I was wondering if anyone has any records of how much of the economy
(proportion) was devoted to defense during the following times: A. Peace
B. Cold-War
C. War.
This would be used to determine the levels at which a campeign would start.
For example, if everyone knew trouble was on the horizon, then they would have
forces that they could support for a cold war, then get more money devoted to
a hot war, but would now be buying green troops etc.
I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember these figures very well (I did my
Masters' thesis on a similar area). But, without looking anything up, the most
the U.S. has ever spent on defense (since WW1 anyway) is about
4.5%-5.5% GNP. I believe it was highest during Vietnam (as a % of GNP),
even higher than WW2 (but I may be getting my figures confused). I do know
that Carter had a higher spending (as a% of GNP) than Reagan did. I think that
the USSR had something like 8% of GNP going to defense at the height of the
Cold War. I should have the real figures around somewhere. I'll see if I can
dig them up.
> At 03:35 PM 5/5/97 PDT, you wrote:
In article <9705052235.AA19705@nps.navy.mil>, "Phillip E. Pournelle"
<pepourne@nps.navy.mil> writes
> I was wondering if anyone has any records of how much of the economy
There's a set of modern naval campaign rules published back in 1984 by Skytrex
that may be of some use here. I've been toying with the idea of converting
them to FT for some time, but havn't got round to it yet(though this thread
may motivate me).
It has some fairly basic but effective economic rules, from setting up a
nations population, tax rate, defence budget, standing army etc. Airfields and
ports(both military and civil) are diced for modified by population, as are
military factories. It even has rules for modern
space vehicles like space shuttles, hunter-killer sattellites and
orbital bombardment systems!
I think that they may still be available, though I'm not too sure. If anyone's
interested, I'll look out some addresses that may still have some copies.