Hello and welcome back to my blog.
So we have been wandering for half the year and how is my hobby progress going? The totals so far are:
Figures painted:22
Figures reworked:3
Terrain finished: 8
Terrain reworked: 2
Vehicles finished: 1
Vehicles reworked: 1
Not as many as I hoped. But then real life keeps butting in. Things haven’t been helped by my cats constantly demanding attention and the purchase of a new motorbike. Not to mention the old bike getting plagued by electrical gremlins.
Recently it was my birthday and my lovely wife bought me the Deadzone game and Beyond the gates of Antares. Lots of new high tech figures armoured for the wastelands. I foresee a lot of figure assembly in my future. Inspired by the Fallout Universe I have a few faction ideas for the various new figures. As the world was in the grips of war towards the end, these figures will be the descendants of various military groups who serve settlements (or in some cases rule them).
As I have new military figures I have been considering what sort of society would be needed to support a group of warriors. In modern society the most civilised places the ratio of military to civilians is around 3 to 6 per 1000 civilians. The highest is North Korea with 53 per 1000 civilians. I would expect the ratio to dramatically climb during wartime.
Now this seems a bit low for post apocalyptic societies. Looking at medieval times there was a 1 in 14 ratio. Sadly there are no numbers for the dark ages or further back. As the post apocalyptic world is dangerous nearly everyone would be a fighter however only a handful would stand while everyone will bolt if a escape route presents. Militias would exist but would mostly be active when danger approaches and then go back to their normal lives when not needed. My thinking that the ratio would be nearer 1 in 10 or even 1 in 5 ratios. So a group of say 10 warriors would need a settlement of 50 to 100 bodies to support it.
Just my thinking.
Thanks for looking and here is to a creatively productive 6 months.
Stay safe out there.
Presumably the ability for an economy to produce surplus to support soldiers will be compromised post apoc. "Modern" soldiers are expensive to train and maintain. Dark ages ratio is probably looking at part time levies working under a handful of trained men (including knights!).....so think of masses with spears and bows with a few guys with the 'good' weapons. Collapsed countries would probably be a good model as well (somalia more so than libya, as various countries are still pouring in guns etc to libya). You'd see a lot of part time untrained soldier types. African bush war stuff. The serious soldiers would be a real terror even without great equipment.
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