I just saw something kinda awesome that made me wonder about something: Assuming Equestria has been at war for some time and have been actively recruiting troops, how many pegasi warriors do you think they could muster at the most?

In other words, how much manpower (ponypower?) do you think they'd have access to?

4066720 Considering that horses are a relatively prolific species, I would assume that they would be able to mobilize around a million in total. I will, of course, assume that Earth Ponies are the most prolific, while the Pegasi and Unicorns are second and third most prolific respectively. I would therefore say that the Pegasi would probably be around three hundred to four hundred thousand strong in the Equestrian army.

4066763

So, theoretically, it would be possible to witness a murmuration of pegasi soldiers?

Theoretically, yes. It would be an excellent terror tactic to use in a military demonstration.

4067083

I imagine it would be pretty scary, yes.

4067086 Of course, in actual warfare, that kind of mass would be vulnerable to a wave of ballistic weaponry (such as arrows).

4067087

True. Though, ballistics work both ways. (Especially when gravity is on your side.)

The hive has come!

4066763

I would assume that they would be able to mobilize around a million in total

This sounds awesome and exciting until you take into account that somewhere around 50% of that million is going to be in a support or auxiliary role, unless, y'know, ponies don't need supply chains, food preparation, or medicine.

They might not, since magic could produce cooked food out of nowhere, and they could just magic up some cures to those wounds.

To answer this question we would have to know Equestria's population: historically, even the most militarised states have rarely had more than 2% of their populations under arms at any one time. Thus you have a deal of flexibility depending on how big you want your universe to be: is Equestria as large as North America, or as small as Texas? What is your technology level? Modern day? Early-to-mid Nineteenth Century? More primitive? All of those will determine how large their population is. We know they have railways, so that puts a certain lower bound on their technology level. Additionally, transport would be a factor in how many they could mobilise: during the Franco-Prussian War, the North German Confederation, despite having a smaller population than France, was able to mobilise a larger army much faster than the French owing a superior railway network that was deliberately designed with rapid mobilisation in mind. Now, Equestria is clearly well-served by railways, since the Mane Six can easily get to wherever they need to on a train fairly quickly, but it's obviously not designed for troop movements: the German railways stations on the frontier had oversized platforms so troop trains could rapidly disembark. Equestria doesn't have that, which might foul up their mobilisation timetable.

So to summarise, the answer is basically "as much as you need them to mobilise for the story to still be interesting". Pick a figure, but make sure it's consistent and makes sense with the rest of your fic's universe!

4086571

This sounds awesome and exciting until you take into account that somewhere around 50% of that million is going to be in a support or auxiliary role, unless, y'know, ponies don't need supply chains, food preparation, or medicine.

That's what the earth ponies are for.

4086932

I was waiting for this answer.

For one, the pegasids might be in a front where the earth ponies can't get to easily. This could be disastrous to the pegasids waiting for their supply lines to catch up with them, particularly if they were surrounded by the enemy.

For two, it makes sense to have your pegasid infantry supported by pegasid auxiliaries.

I'm not saying your idea isn't workable, but there are some weaknesses in it.

4087191

What idea? I just wanted to know how many flying horses they could mobilize at once.