Chris,
Good point about the numbers, but what if you compared the numbers
for just one battle. I mean one day of one battle. How many men were one
the same battlefield on the same day. I figure since you have these stats
handy maybe you can look up some others...;)
John
----> Felt the need to throw some stats out:
(this is from the U.S. Army's center for historical research
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/default.htm)
BRANCH OF NUMBER BATTLE OTHER WOUNDS
SERVICE SERVING DEATHS DEATHS NOT MORTAL
CIVIL WAR (UNION FORCES ONLY)
1861-1865
TOTAL 2,213,363 140,414 224,097 281,881
ARMY 2,128,948 D/ 138,154 221,374 280,040
NAVY - 2,112 2,411 1,710
MARINES 84,415 148 312 131
WORLD WAR I
1917-1918
TOTAL 4,734,991 53,402 63,114 204,002
ARMY 4,057,101 50,510 55,868 19,366
NAVY 599,051 431 6,856 819
MARINES 78,839 2,461 390 9,520
WORLD WAR II
1941-1946
TOTAL 16,112,566 291,557 113,842 671,846
ARMY 11,260,000 234,874 83,400 565,861
NAVY 4,183,466 36,950 25,664 37,778
MARINES 669,100 19,733 4,778 68,207
From this, you might conclude that a million points shouldn't
mean squat to the imperium, orks, squats, etc. Remember
that this is the U.S ONLY, and that even in WW2 the population
of the U.S. was far less than it is today. An entire world can
generate a staggering number of troops. War Machines would
be less common, but still the "thousand gun" infantry barrage
was a reality on the WW2 Russian front. You want epic...
Most of our battles, even in epic, are skirmishes. That
10,000 point batle I did several years back was hard to do
even with three people per side. Now imagine a _Real_
Imperial guard offensive. Infantry, tanks, artillery - marines would
not even be a drop in the bucket on this scale, so when
mixing them, think of them as elite special forces/commandos
/stiffening troops. I can see titans being concentrated
into groups within a few mile front, and used to break through
>enemy lines like tanks were in our real wars.
I think with some historical numbers, maybe a new
perspective on what is "realistic" and "likely" can be gained. Even with
1000 chapters of 1000 marines, that's 1 million marines total. Not much
to cover a whole galaxy. They're the rapid reaction force, kinda like
marines today (and airborne and the other rangers). It's the IG and
the TL's who fight the meat grinder wars and defend whole planets.
Orks, 'Nids, Chaos -there's a lot of 'em out there.
Let me know if you get anything out of this...
Chris Miller
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Received on Tue Jul 22 1997 - 21:02:54 UTC