Orbis vs Real World Military Production: A Bad Analysis

[Artifex]

Below is bad analysis and comparison of PnW and real world military production and standings. Proceed at your own peril.



Fun data sources: 
Modern stats: https://www.globalfirepower.com/armor-tanks-total.asp
WW2 production stats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II
Soviet tank factories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_tank_factories
USA WW2 aircraft factories: http://acepilots.com/planes/factory.html

Note: Tanks listed below includes only combat tanks, not armored fighting vehicles. Also, sources aren't cited when used, but it shouldn't be difficult detecting when each is used.

 

Some modern stats
Russia
21,932 tanks
142,122,776 people
6,480.155754149188 people per tank

China
13,050 tanks
1,384,688,986 people
106,106.4357088123 people per tank

USA
329,256,465 people
6,287 tanks
52,370.99809129951? people per tank

North Korea
25,381,085 people
6,075 tanks
4,177.956378600823 people per tank

India
1,296,834,042 people
4,184 tanks
309,950.7748565966 people per tank

Israel
8,424,904 people
2,760 tanks
3,052.502536231884 people per tank

Ethiopia
108,386,391 people
800 tanks
135,482.98875 people per tank

Some observations.

The most populous nation in PnW at the time of typing is Wampus (16235) at 20,358,053 people.

If the above ratios were used to determine this nation's standing tank count, it would be somewhere between 60 and 7000.

Currently this nation is 43,050 tanks strong. A number equal to about half of the total amount of tanks USA produced during WW2.

Also worth note is how Wampus has 206 factories to Soviet Union's ten during WW2. Soviets of which made 119,769 tanks through the whole of WW2 using only those ten factories.

If Wampus was able to make tanks as effectively as Soviets per factory, his 205 factories would have produced him 2,467,056 tanks throughout WW2.

Additionally, USA had 40 aircraft factories during WW2, while Wampus has 205 facilities capable of aircraft production. 295,959 aircraft were made by the US by those 40 factories, and again if Wampus could produce at the same rate per production facility, he could have made 1,516,789 aircraft throughout the entirety of WW2.

If we are to assume 7.5 days pass with each update, with each factory producing 50 tanks each update, each PnW factory is producing 6.67 tanks each ingame PnW day. If one factory were to produce at that rate for a year, it would produce 2,433 tanks. If all of Wampus's factories were to produce at that rate for a year, they would produce 498,833 tanks. Keeping in mind that the Soviets produced 119,769 tanks throughout about five years of WW2. That's each factory producing about 65 tanks a day compared to Wampus's 6.67 tanks a day. Real life tank factories are ten times more efficient than Orbis factories going by these numbers.

Similarly, one aircraft production facility in PnW can produce 0.4 aircraft a day while a USA factory can produce about 4 aircraft a day. Again the ten times efficiency difference comes up.

And let us not overlook how Wampus has 43k tanks but only 3.6k aircraft while every major military power during WW2 made just as many planes as tanks if not more and all modern major military powers at worse keep a ratio of about 1 plane for every 4 tanks. A possible disclaimer being many of those WW2 planes were trainers.

Thank you Wampus for being an example, and congrats on having such a big nation!

Some thoughts.

• Populations of nations in Orbis is funky. I'd be curious to see the total world population.
• Relative to RL historic factory counts, the amount of factories present in Wampus's nation is incredibly high.
• Relative to RL historic factory production, the factories present in Wampus's nation are incredibly inefficient.
• Relative to RL historic numbers, the ratio of aircraft and tanks present in Wampus's nation is incredibly skewed.
• Relative to RL modern military standings, Wampus's standing military is incredibly high.
• The amount of tanks a nation can house probably isn't related to the number of factories they have but probably more related to their storage ability.

Some questions.

How would a PnW with ten times more efficient factories look?
How would a PnW with ten times fewer factories look?
How would a PnW with five times the current aircraft count look?

Would it be more fun to increase the importance of factories by limiting their number per city to say one?
Would it be more fun to be able to produce more military, faster?
Would it be more fun if military capacity wasn't linked to military production?

I wonder if manufacturing and trading military units would be fun or fit?


I will conclude by saying now that PnW is a nation simulator or at least I believe it is, so looking at real world examples to build and design its mechanics isn't unprecedented and actually should be expected.
 

Quote

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by Malleator

[Limbuwan]

It would be more fun to take down planes by ground units.

[ForgotPants]

Something is off about your tank to people calculations, numbers for USA and Russia are off. Also, USA has a population of 329,256,465 according to globalfirepower.

[Meh Imperfect]

@Malleator I saw a lot of efforts so I upvoted. Nice work dude!

[Artifex]

12 hours ago, ForgotPants said:

Something is off about your tank to people calculations, numbers for USA and Russia are off. Also, USA has a population of 329,256,465 according to globalfirepower.

I don't know what is off about them, they're correct based off GFP's numbers, and I put down the wrong population for USA, but fortunately I still used the correct number for the ratio calculation.

 

9 hours ago, Meh Imperfect said:

@Malleator I saw a lot of efforts so I upvoted. Nice work dude!

Well, I appreciate it, but would be nice if I didn't just get an A for effort, ya' know? lol

 

12 hours ago, Limbuwan said:

It would be more fun to take down planes by ground units.

Probably not the time or place, lol. In time though, brother.


I plan on doing more of these comparisons and bad analysis in the future. Starting with more seemingly easy number translations like these. Next will probably involve soldiers and munition usage.

[Guest Elijah Mikaelson]

On 10/4/2019 at 3:49 AM, Malleator said:

Below is bad analysis and comparison of PnW and real world military production and standings. Proceed at your own peril.

As much as i respect the effort you forgot something very important, WW2 was over 100 years ago, pretty sure with today using the same number of people same factories but with today's technology, 10,000 tanks would be nothing to make each month let along making 40,000 over what 4 years

 

[Artifex]

10 minutes ago, Elijah Mikaelson said:

As much as i respect the effort you forgot something very important, WW2 was over 100 years ago, pretty sure with today using the same number of people same factories but with today's technology, 10,000 tanks would be nothing to make each month let along making 40,000 over what 4 years

 

Yes, in fact WW2 Soviet tank factories in PnW numbers (205) could make 41,569 tanks in a month.

[Mandystalin]

There are all sorts of problems with comparing RL factory production to life here in Orbis. 

 

Firstly, Soviet and American factories in WW2. American factories were very much more efficient than Soviet ones, but Soviet factories were truly gigantic in scale, often  formed of multiple factories being combined together after the move east. Plus, although there may only have been 10 Soviet tank construction factories there were many many factories producing components that were then sent to these mega-factories. In terms of aircraft numbers, trainers are not the only non-combat types. Transports, reconnaissance, and communications aircraft made up around a third of US WW2 aircraft production for example.

 

Secondly, WW2 to today. Obviously, modern military production numbers are relatively fewer than WW2 numbers, which could be interpreted in Orbis terms as peacetime military vs wartime military (not every alliance follows such a process though). However it is also true that modern weapons are very much more complex and expensive, meaning a longer production time, higher costs per unit and their assembly cannot be undertaken by a relatively unskilled workforce, unlike WW2-era equipment.

 

Given that technology does not change in Orbis, and given that different nations do not have different workforces/traditions/government types that meaningfully impact production/etc etc I can't see how there can't be a difference between Orbis and RL.

 

Mind you, as I've been typing this I've realised that although I can nitpick at some of your detail, your original hypothesis still stands.