lines of supply

[Alastair]

Candid,

Actually cutting into farming really isn't all that accurate. The Thirty Years War was an extreme example of continuous warfare. It takes a lot of killing to depopulate a third of the male population of a country, and even that doesn't have a huge impact on farming. In the entire Civil war only 3% of America's population at the time were killed, and that was one bloody war.

So each province should have a number of draft age men, say, with 120 man units.... 40,000 men of draft age (this is in one of the bigger provinces, like Dewa or Iyo). Keep in mind that this number should be increasing continually, with, maybe, 1-200 men coming of age each year. These are very wild and inaccurate estimates, since I have absolutely no data on Japan's population at the time, the birth rate, or the draft age.

[candidgamera]

Alastair:

Fair point on the farming to an extent, but do know the South in the ACW started to get pretty hungry in places-some due to manpower type issues. Intent is to be reasonable when effects start to occur.

OT: On 30 Years War, understand that it was so bad that Europeans fought more limited wars as a result long after it had ended.

Manpower pool: that's the idea. Of course it would be necessary to use best available population figures to do the scaling right.
Don't know the level of their census taking at the time. Of course some would leave the pool too - too old. Then it would be a matter of having a generally increasing population: more entering the manpower pool than leaving it.

[Alastair]

The South's problem with food was not that they didn't have enough men, but that the military levied heavy taxes in food from the farmers, and then let it rot in warehouses for lack of railroads.

[candidgamera]

A:
Going to the books now to explore the premises.

[henryh]

I don't think food is the issue in Shogun since Koku is a currency not a food stockpile.

[Sensei]

it is ture that with small feudal armies in large rural provinces, the army has the ability to supply itself.
However when the army is too large, say twice than the Koku production, than it becomes a problem.
supply lines shoul undoubatbly be a mojor aspect of STW as it is in most realistic war sims (ie. Operational Art of War) Having the lines would open way for strategy beyond the battlefield and beyond the quality of the army.