Erc said:
Eutopia spends $517 per person on defense; a pretty hefty amount, placing at # 19 on the world list (the US is #6 after, not surprisingly, such countries as Israel and Singapore).
That's per
person, but not per
military person. A more meaningful figure is precisely how much is spent on training, equipping, and paying the troops. In that respect, I don't think Eutopia does very well except perhaps in paying officers. (
Peo's original figures allocates a fairly small percentage of funds to "Upkeep", including equipment, and "Exercises"; I assume training would be split between the two. Additionally, his figures spend all 14 billion Ð of the military budget; if Mel's statement is accurate and 8Ð is being set aside for procurement that's not happening, then the training and upkeep numbers are necessarily going to be smaller. Further, the figures for officers and civilians are based off a respectable 48KÐ and 36KÐ per annum, but conscripts only pull down 12KÐ during their service.) It thus seems that a large amount of the trouble with the armed forces is that the officers consume a disproportionate amount of the budget (70K officers x 48KÐ per annum = 3.36 billion Ð), yet will be leading conscripts who are virtually useless due to a) poor training, b) poor opportunities for experience, c) poor equipment, and d) poor motivation due to poor pay. My advice? Phase out the conscript system and generate a new pay scale for the military.
With respect to the Navy, taking Chipchat's example and running with it, the Australian Navy is (relatively) cheap and effective because it has a clear mission (contribute to international operations and, theoretically, defend Australia's territorial waters in the event of an unlikely attack) and is designed to efficiently carry out that mission. Eutopia's Navy has neither of these things. Given the sorry state of Eutopian foreign affairs, it would be unlikely to contribute to any major naval operation. However, the Navy is poorly equipped for a hypothetical defense role; carriers and their associated carrier groups are suitable for the projection of force on a large scale, if not globally, but are conversely basically useless for coastal defense when you could simply launch fighters from ground bases that *can't* be destroyed by swarms of Exocet missiles.
Again, my advice would be to scrap or mothball everything but the Oliver Hazard Perrys, the Upholders, and maybe the Farraguts, as well as the supply ships; then angle toward phasing out the Farraguts in favor of more modern vessels (and potentially doing the same with the Upholders). I'm surprised that no one has seriously entertained the idea of hitting the Russians up for vessels -- last I heard, they had whole fleets rusting in port, and would probably love to sell some ships for a song (or just a slice of that cold, hard procurement cash.
) In fact, a good DDG like the Sovremenny would allow you to project power into a combat theatre (in the form of cruise missiles), probably with better effect than long-outdated carriers which can't even land modern aircraft. So a few quality purchases could allow you to fulfill the two modern roles for which mid-range (i.e. not superpower) navies are suited -- again, supporting international operations, and coastal defense in the unlikely event of attack.
Some of this is probably toeing the IC/OOC line, but Tilly has only a passing interest in the military, and certainly not much of one in military reform... so take my .02Ð for what it's worth.
