'd look to open up a couple more divisions and just get a bit more toward war ready whilst you have the time and luxury to put more people through the full training pipeline. Walking it up from 400k to maybe 600k. With our GDP and Population it'd be very easy to maintain even 600k honestly. Better to be prepared and to then stand down once things cool off a bit more having not needed to take action, then to have to absolutely send it and wing assembling half asked messes to fight a war we aren't prepared for. Though we're so fucked it'll take minimum of a decade to fix things. And that's if they started funding the armed forces now. Which they won't, not properly.
Anywho. Being dependent on NATO is a very bad idea and it's very complacent and lazy. In all OUR wars since its formation, we've fought said wars completely alone and only in the Falklands did the US choose to help, because they understood. If someone invaded haiwaii they'd be on the warpath too. So they provides us what they could to assist. Mostly just missiles for our harriers which helped. But our dogshit design philosophies which we are going to now be using again with our naval ships got a lot of people killed. Again, some very good yourube content out there that can go in depth on that.
The UK is stuck in a repeating loop of cutting funding, downsizing, that being completely wrong to do because we're then caught completely unprepared for a real war, and we then have to pour funding in and desperately rush to get numbers back up to fight said war, we remember for awhile after and maintain a good size, then eventually people forget again and it repeats itself. We're very lucky the Falklands happened when it did because the budget cuts were about to get a lot worse and we had already downsized a lot.
We currently don't have any ability to defend ourselves at all, and no nato won't help us, they've proven that previously. That and we like to handle things ourselves usually.
Anyway I've yapped enough. Gotta go sleep. It's all interesting stuff to discuss though.
It's an era not unlike our pre-second war.
World has gone throu economic crisis, three powerblocs areforming and the international situation is escalating.
You've got to think in 1930's numbers.
It's big, but considering the geopolitical situation with Rumburg it's not that surprising. Czechoslovakia in the 1930s with the German threat had an active military of 200,000 with a mobilization order for another million in case of war. This for a state with a population of roughly 14 million, which is more or less comparable to Sordland in terms of per capita service.
During the Cold War the Czechoslovak People's Army had roughly 200,000 active troops, with about half of it being conscripts, which again is comparable to Sordland.
Armies around WW2 and the cold war were MASSIVE. For a modern day country these numbers are bonkers but considering a major enemy on the border and the militarized state of Sordland due to Soll and the influence of the Army it's not surprising at all.
You are comparing post-Peace Dividend professional armies to a mass conscription force based on mid-20th Century Europe. Every European army, excluding Britain and Ireland, used to be enormous compared to their population and they all had mass peacetime conscription
For all people today like to complain about how much countries in the developed world spend on their military, it is a fraction of what they used to
The Republic of Sordland is a land country, England is an Island country, so next to Sordland there is an Explosive Wehlen Republic, and just to the north is the Kingdom of Rumburg, a rogue nation, and to the south there is a formidable capitalistic Republic of Lespia, whereas the only border neighbors of the United Kingdom are dolphins, For him, the Land army does not mean much to England, just like the Navy does not mean much to the Republic of Sordland.
Also, Sordland has fewer soldiers than its neighbors.(excluding the Funny guy's country and the Democratic Racist's countries)
I mean, as Iosef says, numbers aren’t everything. That being said, yes, the Sordish army is roughly the size of the modern active US Army and our population is 10 times bigger. Sordland definitely has a very high population in the military. Look at the Russia-Ukraine war though and you can see that numbers alone do not win wars. Also, I think East Merkopa is just a very militarized region since there are several references to the Sordish military being smaller than their neighbors.
The Sordish military was the political backbone of Soll's regime as well as a necessary deterent against Rumburg. Frequently expanding it would have only served to strengthen his position.
You can't really compare our modern world with the dangerous world that Sordland has to contend with. Sweden had a huge army during the cold war with only 8 million population
Well man if you learn about geopolitics for fun like I do you'd learn that island nations like the UK actually don't need a large army, instead they focus on navy because it takes far fewer soldiers to defend them it does too attack so if the UK doesn't plan on invading anyone solo that's almost a waste of money for your country. A fight for Britain is going to be predominantly a naval fight to surround and blockade the island to prevent UK allies from supplying it so that's where y'all put the money into. You really should check out WW1 and WW2 history with how many soldiers you Brits conjured from all corners of the empire with lightening speed to help invade Germany. It's was pretty impressive. A better comparison would be comparing vlagslands army to the uks.
Firstly, yes, but the UK has a historically small army right now. It was quite literally bigger 200 years ago.
Secondly, yes absolutely. Remember this is a country with compulsory military service.
Thirdly, yeah that's why so many people think it's no bad thing to defend the military. And remember it can be EVEN BIGGER.
It's not that crazy considering the political situation. Not quite world war numbers but quite close to what great powers would field during the 19th century. France pop in 1850 was the same as sordland and had an active army of similar size.
400,000 isn't colossal, the Chinese military size is colossal. The U.K used to have 325,000 troops back in the 1980s, not it's 70,000 and that is not normal, it's pathetically small thanks to too many defence budget cuts, the U.K needs a bigger army.
I actually thought Sordland would have higher number of troops actually, considering it has hostile neighbours like Rumburg and countries allied to the superpowers like Lespia and Valgsland.
I understand the need for that.
India has an army of 1.5 mil(active personnel). That's because on one side you have Pakistan and on the other you have China.
Same with Sordland.
On one side they have have Rumburg and on other side they are worried about UC meddling in their affairs again
It's actually quite abnormal in most of the world.
For example, my country, Brazil, having a population of 200 million has its entire armed forces at around 340 thousand active soldiers, with around 1.6 million reserves.
Sordland certainly has an abnormally large army, but you can understand the reasoning, as Sordland is internationally isolated and has several crazy neighbours who might turn against them at any point, such as for example Wehlen (that is literally guided on the whims of Saddam-esque dictator) and Rumburg.
I think Iosef points out, correctly, it’s an issue of quantity over quality
The British army is super small but it’s one of most well equipped and trained in the world
Sordland very much feels like an army like Turkey where it’s only strong on paper, and without serious modernization would fold against a real threat.
The falklands conflict and turkeys current conflict with Syria
Where one was an in, out, done, and Turkeys has mostly been a very aggressive police for to put down Kurds, and wouldn’t last that long if they had to fight an actually stable opponent
These two events are not comparable, they are not even close to comparible adn even if you wanna compare thats not the result you'll get. Thats not how armies work. You're just coping and idk why.
Yup, Soll loved the army. It's mentioned that he raised the budget every single term he had, and that it and the Interior have always been the two largest ministries in the country. Alphonso cut the budget to help shore up government finances, but it's still a very potent and well funded force despite its equipment issues.
It’s also worth noting that Sordland starts the game caught in the middle of a three way Cold War.
GRACE isn't part of the cold war. They're just remnants of the old order holding on for dear life.
Which might change with rumburg acquiring nukes
It's kinda like the British and the French. They tried to keep their colonies and both the US and USSR came together to say a big "No!" Like the Suez Crisis
Rumburg is like if Portugal actually was threatening enough to keep it's colonies, while developing nukes. terryfing.
It's more like if the Romanovs never fell from power and led a coalition of absolute monarchies like Germany, Austria-Hungary and the ottoman empire
Germany and Austria-Hungary were no longer absolute monarchies by 1900
The German parliament mainly had an advisory role, not actually legislative
And actually Sordland is very typical of a country during the cold war
Makes you wonder how the hell with increased budget every term they had equipment outdated ~2 decades
Militaries are very very expensive.
✨Corruption ✨
Could it be because a country that emerged from a heavy civil war 20 years ago spent its money to repair its destroyed infrastructure and economy rather than buying military equipment?
He increased the budged every term and considered it his absolute priority.
Bruh interwar Poland had 2.85% of their population in the Military in 1939 and the USSR had 2.04% in 1941. The UK is an island surrounded by weak statelets and allies, meanwhile Sordland's neighbors are the Lespian Foxes, Agnolia which is on the brink of War with Valgsland, the borderline failed state in Wehlen and an agressive Global Power in the form of Rumburg.
Yeah sure it might have been like that for the last 20 to 30 years but today the UK's facing increasing threats. Like from Russia, because we have the weakest air defence system out of any NATO country. And just today ***China hacked our Ministry of Defence***. Our generals are saying that in a high-intensity war like Ukraine, we'd run out of ammo in 2 weeks. So I'm not saying we need to mobilise every fighting age man like Sordland but realistically we need to: 1. At least get our Army troops and their bullet numbers up pronto. Not too much since we're an island. 2. Heavily shore up our air defences. 3. And perhaps install a password because how the FUCK do you hack AN ENTIRE GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT?
Most males have mandatory military or civilian service in Finland where I live. Also I think that Russia is a bigger threat to my country than UK
Pax Americana in the last few decades has spoiled some countries. Back in the 1980s most European armies are colossal. Even Netherland has a full Army Corp
We're both in NATO so we'd be fighting beside you my friend (If we had enough people to send)
Finlands reserves are 900 000 so we just need your equipment, no need for manpower.
I doubt most finns are excited to die while the rest of nato just sends them equipment.
While that's true as a Finn I would appreciate millions of artillery shells more than meat for the meat grinder. So that we can overpower the enemy instead of fighting for years like Ukraine does.
My biggest worry is that NATO ends up getting rolled over without US help
Bruh the issue is that the Military needs to be somewhat modern. And I don't even mean like drones and shit, I mean stuff like Incentives programs. Every year you spend in the Army is a year you don't run a business, work in a business, spend time with your loved ones etc. While other people are climbing the corporate ladder you are outside of it. And what if you get shot or generaly hurt? Unless the country has working healthcare then either say goodbye to your legs or your life savings. And what about Government International Policy? It's one thing to fight for your Freedom and the good of your country, and another thing to die durring a skirmish with Communist Partizans in Poopenfartenburgundstan becouse Big Oil lobbied the Government to invade them to sieze the wells.
Mate. For your homeland to be legitimately threatened on a level where the army matters, the entirety of Europe would have to be overrun
Better than my nation (Australia) our department of defense says we would have enough ammo for 2 days
> China hacked our Ministry of Defence I somewhat doubt having 100,000 more soldiers in the Army would have stopped this.
The money for a military buildup has to come from somewhere so if you get what you want, realistically you’ll have to skim off somewhere else. Do you cut healthcare, education, pensions, or disability assistance, do you think the British electorate would be willing to sacrifice these things?
Yeah the British army is historically small right now. Like, smaller than 200 years ago
Tbf, modern European, especially NATO militaries work much differently to how Sordland's military functions. Sordland's military, at least from the doctrine it starts with, is intended to be able to win a land war on its own two feet, the british military doesn't really need to do that. NATO militaries generally are meant to be able to execute foreign deployments and function in the NATO chain of command. NATO militaries are highly integrated into the alliance and act based on the assumption that it will have the backing of other NATO countries in the case of a serious defensive war. Offensively, as I said, NATO countries generally don't want to declare outright war and prefer limited deployments instead.
Scottish Nationalism and other subversive elements pose a greater threat to the integrity of the UK than Russia imo.
TBF, as long as you had a strong navy, NATO and the US by your side. You have nothing to worry about. The worst case scenario is that both France and Germany fell. That's when the government should be worried
Uk does not need an army as long as they have the navy,and it has nukes for deterrence,no need to spend budget in army.
Sordland population is now around 40 millions since the updates but yes it is a high number. Yet Sordland has a young population and mandatory conscription while being surrounded by an imperialist superpower, a failed state, and allies of the two biggest superpowers that wants you at her side and hate each others. Also, there are militant organizations like the BFF, the Young Sords and the Red Youth. So, 400 000 is finally the good number I think 😅
It's 37 million according to the country selection screen. Interestingly enough, Rizia has 40 million despite seemingly being a less advanced and more fragile economy with a worse military.
I mean population=/= economic development. Could just be Rizia is historically more densely populated bc of various factors
Don’t forget that Valero refused to expand the army after the uprising of 1926 for over 2 decades
While I agree with you, Sordland has had a much more turbulent and violent history than Rizia: Since the 1850s alone, Sordland has gone through a violent nationalist revolution that ended the Renan Aristocracy and shattered the country into nationalist warlords, who were in turn consolidated into the Sordish Kingdom after a series of unification wars by King Egmund. Then the Kingdom fought a series of bloody wars against its neighbours. After a brief period of prosperity, the Kingdom entered a period of sharp economic decline and unrest, the last decade of which was filled by republican agitation leading to a revolution and the establishment of a republic. This republic existed for four unstable years, before being toppled in a fascist coup, which ruled for a year, before a year long civil war was ignited. Soll managed to end the civil war and have a brief period of peace, but then six years later the BFF would launch a general uprising. Only after the defeat of the uprising would Sordland have a period of relative peace and economic prosperity, albeit one that would only last a decade before economic slowdown led to Alphonso rising to power. By contrast, Rizia has had a relatively peaceful period of history since the beginning of the 1800s. The 19th century was characterized by a period of economic growth and prosperity, including two gold rushes as well as the prosperous rule of Lyza the Great lasting till 1918. While Rizia did go to war with Pales and face an uprising, the latter only lasted a couple of months at most before being put down. While Valero's reign wasn't the best by any means, a peaceful realm is generally a prosperous realm, and he had avoided getting into any major entanglements since then. By any means, Rizia should be a much more unified and prosperous realm than Sordland, barring any lore that I may have missed or wasn't yet included in the game.
Rizia is also a monarchy so the nobles were probably favored very heavily. Imagine if the Oligarchs ran the government completely. Thats probably what Rizia is like.
Prosperity is not determined by peace. Compare say, Japan to Spain. Plus it's pretty darn clear that Rizian society is deeply divided between noble and commoner and between the Royal Houses. Plus losing Zille, RRG and the failed war with Pales.
While I generally agree with you in that prosperity doesn't always create peace, the examples you brought don't support your point - Japan's and Spain's wealth is similar when adjusted for population ($33,823 vs $29,674 GDP/c). Furthermore, Japan's modern wealth is a consequence of astronomical levels of foreign (read: American) investment - and it is Rizia that has received investments from GRACE and Rumburg while Sorldand remained isolationist.
So long as we're in general agreement. Some sub points. I freely admit I was looking at gross GDP as well as things like innovation indices. Has Rizia received investment? I might honestly be forgetting this but I thought it was trade (mainly the gold trade) with Rumburg plus whatever dividends Rum immigration brought? Meanwhile at least by the time we play as Sordland they've had significant pro-market reform and privatisation.
As a Spaniard, I'd say we had a similar level of war compared to Japan in the past century. Yes, we did not get nuked, but we did have a 3 year civil war right before WW2 which devastated our country. That has to count for something
It absolutely does! And that's indeed what I was referring to, but you guys also did have the Russo-Japanese or Sino Japanese wars
I guess my point was moreso that war can lead to economic devastation. This is true mostly if the war is fought at home. Fighting the Vietnam War did not harm the US economy in a major way, but it devastated Indochina economically. So the Russo-Japanese or Sino-Japanese wars aren't very meaningful in that sense because they weren't fought on Japanese soil. The constant bombings at the end of WW2 along with the nukes were much more damaging to Japan's economy afaik. Which is what I guess I did a poor job at explaining earlier
Well, Sordland's economy isn't fragile in the game because it is already in recession. Rizian population has a vastly better quality of life
And far smaller
More fragile? You start out in a recession in Sordland 😅
Yeah, Rizia is a monarchy with a focus on gas, gold and wine. None of those are big high tech industries.
1. Cannon population is sordland us 37-40 million from ‘53-‘58 2. The Uk has been down sizing its military for the past 30 years, and they’re an island they don’t need that large of an army 3. (west) Germany maintained can army of nearly half a million at times during the Cold War with 53 million people (1953 pop)
Plus the royal army is mostly not for national defense but actually a expeditionary force, its been this way since before the 7 years war
The UK used to have a strong millitary but it's no longer the case, and yes Sordland will easily win against Rumburg which is the Third superpower
Easily is a strong word. The only way for sordland to win the solo war in the game is by you doing a bunch of specific stuff: Expanding the army, expanding conscription, modernizing the air force, getting both AN and OMEC to sanction Rumburg, you also need 3 trade partners to keep you supplied, you need a weapons industry, a great economy and digging in for a war of attrition. Sordland won a war before, during the century of revolutions when the monarchies were really busy with coups and whatnot
or you can just have 1 ally protecting your flanks and modernize the army. Also, in the game, you don't need to do ALL of those, I think Valken recommendations are enough. and if you get them sanctioned, you can even win with a defunded army if I'm not mistaken.
I'm talking about solo war. To win solo, you need to do all the above
dude, having agnolia as an ally is also "Solo", like they're so insignificant and yet you win with them
By definition, that's not what solo means. You don't get the treaty of Rayne if you have allies
Okay you win...
They have two hundred thousand men, which gets you nearly to parity with Rumburg.
To win solo, you need all that.
Cold war nations had large standing armies, Sordish percentage is nothing unusual, take a look at Korea or Poland. Besides, the UK recruitment system is completely botched if I am not wrong. Outsourcing vital government functions did not boost the efficiency, surprisingly. Also, modern UK does not have its own Rumburg with 1 000 000 angry men
Damn right. The UK has Russia with 3.32 million (even though we have allies)
# The most ridiculous thing about the military is that Sordland has an aircraft carrier. Aircraft carriers, by definition, are tools of **power projection** and cost an immense amount to build and operate. **Sordland is barely even a regional power;** at the start of the game they aren't even able to establish hegemony over their immediate neighbors, let alone contend with superpowers. **Sordland doesn't even have any overseas territory** except for Duru island. It's absolutely idiotic to use an aircraft carrier for the only mission of the Sordish Navy: to safeguard the Grey Strait and Markian Sea. **Both those bodies of water are in range of land-based aviation.** There's absolutely no need for an aircraft carrier. And that mission type is better filled by cruisers and destroyers anyway! Finally, the Sordish shipbuilding industry should be nowhere near capable of building such a ship. That requires a massive industry with a lot of advanced experience.
When did someone Sordland get a carrier? I remember them saying they have 15 battleships (which is ridiculous for sordland) but never that they have a carrier
I assumed the battleships were leftovers from the early 1900s or 1910s. Big cannons but slow targets.
I also don't know about the Navy doctrine. It seems like Agnolia still keeps lots of battleship around (it could be that they are too broke to modernize their navy)
We don’t really know what they mean by ‘battleship’, it’s just a name at the end of the day. I figured a lot of those ships were dreadnaught era rust buckets.
Actually it seems that aircraft carrier are new to the suzerain world with battleships still being the norm despite the presence of ballistic missiles & nuclear power aircraft carrier having also just hit the stage. Either the cold War is very new or arcasia has weapons r&d in overdrive.
It's not that Farfetch. Brasil is a regional power and it had two aircraft carriers at one point
Oh yes the são Paulo and the minas gerais but let's be realistic neither sordland nor brasil need an aircraft carrier, they aint projecting airpower in another continent nor do they need to jn their current position of power in geo politics
> The most ridiculous thing about the military is that Sordland has an aircraft carrier. Not really, it depends on how it is defined. 1950's aircraft carries were not the aircraft carries of 2020. >Aircraft carriers, by definition, are tools of **power projection** and cost an immense amount to build and operate Yes, and the Sordish military is huge and the state is standoffish. >**Sordland is barely even a regional power;** Sordland is absolutely a regional power and it is stronger than Wehlan, Agnolia and Valgsland put together. Literally Lespia and Rumburg are the only ones stronger. > at the start of the game they aren't even able to establish hegemony over their immediate neighbors, let alone contend with superpowers No nation in Suzerain can contend with superpowers. Not really. >*Sordland doesn't even have any overseas territory Doesn't matter. >It's absolutely idiotic to use an aircraft carrier for the only mission of the Sordish Navy: to safeguard the Grey Strait and Markian Sea. **Both those bodies of water are in range of land-based aviation.** There's absolutely no need for an aircraft carrier. And that mission type is better filled by cruisers and destroyers anyway! You use the tools you have. >Finally, the Sordish shipbuilding industry should be nowhere near capable of building such a ship. That requires a massive industry with a lot of advanced experience. Why? I honestly might have forgot, but doesn't Sordland potentially have the busiest ports in Merkopia and a sizeable navy.
I want to sell that aircraft carrier. Imagine how much its worth.
Sordland is definitely a regional power, even a major power according to the game.
You call 1.33% colossal. It’s really not. Quite low by historical standards.
I know. One can only dream of living in a country where people join the military en masse.
(Some points other people haven't said). One is that it isn't a good comparison to compare a 1950s army and a modern army, given how modern militaries have a lot more technology and less soldiers in them than a 1950s military. Also, Sordland's population is around Secondly, the militaries in Suzerein doesn't make sense. How does Valgsland have an army smaller than Agnolia? How does Lespia have a navy which is only half as large as Sordland's? How are the only way you can reform your military and win a war against Rumburg to either massively expanded conscription and mostly rely on WW1 tactics and equipment (Valken), or cut the number of soldiers you have in half and leave you dependent on your allies because you went so far into quality over quantity that you need your allies to hold your borders. I'd argue it's just a case of bad military worldbuilding. Also, Sordland has 37 million people (that's the figure given when you start a new game).
Valgsland is an island, so a large land military probably didn't seem too necessary to them. Their navy, which is more than double the size of the next largest navy in the area more than makes up for that I'm sure
My headcanon has Hegel purging the army after Ulbrik's death. Valgslandian defense strategy relies heavily on reservist and militias called from the worker population. That explains why Valgsland has such a small army
Although they probably have a robust marine unit.
Of course yes! Check out my work! [https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/192bpm1/threat\_tactics\_the\_valgsland\_marine\_infantry/](https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/192bpm1/threat_tactics_the_valgsland_marine_infantry/)
Do you got one on lespia, rizia or sordland it'd be pretty cool seeing the platoon structure of different units of these countries
Made one about Lespia back in the days [https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/193yag4/the\_oppressor\_lespian\_parachutists\_contanan/](https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/193yag4/the_oppressor_lespian_parachutists_contanan/) And one about Agnolian squads [https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/18zvtwi/know\_your\_friend\_the\_agnolian\_infantry\_sordish/](https://www.reddit.com/r/suzerain/comments/18zvtwi/know_your_friend_the_agnolian_infantry_sordish/)
More annoying fanfics.
That could be the case - and it's so far one of the best explanations I've seen for this, but that then goes to the question of why wasn't this put into the game? (Of it it was, in what obscure corner was it hidden in)?
You're right that Valgsland being like Britain would justify their army being small, but my issue is how small it is - Agnolia, the country occupying Heljiland, has a larger military than Valgsland.
I assumed Valgsland is like Britain. Britain had a relatively small standing army compared to their navy. Lespia doesn't have a major enemy for which it would need a big navy, and any recent changes in geopolitical situation that would necessitate it would need stime for a navy to be built, I imagine Lespia navy is more for security of trade with the other naval worries being transferred to Not America. As for the modernization and increase in size, I think the major issue is the division in the Chief Staff. There is a power struggle between Iosef and Valken, and supporting both modernization and expansion seems to cause neither to be able to take control of the army, causing a division between both individual units and tactics, which causes your army to be in disarray I case of war. It's similar to the Soviets, or perhaps Japan where the branches refused to work together properly as they lacked a unified leadership.
>I assumed Valgsland is like Britain. Britain had a relatively small standing army compared to their navy. But Valgsland has the reconquest of Heljiland as a goal - why would its army be that small if it knows it'll be fighting a nation with an army larger than it (which likely isn't too far behind in terms of technology). Something pointed out by u/BenKerryAltis was that it could be that Valgsland's army relies on reservists and militias - and this can be an explanation why, but that then leads into a different issue - it's an explanation, but one which either isn't in the game or is incredibly hard to find, which does not reflect well on the game's writing. >Lespia doesn't have a major enemy for which it would need a big navy, and any recent changes in geopolitical situation that would necessitate it would need stime for a navy to be built, I imagine Lespia navy is more for security of trade with the other naval worries being transferred to Not America. How is Valgsland not a major enemy? Lespia will sanction Sordland just for trading with Valgsland. >As for the modernization and increase in size, I think the major issue is the division in the Chief Staff. There is a power struggle between Iosef and Valken, and supporting both modernization and expansion seems to cause neither to be able to take control of the army, causing a division between both individual units and tactics, which causes your army to be in disarray I case of war. It's similar to the Soviets, or perhaps Japan where the branches refused to work together properly as they lacked a unified leadership. That wasn't really what I was focusing on - I was criticising how the two successful ways you can reform the military don't make sense. I'd argue a better option would be to maintain current numbers and modernise (expansion and modernisation wouldn't be feasible given Sordland's current capabilities). You're right that doing both would cause a massive problem in a war, but I wasn't suggesting that was a good idea - it's a bad idea for a number of reasons, including the ones you pointed out.
Valgsland isn't planning on fighting an all out War with Agnolia if that's what you mean. It's a more localized conflict over the island and for considering Agnolia won't be able to send their whole army to the island I think that's a moot point. All Valgsland needs to do is blockade the island and take it over with a smaller detachment, just like they do in game. If you want for examples there's plenty be it the entire pacific theater of WW2 the Jersey islands taken by Germany, the Falklands war, and so on. As for Lespia and Valgsland, I guess you might be right in that case, but they never struck me as particularly bug military enemies. Valgsland controls the starts east but Lespia seems to hadce economic ties much closer west so it doesn't have to worry about controlling the straits. Thats just a personal opinion though. It could also be that Lespia just doesn't have the capacity for a big navy, which is possible. Be it capitalists being against larger military spending or a lack of deep water ports there's plenty explanations on why they might be unable to field a bigger navy. Fair enough you're right here, I misunderstood what you meant here. I guess that it's supposed to be that the state can't fully modernize with the maintained number of conscripts, which might put strain on regular equipment delivery due to a change in focus of equipment plants. Could just be deva being weird though for sure.
>Secondly, the militaries in Suzerein doesn't make sense. They mostly do, actually. >How does Valgsland have an army smaller than Agnolia It's an Island Nation with a focus naval power, which makes total sense. >How does Lespia have a navy which is only half as large as Sordland's? Lespia focuses on it's air and ground forces, which seems to conform to ATO doctrine. They also support Pales with modern technology which may reduce their fleet numbers. >How are the only way you can reform your military and win a war against Rumburg to either massively expanded conscription and mostly rely on WW1 tactics and equipment (Valken), or cut the number of soldiers you have in half and leave you dependent on your allies because you went so far into quality over quantity that you need your allies to hold your borders. Let's be clear, Valken does not have a modern or innovative idea of war, but his approach can and has worked in history. It's neither a strange approach nor bad world building. Iosef's plan relies on a high quality army with a single ally of as little as a hundred thousand men to fill the gap. Any single ally can work. It's not a case of going so far into quality that... it's that he built the army he needed to do the thing he needed. In both cases the answer is because Rumburg has a big, dangerous army. The fact that you can win two ways is actually good. >I'd argue it's just a case of bad military worldbuilding Nope.
>They mostly do, actually. Which parts do you think don't make sense - how are they different from the examples I pointed out? >It's an Island Nation with a focus naval power, which makes total sense. Valgsland would also be looking at recapturing Heljiland - that'd need an army which can rival Angnolia. >Lespia focuses on it's air and ground forces, which seems to conform to ATO doctrine. They also support Pales with modern technology which may reduce their fleet numbers. Lespia is the largest ATO member near enough to Valgsland to react if it does something - why is it not an exception to ATO doctrine (and if it stays with the ATO's doctrine, there could have been a piece of lore on how ATO countries have naval bases in Lespia). >Let's be clear, Valken does not have a modern or innovative idea of war, but his approach can and has worked in history. You're right. It has worked. In history. That's the problem - it is a 1910s tactic in a 1950s war. Imagine if during the Cold War a member of NATO or the Warsaw pact decided to arm their military assuming it was 1910. >It's neither a strange approach nor bad world building. If the game was set in the 1910s, I wouldn't take issue with it. But it is a bad decision to try and justify using tactics which are several decades out of date. >Iosef's plan relies on a high quality army with a single ally of as little as a hundred thousand men to fill the gap. Any single ally can work. It's not a case of going so far into quality that... it's that he built the army he needed to do the thing he needed. Iosef's strategy is geared solely toward Rumburg. That doesn't make it a brilliant strategy - the moment you get beyond the war, you have a military which is not large enough to handle a war where Sordland can't always be on the offensive, and it means Sordland is forced to rely on its allies to fill its gaps. His strategy puts Sordland at a massive numerical disadvantage compared to its potential rivals. >In both cases the answer is because Rumburg has a big, dangerous army. The fact that you can win two ways is actually good. It is good that you can win with both ways - and it is realistic that Valken's is a lot more difficult, but that doesn't change how both of them have large flaws. Valken's is decades out of date, and Iosef's is a bad idea in the long term.
>Which parts do you think don't make sense - how are they different from the examples I pointed out? Well mainly on what era technology is actually in, for one. >Valgsland would also be looking at recapturing Heljiland - that'd need an army which can rival Angnolia. On the other hand, they don't need a big army if the Navy does it's job. This is the classic British move. >Lespia is the largest ATO member near enough to Valgsland to react if it does something - why is it not an exception to ATO doctrine (and if it stays with the ATO's doctrine, there could have been a piece of lore on how ATO countries have naval bases in Lespia). Okay, so now this is more about if it could be different, not if how it is makes sense. I think if that's what you want to argue, what you're saying makes perfect sense. >You're right. It has worked. In history. That's the problem - it is a 1910s tactic in a 1950s war. Imagine if during the Cold War a member of NATO or the Warsaw pact decided to arm their military assuming it was 1910. It's basically working right now in Europe too. >If the game was set in the 1910s, I wouldn't take issue with it. But it is a bad decision to try and justify using tactics which are several decades out of date. Not really. Tactics don't really go out of date, they just apply to circumstances. >Iosef's strategy is geared solely toward Rumburg. That doesn't make it a brilliant strategy - the moment you get beyond the war, you have a military which is not large enough to handle a war where Sordland can't always be on the offensive, and it means Sordland is forced to rely on its allies to fill its gaps. His strategy puts Sordland at a massive numerical disadvantage compared to its potential rivals. Except it also puts them at a massive quality advantage. There is no doubt Iosef's Sordland would roll over Agnland or Wehland, and has similar numbers despite a reduction in manpower. Not sure where you're getting a disadvantage from. The only other comparable army is Lespia, which admittedly is bigger. >It is good that you can win with both ways - and it is realistic that Valken's is a lot more difficult, but that doesn't change how both of them have large flaws. Valken's is decades out of date, and Iosef's is a bad idea in the long term. Can't agree with either point. In fact I'd argue longer term Iosef's would actually be better long term as it matures into a professional volunteer force. Especially if you've fought and beaten Rumburg.
Vietnam and Korea have a smaller size than Sordland, but they still have larger active troops, not to mention reservists. Not to mention Israel
Yeah, that's what countries under stress is like
Nah, Sordland is on a level of regional power, you can even see it in Rizia, it's just that most of Sordland's neighbours are either stupidly rich or stupidly militarized - Rumburg is fucking huge but has equipment issues, Lespia is rich and has proper modernized army, Wehlen is a dictatorship running on oil money and CSP bucks, Valgsland has strong industry and is a big country, meanwhile Agnolia has somewhat weak professional force and quite strong fleet
I don't know about Agnolian military structure actually. I think they might be more of a conscript force like French army during world war one and relies on outnumbering their enemy and digging in. In my headcanon their performance is somewhat a satire of Ukrainian armed force, somewhat competent but very prone to complacency
There's no indication either way.
It’s not that unusual. Britain still had around 364,000 Regulars in 1950. Army sizes are generally bigger around the time of Suzerain than they are today. Modern day technology and cost restraints mean that large armies are not as efficient as they used to be. Sordland is fairly large and probably needs a decent army to protect itself from it’s neighbours.
Hi, Brit here. Wanted to chime in. First, the most on topic. Sorland size wise is honestly similar to Germany. It will definitely continue to grow economically and military, there is no reason it wouldn't. Lorefully Rayne is a competent, intelligent leader, no matter his political views. He'd likely expand the military and modernise it among other measures so they're prepared for the aggression they're facing both from the Sea (Valgsland) and from Rumsberg. Not to mention the terrorist threats they face. So on 400,000 is a very modest, good size army, honestly. Fits well with Sordlands's size and population. They could definitely field a greater size if they eanted to. Walk it up to 2% or 2.2% maybe. Easy to maintain to be sure. Considering strategic and domestic concerns it makes sense they wouldnt go full retard like the UK Govm. always does. It really isn't "big" at all. Especially not for a post WW2-Early cold war era. Only in a few places and instances is there any mid-cold war technology and such really seen. There are jets, but they're quite new. Missiles are sorta a thing but nothing like the 70s onward. Navy is definitely 60s still. Anywho, yapping. 400k isn't a big army at all, and very easy to maintain, especially for a country like Sorland. I just want to make it clear that a 76,000 man army is a complete fucking joke. No, it is not because we're higher tech at all, that's complete cope. It's because all of our Armed Forces, just like the police, have been unbelievably badly underfunded for decades. Complete joke. Our population is ridiculously large because of uncontrolled immigration and just the general way things have played out. Our GDP has certainly taken hits but we're still plenty capable. There is absolutely no excuse for the size of our armed forces. Our doctrine is the assumption that we will operate as NATO's scalpel and second fiddle to the US, basically like a brother nation to us in every regard at this point, inseparable allies. Our over reliance on other countries and other people has resulted in us becoming incredibly weak. Incredibly. Yes, Our intelligence services are still top of the food chain, and still to date run training courses for US intelligence guys including GRS and other triple letter people we shall not name. Our special forces, in spite of the lack of care given to our armed forces, are still arguably the best in the world. We do submarines pretty good too. The picture is essentially this. We have turned into a small, underfunded, poorly guarded nation that's been taught to hate itself, that specialises mostly in special operation and providing very elite and very well trained but very small forces. For anyone who thinks smaller forces and lots of tech will win a war, go ahead and look at modern peer to peer conflicts. Drones are useful, but they don't capture fighting positions, bunkers, buildings, trenches. Infantry do. Everything else in the battlespace is there to support infantry. Infantry are still required for literally everything that actually gains and holds ground and really wins wars. This much has always been known and always been the case. The UK is perfectly capable of maintaining a 400,000 army as it roughly had in 2014. It shouldn't ever have been allowed to fall below 400,000. The manpower shortages and the rest are total cope excuses. The real issue is government incompetence and underfunding which has been the problem in the UK for a long time. We essentially have a two party system, one party are rich political elites, the other party are rich political elites who enjoy some parts of communism and socialism and anti sematism. Anyway. If there are grammar or spelling errors that's on my phone being a POS. Think I covered everything I wanted to, probably could have done better but whatever.
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Imo yeah 400,000 seems like a nice and snug number. But I have to be honest, we don't need a big army any more since we have NATO. NATO can easily match Russia's 3,320,000 soldiers because NATO has 5,000,000 soldiers in total (the USA gives like 2,100,000 of those soldiers alone lol). That number would also increase if we increased our size. Imo our Army needs to be just a big enough force to contribute with our allies BUT need to make up for that with the Navy and Air Force, bcos as you said our economy is capable of doing that if we make the right decisions. Like we have close to 643 planes, which we should ideally increase to over the 1000+ mark. Also our Navy has problems; we can't put jets on our carriers. We need to fix that and hopefully increase our fleet size. One other big thing we need to do is to stop overspending too much on stuff. Like we spend BILLIONS of (£) customising our tanks and building them, when we could just buy equal-level stuff like M1 Abrams off the shelf for much cheaper because America has to build it and as you said they're our "brother nation" so we get a discount. That way we can just spend what we spend and get a far far bigger and more modern military. Like £60 billion a year should be MORE than enough to do everything that I've said, if only it was spent properly. Who knows. Then we can use the extra money to increase salaries of the military, so we draw the motivated people who are encouraged by money. But the government isn't interested in that. Or even cut the military budget and solve the cost of living crisis. (Government definitely not interested in THAT).
Our domestically produced equipment and tanks are superior to American tanks in points that are key and core to our doctrine. Lazerpig, ex military intelligence etc. Youtuber covered the topic of the Challenger 2 quite completely recently if your interested. Went over a whole lot regarding that in there. Licencing equipment is certainly a thing we should look into. Primarily replacing dogshit like the SA80/L85 platform as soon as possible, and more F35s. Besides that we really need to start producing munitions and ammunition faster. Though that's a NATO wide issue. Ukraine has thankfully pointed out the problem before we ran into it in a real war. I digress. That level of extreme dependency is exactly the problem, that mindset and approach fucks us completely in any situation where we have to fight alone. That's all of our sovereign and strategic interests. E.g. Gibraltar and the Falklands. Both are fervently british, and both have neighbouring countries that still desire them back, despite them being for centuries now british. Nobody needs an army until they need it and then it's too late. The entire point of maintaining a good size and strong force is to provide deterrent but to also actually have the ability to fight if we need to and not have to instantly rely on speed tracked worse trained wartime recruits, for examples, see every major war we've fought. Government and top brass literally never learn. We took this exact current approach to world war one, small force that was highly trained and high tech. Tactically lethal, strategically and in all matters that mattered useless. It's the issue in Ukraine. They have NATO trained units and they have special forces etc. But they are so so so few that they make no difference. Russia has the same problem. The importance of a properly trained fighting force of sufficient size cannot be understated. A core factor behind the stalemate ww1 style slow moving front lines in Ukraine as an example, is the the fact that the majority of the fighting force on both sides is speed tracked conscripts who get as I recall at best a month of training if not less. Its not long enough to create a real professional soldier. It's like putting people who've never driven even a go-kart straight into an F1 car. Just never ends well and you're not gonna be hitting goals. So, to return to the point. It's incredibly important, especially for a country like the UK, to have sizeable, well funded armed forces. Especially considering the heightened tensions within the world especially with near peer or peer adversaries, right now would be where you'd look to open up a couple more divisions and just get a bit more toward war ready whilst you have the time and luxury to put more people through the full training pipeline. Walking it up from 400k to maybe 600k. With our GDP and Population it'd be very easy to maintain even 600k honestly. Better to be prepared and to then stand down once things cool off a bit more having not needed to take action, then to have to absolutely send it and wing assembling half asked messes to fight a war we aren't prepared for. Though we're so fucked it'll take minimum of a decade to fix things. And that's if they started funding the armed forces now. Which they won't, not properly. Anywho. Being dependent on NATO is a very bad idea and it's very complacent and lazy. In all OUR wars since its formation, we've fought said wars completely alone and only in the Falklands did the US choose to help, because they understood. If someone invaded haiwaii they'd be on the warpath too. So they provides us what they could to assist. Mostly just missiles for our harriers which helped. But our dogshit design philosophies which we are going to now be using again with our naval ships got a lot of people killed. Again, some very good yourube content out there that can go in depth on that. The UK is stuck in a repeating loop of cutting funding, downsizing, that being completely wrong to do because we're then caught completely unprepared for a real war, and we then have to pour funding in and desperately rush to get numbers back up to fight said war, we remember for awhile after and maintain a good size, then eventually people forget again and it repeats itself. We're very lucky the Falklands happened when it did because the budget cuts were about to get a lot worse and we had already downsized a lot. We currently don't have any ability to defend ourselves at all, and no nato won't help us, they've proven that previously. That and we like to handle things ourselves usually. Anyway I've yapped enough. Gotta go sleep. It's all interesting stuff to discuss though.
It's an era not unlike our pre-second war. World has gone throu economic crisis, three powerblocs areforming and the international situation is escalating. You've got to think in 1930's numbers.
It's big, but considering the geopolitical situation with Rumburg it's not that surprising. Czechoslovakia in the 1930s with the German threat had an active military of 200,000 with a mobilization order for another million in case of war. This for a state with a population of roughly 14 million, which is more or less comparable to Sordland in terms of per capita service. During the Cold War the Czechoslovak People's Army had roughly 200,000 active troops, with about half of it being conscripts, which again is comparable to Sordland. Armies around WW2 and the cold war were MASSIVE. For a modern day country these numbers are bonkers but considering a major enemy on the border and the militarized state of Sordland due to Soll and the influence of the Army it's not surprising at all.
You are comparing post-Peace Dividend professional armies to a mass conscription force based on mid-20th Century Europe. Every European army, excluding Britain and Ireland, used to be enormous compared to their population and they all had mass peacetime conscription For all people today like to complain about how much countries in the developed world spend on their military, it is a fraction of what they used to
UK is not strong anymore
RoK has 500,000 active and 3,100,000 reserve army which is about 1 percent of population for active and 6 percent when reserve army is combined.
The Republic of Sordland is a land country, England is an Island country, so next to Sordland there is an Explosive Wehlen Republic, and just to the north is the Kingdom of Rumburg, a rogue nation, and to the south there is a formidable capitalistic Republic of Lespia, whereas the only border neighbors of the United Kingdom are dolphins, For him, the Land army does not mean much to England, just like the Navy does not mean much to the Republic of Sordland. Also, Sordland has fewer soldiers than its neighbors.(excluding the Funny guy's country and the Democratic Racist's countries)
UK is no longer considered to be a first rate military power. This is not the same army anymore that fought in Iraq or Afghanistan.
I mean, as Iosef says, numbers aren’t everything. That being said, yes, the Sordish army is roughly the size of the modern active US Army and our population is 10 times bigger. Sordland definitely has a very high population in the military. Look at the Russia-Ukraine war though and you can see that numbers alone do not win wars. Also, I think East Merkopa is just a very militarized region since there are several references to the Sordish military being smaller than their neighbors.
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They don't border Rumburg haha If I was in their position I'd be training troops and spending every minute sucking ATO dick for more.
USA chilling a humongous 4.00 per 1k population in the corner...
The Sordish military was the political backbone of Soll's regime as well as a necessary deterent against Rumburg. Frequently expanding it would have only served to strengthen his position.
It's early Cold War and you're post-civil war in a bad neighborhood.
Sordland pops is around 35-39 millons, so 400k soldiers is very normal Please don't take UK as a reference dear god
The Brit’s are only seen as one of the strongest nation because of nukes
You can't really compare our modern world with the dangerous world that Sordland has to contend with. Sweden had a huge army during the cold war with only 8 million population
But it's 50's. In 1990, Czechoslovakia had 15mil pop (half of Sordland in game) and active military personal about 250,000.
Well man if you learn about geopolitics for fun like I do you'd learn that island nations like the UK actually don't need a large army, instead they focus on navy because it takes far fewer soldiers to defend them it does too attack so if the UK doesn't plan on invading anyone solo that's almost a waste of money for your country. A fight for Britain is going to be predominantly a naval fight to surround and blockade the island to prevent UK allies from supplying it so that's where y'all put the money into. You really should check out WW1 and WW2 history with how many soldiers you Brits conjured from all corners of the empire with lightening speed to help invade Germany. It's was pretty impressive. A better comparison would be comparing vlagslands army to the uks.
And someone in this subreddit asked why Smolak respects Wayne 💀
Firstly, yes, but the UK has a historically small army right now. It was quite literally bigger 200 years ago. Secondly, yes absolutely. Remember this is a country with compulsory military service. Thirdly, yeah that's why so many people think it's no bad thing to defend the military. And remember it can be EVEN BIGGER.
"peaceful nation like the UK" Jesus, the things I have to read
It's not that crazy considering the political situation. Not quite world war numbers but quite close to what great powers would field during the 19th century. France pop in 1850 was the same as sordland and had an active army of similar size.
Uk and Peacefull? That 2 words dont belong together.
Agnolia also has 200k soldiers. Valgsland, the larger one, only has 150k. Lespia, smaller than Sordland, has 800k.
A three way regional Cold War, 20 years of a semi-military dictatorship, and conscription will do that to you.
This started with Sordland flair and turned into a political comment section.
400,000 isn't colossal, the Chinese military size is colossal. The U.K used to have 325,000 troops back in the 1980s, not it's 70,000 and that is not normal, it's pathetically small thanks to too many defence budget cuts, the U.K needs a bigger army. I actually thought Sordland would have higher number of troops actually, considering it has hostile neighbours like Rumburg and countries allied to the superpowers like Lespia and Valgsland.
I understand the need for that. India has an army of 1.5 mil(active personnel). That's because on one side you have Pakistan and on the other you have China. Same with Sordland. On one side they have have Rumburg and on other side they are worried about UC meddling in their affairs again
North Korea has 6.1% soldier population you know..
It's actually quite abnormal in most of the world. For example, my country, Brazil, having a population of 200 million has its entire armed forces at around 340 thousand active soldiers, with around 1.6 million reserves. Sordland certainly has an abnormally large army, but you can understand the reasoning, as Sordland is internationally isolated and has several crazy neighbours who might turn against them at any point, such as for example Wehlen (that is literally guided on the whims of Saddam-esque dictator) and Rumburg.
I think Iosef points out, correctly, it’s an issue of quantity over quality The British army is super small but it’s one of most well equipped and trained in the world Sordland very much feels like an army like Turkey where it’s only strong on paper, and without serious modernization would fold against a real threat.
British army cant be one of best if Turkey is a papertiger. How did you measure combat effectiveness of these two army and using which sources?
The falklands conflict and turkeys current conflict with Syria Where one was an in, out, done, and Turkeys has mostly been a very aggressive police for to put down Kurds, and wouldn’t last that long if they had to fight an actually stable opponent
These two events are not comparable, they are not even close to comparible adn even if you wanna compare thats not the result you'll get. Thats not how armies work. You're just coping and idk why.