18 replies to this topic

[Kevin Street]

This is an attempt to try something new. In April and May of this year, tennyson wrote an excellent series of articles on the capabilities and strengths of various militaries around the world, but most of the posts have become somewhat buried since then. So I decided to make this index of his series, as an easy way to access the whole thing. If there are any errors or ommisions, please tell me so I can edit the post.

tennyson's Militaries of the World series:

The Canadian Military (not a joke thread): First in a series

The Australian Military: Second in the series

The French Military (no surrender jokes please): Third in the series

The German Military a Force in Transition: Fourth in the series

The Italian Military: Fifth in the series

The Belgian and Dutch Militaries: Sixth in the series

The Polish Military, up and coming rising star: Seventh in the series

The Spanish Military: Eighth in the series

The North Korean Military: Mostly obselete but still scary

The South Korean(ROK) Military: The thin red and blue line

The UK Military, Times are a Changing: 10th in the series

The Thai Military, dealing with an uncertain world: Addendum to series

The Chinese Military: Special Adendum to my Series

The Russian Military, down but still huge: Special Addendum to series


The Mexican Air Force: Le Fuerza Aerea Mexicana (FAM)

The Iraqi Air Force: From the September 2004 Combat Aircraft

The Belize Defence Force

The Swiss Military: A time of transition

The Argentine Military: Struggling along

The Royal Bahraini Military: Up from nothing in a few short years

The Taiwanese Military


The Military of the Dominican Republic: The series returns

http://www.exisle.ne...p...4&hl=Cyprus  The Cypriot Military, Haute Tension

http://www.exisle.ne...hl=Saudi Arabia
The Saudi Arabian military, The thin line of the house of Saud

http://www.exisle.ne...ranian military
The Iranian Military, the Great Question

The Ecuadorian Military: Emerging from a time of crisis

The Ukrainian Military, Toward A Brighter Future

Edited by Cait, 28 September 2012 - 08:06 PM.

[QueenTiye]

EXCELLENT idea!

[jon3831]

Excellent idea, sir!

However, a nit... tennyson spells his nick "tennyson" not "tenyyon"

And are you going to pin this? If not, I'd like to suggest you do so.

Bravo Zulu, Mr. Moderator, sir.

[Kevin Street]

^ Phew! Title edited. Sorry about that.

Do you think it should be pinned?

Edited by Kevin Street, 16 October 2003 - 03:56 PM.

[Han]

Great idea, Kevin! Thanks!  

Yeah, I think it should be pinned for future reference.

[Kevin Street]

Okay, I'll pin it for awhile, and we'll see how that goes.

Thank you for your great series, tennyson. You did a lot of work to make it, and the quality shows.

[Lord Ravensburg]

Excellent stuff.  I have to say, however, that an addition for the United States military would not be unwelcome.

[CJ AEGIS]

Lord Ravensburg, on Oct 23 2003, 07:50 AM, said:

Excellent stuff.  I have to say, however, that an addition for the United States military would not be unwelcome.

I can agree with that one!

[Kevin Street]

Well, you did a brief post in the first thread that summarized some of the US military's capabilities:

Quote

CJ AEGIS:
Might as well give a very brief rundown of US forces so there is something to compare to. 

USN:
Personnel:
Active Duty:
  -381,523
       - Officers: 54,533
       - Enlisted: 322,801

Reserve: 154,366
  - Selected Reserves: 86,683
        - Individual Ready Reserve: 67,683
Personnel Deployed: 75,554
Ships:
Active: 301 Vessels*
         Carriers:
           - 7 Deployed
           - 2 working up
           - 3 Maintenance
           - 1 to be Commissioned Summer 03 (Ronald Reagan)
         Cruisers:
                         - 27 (Ticonderoga Class)
         Destroyers:
                        - 39+- Arleigh Burke Destroyers
                        - 11 Spruance Destroyers
  Frigates:
   - 30 Perry Class
                Boomers:
   - 14 Ohios
  SSGN
   - 4 Ohios to undergo SSGN conversions with 2 underway now
  Fast Attack:
   - 3 Seawolf Class
   - 51 Los Angeles Class
   - 1 Sturgeon Class (SSN 683 Parche still around?)
  Aircraft:
   Operational: 4,000+

*Note this includes noncombatants. 

USAF: (Not listing AWACs, support aircraft, ANG, or rotary wing)

Active:

Fighter:
F-15 Eagle: 396
F-15E Strike Eagle: 217
F-16 Fighting Falcon: 735
F/A-22 Raptors: 8(?)
Heavy Bomber:
B-1B Lancer: 72
B-2 Spirit: 21
B-52 Stratofortress: 85
Attack/Strike:
A-10: 143
OA-10: 70
AC-130H: 8
AC-130U: 13
F-117A Nighthawk: 55
Recon:
U-2s: 37

Army:
10 Active Combat Divisions:
1st Cavalry Division
3rd Infantry Division
82nd Airborne Division
101st Airborne Division
2nd Infantry Division
1st Infantry Division
1st Armored Division
4th Infantry Division
10th Mountain Division
25th Infantry Division

To give some idea of size 1st Cav Division is around 16,000 soldiers.

I didn’t cover the Marines and some of this information is a tad dated since I tossed it together quick.

[CJ AEGIS]

Kevin Street, on Oct 26 2003, 11:48 PM, said:

Well, you did a brief post in the first thread that summarized some of the US military's capabilities:

Twitch  Sure hit me with a five minute job I was hoping to forget.    

[tennyson]

The problem I have with detailing the US military is severalfold, I'm awash in information that is highly detailed but at the sametime I'm so close to it that I'm having trouble with the larger picture and I'm not sure I can collate everything into a presentable whole before it is rendered obselete by current events. I'm privy to some interesting things through my membership in the Navy League among others but actually seeing the debates on policy, tactics and how to equip the various naval arms of the US playout in thier magazine as well as other things has shown me I'm too close to the subject to deal with it as well as I did the others.
I have posted other threads detailing US involvement with other nations and it would probably be a good idea to include them as a reference along with the military threads. For example, I once posted a list of every US military operation that was conducted in the last ten years up to when the post was made.

[ZipperInt]

What does everyone think about this new Canadian army purchase?

http://www.canada.co...61-17AFB2A0E8C2

Hopefully the link works, but as I understand it, the CF are purchasing 66 "Stryker" mobile gun systems. Despite our need for way more defense spending, is this a step in the right direction, or just another superficial solution?

[CJ AEGIS]

ZipperInt, on Oct 30 2003, 02:07 AM, said:

Hopefully the link works, but as I understand it, the CF are purchasing 66 "Stryker" mobile gun systems. Despite our need for way more defense spending, is this a step in the right direction, or just another superficial solution?

I’ll get to this one ASAP.  We do have a talk about the Stryker ongoing in the Abrams thread if you want to read up on it in the meantime.

[Ilphi]

I appreciate its a bit late now, but if we are still taking requests I'd be interested to see the strenth of the Iraqi-forces in the months leading up to the Iraq war.

[Kevin Street]

New content added.

[Kevin Street]

I put your latest thread in the index, tennyson. Hope you don't mind.

[tennyson]

Thanks, I was going to ask you to anyway so this saves me the trouble. I might have a few more coming to add if I happen upon the information I need to finish them.

[RobL]

Quote

USAF: (Not listing AWACs, support aircraft, ANG, or rotary wing)

Active:

Fighter:
F-15 Eagle: 396
F-15E Strike Eagle: 217
F-16 Fighting Falcon: 735
F/A-22 Raptors: 8(?)
Heavy Bomber:
B-1B Lancer: 72
B-2 Spirit: 21
B-52 Stratofortress: 85
Attack/Strike:
A-10: 143
OA-10: 70
AC-130H: 8
AC-130U: 13
F-117A Nighthawk: 55
Recon:
U-2s: 37

Wow, we have almost as many B1s as we have B52s. That is surprising.

How many nukelear missles do we have, BTW? Does anyone know?

[CJ AEGIS]

Quote

Rob: Wow, we have almost as many B1s as we have B52s. That is surprising.

That we have that many B-1s or that we have that few B-52s?

Quote

Rob: How many nukelear missles do we have, BTW? Does anyone know?

The report is a little old but still pretty good:
http://fas.org/blog/...le2007-2012.pdf

Roughly 700 ballistic missiles with about a little over 60% of them being land based ICBMs with the rest being SLBMs.   I'm not up to date on how many Ohios are undergoing refit right now so it is hard to get an exact number.  Most of the warheads are deployed on the SSBNs though because the missiles are MIRVed.   We have roughly 5,000 active warheads between the strategic bombers, SSBNs, and ICBMs.  We have roughly 9,000+ warheads if you count the stored and inactive warheads.