An Estimate of the size of Federation Uniformed Services

[marty4286]

Note: This is only my interpretation. If you don't like it, you don't have to listen to me because I have no kind of authority on this anyway. Only Paramount does.

This is my estimate of the size of all of the Federation's uniformed services. I won't say these are necessarily of armed services or military branches because that is a very hot topic in Star Trek Fandom.

I originally wanted to put this in a roleplaying forum, because that is what inspired me to make the estimates. I saw an entry in the Dominion War Sourcebook that listed the total ground forces of the Federation as under 600,000 personnel. That just sounds too small for me.

The estimates are in base 10 so that you can easily change the numbers by changing the assumptions. For example, you might think that the combat troop/total troops ratio should be 1/100, not 1/10, because of the existence of the transporters (I disagree, for various reasons).



The Federation has 100 member worlds and an unknown number of colonies.

For the sake of simplicity, let's say member planets and the colonies that are based from each have an average population of 10 billion beings.

10 billion people X 100 member worlds = 1 trillion total population (American trillion)

Let's say that 1 out of every 1000 people are active uniformed service personnel.

1 trillion people / 1 thousand = 1 billion active uniformed service personnel of all branches.

That sounds like a lot, right? Not quite. You just aren't imagining the scale. The United States military as of 2006 had a ratio of 4.76 active military for every 1000 population (and a 2.89 reservists for every 1000 population -- derived from the active troop ratio and reserve troop numbers available on globalsecurity.com). Just for comparison, a relatively de-militarized Japan has 1.88 active military per 1000 population and a heavily militarized North Korea has 44.6 active military per 1000 population.

One active uniformed personnel per 1000 population doesn't seem that much anymore, does it? (especially considering that we may or may not include the Federation Postal Service, local police forces, and the like in our numbers). This is the 24th century, and not the 21st century, and one could argue that the Federation wouldn't need as many personnel per 1000 population. Maybe or maybe not. I can only go by what I know. I no longer have the statistics on me, but I remember seeing in one of my books that the even the the Roman Empire generally had a similar military/population ratio to today -- The only thing that has significantly changed was the combat soldier/support soldier ratio.

Assuming that the numbers are correct, I broke down the total numbers into branches using the US military as a model.



Planetary Forces (combined forces of the individual member planets -- may be a combination of combat-trained soldiers, paramilitary police, and other planet-based uniformed services):
Based on the US Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard.
360 million total active. Average 3,600,000 per member planet.
390 million total reserve. Average 3,900,000 per member planet.

*75 million combat troops. Average 750,000 per member planet.
5,400 active divisions. Average 54 per member planet.
2,700 reserve divisions. Average 27 per member planet.

*Based on a ratio of 1 combat personnel for every 10 total personnel.

Remember the above is based on a population of 10 billion. Imagine if the People's Republic of China of 2006 only had 360,000 active soldiers, 390,000 reservist soldiers, and a total of 8 combat divisions.



Planetary Fleets (combined forces of individual member planets -- may be a combination of security, customs, rescue, and other space-based uniformed services)
Based on the US Air Force, Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, Coast Guard, Coast Guard Auxilliary, and the Federal Republic of Germany's Navy.
235 million total active.
130 million total reserve.

*77,000 total ships. Average 770 per member planet.
12,320 total Light Cruisers. Average 120 per member planet.
16,940 total Destroyers. Average 170 per member planet.
8,470 total Escorts. Average 85 per member planet.
1,540 total Lander Transports. Average 15 per member planet.
37,730 total Auxiliaries. Average 380 per member planet.

*Uses the ship/personnel ratio of the Federal Republic of Germany Navy, a standard coastal navy as of 2006. The ship breakdowns are also based on the Federal Republic's Navy. I use these numbers because based on what we see on-screen, the crewing of a starship is similar to an equivalent sea-going ship of today (which I find weird, but whatever). The ship classifications are only for easier reference and have no real meaning

Light Cruiser - A smaller multi-role ship that can operate independently (New Orleans, Intrepid?)
Destroyer - A multi-role ship that can operate longer distances with support (Miranda)
Escort - A short-range ship (whether there is support or not) (Defiant, Saber)
Lander Transport - Planet-capable transport (Sydney?)
Auxiliary - Refuelling, Repair, Hospital, etc (Oberth, Nova, Olympic)



Spaceborne Planetary Service (Federation equivalent of a federal Army, Starfleet landing force, or combination of both)
Based on the US Marine Corps
125 million total active.
28 million total reserve.

14.3 million combat troops.
1,500 combat divisions. Can station 2 divisions in half of the member planets, 1 division in the rest.



Starfleet (Might also include non-Starfleet federal space services)
Based on the US Navy.
260 million active.
60 million reserve.

*64,000 total ships
7,000 Battleships
2,560 Battlecruisers
5,760 Heavy Cruisers
12,160 Light Cruisers
9,600 Destroyers
7,000 Escorts
2,560 Lander Transports
17,280 Auxiliaries

*Uses the ship/personnel ratio of the US Navy, a multi-ocean navy as of 2006. The ship breakdowns are also based on the US Navy. The ship classifications, as with above are just for easier reference

Battleship - The best and largest ships -- an actual "line of battle ship" has no meaning in Starfleet. (Galaxy, Ambassador, Sovereign)
Battlecruiser - A ship with similar capabilities as a "Battleship", except limited in some way -- such as size, range, or whatever. Still "better" than a cruiser. (Akira, Nebula)
Heavy Cruiser - A larger multi-role ship that can operate independently. (Excelsior as of 24th century)



Just for reference, I consider Starfleet to be a combination of the US Navy, US Coast Guard, NASA, and US Geological Survey -- with a greater emphasis on the last three.

These numbers have already caused a pretty big argument, and only 3 people have seen it so far.

One person believes it is wrong and was outraged.
One person thought the numbers were okay, but were not in the spirit of Star Trek.
One person thought the numbers were reconcilable with a pacifistic UFP (though doesn't make sense canonically).

I think these numbers would be somewhat "realistic", but on-screen evidence shows a considerably tinier Starfleet -- I think everyone can agree with that. I also recognize that this is completely based on the assumption that the Federation and its uniformed services operate in the same way as a 21st century nation (especially the USA)-- we all (yes, including me) have arguments on how that isn't necessarily so.

[Owen E Oulton]

While they've never really pinned anything down tight, you may wish to look at some of the numbers tossed around during the Dominion War. In at least one episode they mentioned how many ships there were in one of the major fleet operations, and a comment on what sort of percentage that was of all Starfleet. Of course, this was after both a massive buildup and reactivation of mothballed ships, and heavy battle losses. An indication of "average" crew complements can be based on the Wolf 357 numbers - 11000 personnel lost with 39 ships (figures from The Drumhead).

I haven't had a chance to sit down and go over your figures, but I hope this is of some use.

[AngryTree]

You've forgotten to take into account Starbases, of which we assume there are around 600, if they are all numbered sequentially. They range in size from the Regula outpost variety up to gigantic Spacedock types (at least two).

Accounting for personnel serving on starbases would bring you ship numbers closer to what would be considered canon (or at least fanon).

[Balok]

Are you including planetary defense forces among Starfleet personnel? I'm not sure they should be, although I don't know. Bajor's militia was a separate service, but of course at that time Bajor was not a member of the Federation. In the post DS9 books it joins and the members of the militia are subsumbed into Starfleet, so at least one author agrees with you.

Some planets would wish tighter control over at least some of their armed services, although the nature of a military dictatorship (or a haplocracy in general) would tend to preclude Federation membership. Such a planet might exist as a protectorate by treaty, however.

Some planets host races that do not fight for one reason or another. To what degree that affects your average remains unclear, but for the sake of argument one might assume other planets provide military protection for such worlds, whose contributions to the Federation are other than military (and who might join entirely for protection).

A hundred member worlds sounds low.

Just some random bits...

[JALU3]

Well . . . not everything need be under a centralized government. I mean, the Federation is just that a Federation . . . therefore each member section, should have the right, to conduct a certain amount of their affairs . . . as long as it doesn't violate a federation wide law or regulation. And I am sure there are areas that the Federation aren't allowed to legislate or regulate in concerns to individual member planet/system(s) areas of responsibility. Say like the Tenth Amendment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Regarding Ground based forces one reason one can argue that there is not a standing Federation Ground Forces is due to a possible following of the initial wording of the US Constitution regarding armed forces at the National (in this case Federation) level:

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

Thus no standing Federal Level ground forces. However, by no means does this inhibit a Member level ground forces to be established/mantained.

[Jem'hadar]

I think Picard stated in First Contact that the Federation (of the 24th century) comprised over 150 worlds.

However, I consider the figure of 1 billion individuals in Starfleet to be very high. I can't say why exactly, but my sense of watching all that Star Trek suggests that Starfleet isn't really all that big at least in comparison the total pop. of the Federation. I would place the number at 2 million, including reserves. However, that number may have increased due to the Dominion War but prior to that conflict, I think Starfleet was relatively small.

I think that's because w/ the power of a single starship, you wouldn't need all that manpower. One Galaxy-class starship could probably lay waste to the entire surface of a planet, assuming the planet itself didn't have any planetary defenses that could damage the starship.

Also, remember that many Federation worlds have their own planetary forces. Andoria is one that has its own army & stellar navy. Vulcan has its own intelligence service. I assume these planetary forces supplement Starfleet & provide much of the defense of their homeworlds, freeing Starfleet to engage in other duties.

[marty4286]

If you read my post, you would see that my estimate is 260 million for Starfleet, not 1 billion. That larger number is for total Federation uniformed personnel.

I also mentioned in my post that what is shown on scene suggest a lot less than my estimate, but that I believe my estimate is closer to what it could be like (for my tastes, anyway).

I think that's because w/ the power of a single starship, you wouldn't need all that manpower. One Galaxy-class starship could probably lay waste to the entire surface of a planet, assuming the planet itself didn't have any planetary defenses that could damage the starship.

The power of the technology and it's reduction in man-power needs is irrelevant. What is relevant is industrial capacity and logistics ability.

If one ship can lay waste to a planet, that seems like overkill already, right? What if you can build 1,000 ships? What if your enemy can build 1,000 ships?

A real life example: The machinegun was invented to take the place of multiple riflemen. Instead of reducing the amount of soldiers, many machineguns were issued among many soldiers...

What could be the weakness of my first post? Starfleet might not have the ability to maintain that many ships, but otherwise I would stand by my numbers.

[Jem'hadar]

If you read my post, you would see that my estimate is 260 million for Starfleet, not 1 billion. That larger number is for total Federation uniformed personnel.

My apologies for not reading it more carefully. When you refer to non-Starfleet "Federation uniformed personnel", who are you referring to?

I still think even 260 million in Starfleet is far above what the number should be. Again, this is only my opinion & obviously there is no canon reference to prove either of us right or wrong.

And I still believe the power & utility of starships reduces the need to have hundreds of millions of people in Starfleet.

We also should remember that Rodenberry said Starfleet is not a military organization, although it certainly has parallels in things like ranks & that it defends the Federation from external threats. Since the Federation (at least before the Dominion War) has never been gung-ho on having a huge military, I would think that a relatively small Starfleet is keeping in line w/ the Federation's less martial philosophies.

Also, I don't necessarily agree the machine gun was invented to reduce the number of riflemen in the field. I think it was invented to increase the firepower of the company/regiment. To kill more enemy combatants. That certainly proved true in WWI.

[Eric R.]

Regarding Ground based forces one reason one can argue that there is not a standing Federation Ground Forces is due to a possible following of the initial wording of the US Constitution regarding armed forces at the National (in this case Federation) level: Thus no standing Federal Level ground forces. However, by no means does this inhibit a Member level ground forces to be established/mantained.

Don't quite see your point here as the US has had some kind of Army since it was formed in 1776 and we began to operate under the consistution in 1787. What you have here by means of budgetary contriction is merely a way to ensure that those forces remain loyal to the central government, depending on their pay from that source, instead of any one particular commander or state. And lets not forget that every two years would in addition form the military budget in line with the election of a new congress.

[Eric R.]

As to the topic at hand.

I think that assuming 10 billion per world is in fact a bad number. As we are now seeing in the western world popuation in fact slows and in some cases reverses. There are many causes of this too numerous to simply state here but it seems that the more stable the enviroment the more it will keep a balance. In addition I think alot of the newer member worlds are in fact outgrowths of older colonies with a population not larger than 1 or 2 billion souls. In addition I think many worlds have virtually no standing military of there own for example it is easy to see a world like Betazed in this regard.

Your 1 in 1000 number suggest a very highly militarized society.

You used a modern cold era figure ratio, what you wanted to do was use an older one say from the 19th century. At the time of the Civil War the US Army numbered a bare 13,000 and the US Navy around 5,000 thats roughly 18,000 uniformed personnel for a nation of 45 million souls. Thats roughly 1 soldier for every 2500 persons. During the Civil War the combinded strength of both the US and CSA armies was roughly 1.5 million which then gives a ration of 1 solder for every 30 persons.

But lets break this up;

Lets assume of 150 member worlds 1/3 (50) are highly developed post industrial worlds (Earth, Andor, Vulcan etc..) with world populations averging 5 billion inhabitats. Another 1/3 are worlds which have developed from colonies with a average population of 1 Billion. The final third are worlds which either are isolated, pacifist, or have inhabitants which are not in a standard humaniod form and thus not counted for this exercise. Now lest also assume that the remaining colonies not counted above come to a 10 billion figure.

Thats a population of 310 billion humaniod life forms.

At a 2500 to 1 ration that gives 12,400,000 for the uniformed Starfleet service.

If we go to the next level during the Dominion War the Federation could have raised a force of 10,333,333,333

[JALU3]

Don't quite see your point here as the US has had some kind of Army since it was formed in 1776 and we began to operate under the consistution in 1787. What you have here by means of budgetary contriction is merely a way to ensure that those forces remain loyal to the central government, depending on their pay from that source, instead of any one particular commander or state. And lets not forget that every two years would in addition form the military budget in line with the election of a new congress.

I C your point. However, I think that that subsection of the constitution was more closely followed to the literal extent up to the beginning of World War II. Prior to that period the size of the Army remained small except for periods of conflict. Yet, since World War II the US has mantained a force structure of several combat ready divisions, where as prior what remained of the active army was ment as a backbone force which to build a larger active force during wartime.

I guess one can also attribute the needs of maintaining a professional soldiering army due to the increased complexity of combat systems as time has gone by.

[Chabit Rane]

Another thing to remember as well. Starfleet would use outside resources as well. A lot of the starbases would have a large civilan contingant (did I spell that right?) in addition o its starfleet personnel.

[marty4286]

this is only my opinion & obviously there is no canon reference to prove either of us right or wrong.

Actually, I think that your idea of the numbers are closer to canon than mine

[marty4286]

As to the topic at hand.

I think that assuming 10 billion per world is in fact a bad number. As we are now seeing in the western world popuation in fact slows and in some cases reverses. There are many causes of this too numerous to simply state here but it seems that the more stable the enviroment the more it will keep a balance. In addition I think alot of the newer member worlds are in fact outgrowths of older colonies with a population not larger than 1 or 2 billion souls. In addition I think many worlds have virtually no standing military of there own for example it is easy to see a world like Betazed in this regard.

Low birth rates are also related to cultural factors, not just technological. Take the western-centrism elsewhere.

Your 1 in 1000 number suggest a very highly militarized society.

If you read my post, you would see that 1/1000 is a low number by today's standards and even by Roman era standards.

You used a modern cold era figure ratio

Post cold war. 20 years post cold war. Fiji was never involved in the Cold War and is hardly militarized in any sense. 3.9/1000. Tonga has a 4/1000 ratio.

what you wanted to do was use an older one say from the 19th century. At the time of the Civil War the US Army numbered a bare 13,000 and the US Navy around 5,000 thats roughly 18,000 uniformed personnel for a nation of 45 million souls.

Thats roughly 1 soldier for every 2500 persons. During the Civil War the combinded strength of both the US and CSA armies was roughly 1.5 million which then gives a ration of 1 solder for every 30 persons.

Antebellum US was hostile to the idea of standing armies. If you take the militias into account, you'll still get close to my numbers. The US was also pretty isolationist at the time, with only scattered American Indian tribes to fight.

The modern-day US (the modern world in general) and the ancient Romans had to deal with other states that were at least nearly equal in power and size.

BTW, that puts North Korea into perspective: 1/22 are active military personnel.

But lets break this up;

Lets assume of 150 member worlds 1/3 (50) are highly developed post industrial worlds (Earth, Andor, Vulcan etc..) with world populations averging 5 billion inhabitats. Another 1/3 are worlds which have developed from colonies with a average population of 1 Billion. The final third are worlds which either are isolated, pacifist, or have inhabitants which are not in a standard humaniod form and thus not counted for this exercise. Now lest also assume that the remaining colonies not counted above come to a 10 billion figure.

Thats a population of 310 billion humaniod life forms.

Canon sources (DS9) point to a population figure that exceeds 1 trillion. The supergeniuses that tried to sabotage the Dominion war predicted more than a trillion casualties for the Federation. I was using a low-end estimate. I was actually trying to minimize population and uniformed personnel numbers.

At a 2500 to 1 ration that gives 12,400,000 for the uniformed Starfleet service.

If we go to the next level during the Dominion War the Federation could have raised a force of 10,333,333,333

[spyone]

Oh goody! This is exactly the kind of conversation I've been hoping for.

First off, I belive the number of Federation members (circa 2375) is given as 140, not 100.
And 10 billion per member is awfully high. Earth has about 10 billion, Vulcan probably has far less (it looks like mostly-empty desert when we see it, although I might form the same opinion of Earth if all I saw was Arizona.)
Those two things do partly cancel each other out: you had 10 billion * 100 worlds = 1,000 billion citizens, while I had 6 billion * 140 worlds = 840 billion citizens. Which really isn't very far apart.

A post-industrial economy, such as the US currently has, can support about 1% of its population in the military full time. In an industrial economy, that drops to 1/1000, and in a Feudal society it is 1/10,000.
Now, there's no rule that says the Federation has to hire the biggest military it can afford, but on the other hand that isn't taking into account Starfleet's primarily scientific and diplomatic missions: the money the Federation spends on those aspects is over-and-above defense spending, so Starfleet could be 2 or 3 times that large.

So, the Federation could easilly keep 1% of its population in Starfleet, and it is possable that it could support 3% or so. But, it seems likely that Starfleet is actually smaller than its maximum possable size: probably less than 1%.



My opinion of your metaphors:
The Planetary forces will likely be smaller: Germany doesn't have a Starfleet to pick up the slack. I see the Planetary defense forces as being like the Coast Guard in size and operation: handling only the stuff that happens close to the planets, and if anything major happens call Starfleet.
I mean, if a small navy tried to invade Hawaii, do you thing a Coast Guard Cutter that discovered them would try to sink them itself, or call the US Navy.

Also, Starfleet should include agencies like NOAA: it seems like any science being sponsored by the Federation government is handled through Starfleet.

Your ship classifications are a little off. I mean, the current US Navy is about 1% the size of your proposed Starfleet in terms of people, and it does not have 70 "battleships": it has zero battleships and IIRC 11 Aircraft Carriers. Granted, each carrier projects a lot of force, and may well equate to more capital ships, but perhaps it would be better represented by many smaller ships.
I think if you want an Earth navy that makes a good metaphor for Starfleet, you need to go back to 1900-1920 at least: fighters are non-existant, battles are won by big ships with big guns and lots of armor (or shields), but there is still a threat from small fast moving ships with a single massive punch.
Except that automation will reduce crew sizes significantly.

I gotta agree that these numbers disagree with some of what was shown on screen. But then, the shows often contradict themselves, so a certain amount of conflict is inevitable. The distance from Bajor to Earth seems to have shrunk significantly during the run of DS9, for instance.

As for rconciling this with a "pacifistic Starfleet": I have no issue there.
1) the Federation must maintain enough fighting capability to make more war-like powers (like the Cardassians, Klingons, and Romulans) think twice about just taking what they want by force.
2) the majority of Starfleet's vessels are on patrol within the Federation so as to provide rapid response when a ship or planet sends a distress call. This can tie up a truly shocking number of vessels, depending on your opinion of the size of the Federation and what constitutes an acceptable response time. Just using guesswork figures, I had a Federation that was a rectangle 1000ly high and 4000ly on a side requiring at least 16,000 ships just for emergency response (one in each 100ly cube).


And, of course, just having that many ships does not mean it can bring them all to bear in the Dominion War.
The Federation has several hostile neighbors, and those neighbors will probably regard the Dominion War as an opportunity to strike at the Federation. For that reason, not only can ships not be taken from patrolling the Romulan Neutral Zone (for example), but in fact Starfleet will have to reinforce those areas to keep hotile forces in check. And Starfleet can't just abandon its patrol and rescue duties, either. So the number of ships that Starfleet can deploy to even a major engagement without spreading itself too thin is a mere fraction of the total ships in Starfleet.


The single biggest arguement against a Starfleet this size is:
It has been stated that all Starfleet Officers attended Starfleet Academy.
This makes SFA simply too huge.
You have about 260 million folks in Starfleet. If Starfleet is like the US Navy, about 50% of them are officers, or 130 million. If the "average" Starfleet carreer is 40 years, then 1/40 of that number will retire (or die) each year, and need to be replaced by fresh Academy graduates. Thats 3.25 million in each graduating class (which sure makes Riker's "8th" sound more impressive, doesn't it), and assuming nobody drops (or flunks) out, that's still 13 million undergrads at SFA.

So, either not everybody went to SFA, or there are multiple SFA campuses (campi?), or Starfleet just isn't this big.