Originally posted by Xcathdra
reply to post by CountDrac
After reading the criteria involved to rank the nations I am a bit confused. If they simply go by the numbers, then how did the Us make number
1? China has us beat hands down in several area, including the size fo their military, reserves etc.
Um…… what areas are you referring to?
They do have a larger portion of their population fit for service.
618M vs 120M
They do have a larger number of people in active forces by a percentage.
2.2M vs 1.5M
So, yes, having a larger number of people is good…. But
If they have nothing to fight with, then they are going to do no good just standing around as cannon fodder.
China doesn’t have even close to enough guns to arm every one!
Their defense budget is 1/7 of the US.
They have fewer tanks and APCs.
The ones they do have are far lower quality
They DO have more self propelled guns, and MLRSs
They have a far smaller air force by any leap of the imagination.
China’s Navy….. what Navy? Ow….. yea they do have a few more frigates.
But the US has more of everything else. duh.....
And the reason china has more patrol and coastal ships in the navy than the US is….
The US has an isolated “coast guard” that isn’t counted in the navy numbers, while china includes it’s coast guard forces as part of it’s
navy.
And you also have other “official classification” effects skewing the numbers like that.
edit on 15-7-2011 by Mr Tranny because: (no reason given)