Thank You

I say 15,000 Macedonians and 30,000 Persians would be more likely. How the hell did you expect to feed an army the size Konstantanius writes before the Napoleonic era (and canned food) in a desert no less is beyond me.

Alexander's army is said to have been 40,000 strong allthough it is more than likely that his army was much smaller than that. The Persian force could not have been more than 250,000 deep. 200,000 would be the closest figure.

Does anybody know what was a population of Darius's Empire? It was rather typical in pre-modern period that a agricultural society didn't have an army bigger than about 1% of population. So if Persia had had for example 20 mln people, Persian army could have had about 200.000 soldiers.

If anyone can tell me how you could feed an army of more than 30,000 in that era in a desert, then I am all years, or in this case eyes.

Arabela was pretty inland. And Decebal, the question is not just of what you can carry, but of supply. Now your argument would hold water if it was a Marathon like situation, whereby most of the soldiers were of one nearby city. In this case the soldiers were from as far away as Sindh! Now you are telling me that Darius in an era before canned food, was able to amass 250,000 men from different parts of the empire, transport them (which means feed them on the way), link up and then move a nother distance away to face Alexander. I have great difficulty beleiving it. WHen I was in the NCC (National cadet Corps), the main limitator of mobility was food stuff. And from my own experience, (albeit on a much smaller scale) what you are suggesting is impossible.

Konstantanious is misrepresenting what I said. I said I did not know if wagons were invented yet.

Alexander was also unable to purchase any mercenaries at that time as well, since he was completely bankrupt.

The Persian army, or in this case every army needs food/water, entertainment/services, and shelter. An army of one million soldiers would need a tremendous number of caravans, pack animals, concubines, entertainers (singers, dancers, etc), doctors, waiters, guards, etc. This adds to the total amount of the previous one million. Each man would roughly recieve 1.85 gallons of water a day. The total amount of water per day to sustain an army of that size would cost 1,850,000 gallons or 7,705.25 tons of water each day. A comfortable cargo weight for a camel is 330 pounds, but can carry as much as 990 pounds. If each camel carried 990 pounds, the Persians would need a total of 15,567 camels. If each camel carried 330 pounds, Darius would need 46,699 camels. The camels would also have to take a day's break every 3 days or so to rest. The Perians would need extra camels to fill in for the resting camels if they wanted water each day. These are the amounts without deducting the water taken in by the staff and animals. Remember, this is for one day only, if the army intended to remain together for one week, the amount of water would add up to 12,950,000 gallons or 53,936.75 tons of water. This is leaving out the food as well, which would be substantial if the men were to remain ready and tough for the battle. This would be nearly impossible to accomplish, expecialy if the army were to stay for a long period of time.

Not a dumb question at all Justinian, it was better to clear that up for other members who thought the same thing.

I am not saying Alexander was not a great tactician, or that the Macedonian was not a great commander, he was. The logistics of fielding an army over 80,000 in 331 B.C would have been very difficult. You have to feed your army, you have to provide water, there must be forms of entertainment, there must be shelter, and there must be serivces, such as medical services. A waste-cleaning service would have to be present as well(at least 35,000 people going to the john each day at one location, without a john). On top of the original 80,000 there would be thousands more to fill in the elements of fielding an army.

A more reasonable estimate would be around 100,000 Persians, and close to 31,000 Macedonians. Even if Darius had wanted to muster an army of 1 million, he wouldnt have had enough time to do so, when taking into consideration the speed at which Alexander force marched his army. 

Actually, each of my post are exactly the same, with the exception of deciding to bring the army down from 200,000 to 100,000. And yes, the Macedonian army was more than likely 30-31,000 strong.

30,000 to 31,000 isnt much of a difference. In fact, in all actuality, there is no difference.

Using your estimates as a base, I have calculated how much of a difference 1,000 men can affect two battles between 30,000 Macedonians and 100,000 Persians and 31,000 Macedonians and 100,000 Persians. If there are 30,000 men, 1 Macedonian would have to kill 3.333 Persian men. If there are 31,000 Macedonians, each man would need to bring death upon 3.226 enemies. This is quite a large difference considering the circumstances of life or death. It also depends on how Alexander uses the 1,000 troops. If he decided to use the troops as sheep fodder for example, the outcome would be much different.