Personnel Acquisition

Draft and the modern military

Most military equipment today, despite their automation and user-friendliness, still must be run by personnel. Although only a small percentage of them may see combat, papers must still be filed, maintenance must still be done, coffee must still be made, and other support tasks must be accomplished. The soldier today is a far cry from a "dumb grunt", which further makes draft expensive.

Therefore, in a very extreme example, a ZOCU Hoplite flight may have 4 pilots, but require a thousand men and women working behind them to keep them in combat-ready order. Even infantry units may have extremely high tail-to-teeth ratios, necessitating heavy amounts of expense to keep a sizable amount of personnel for the military.

Weeding Exercises

Ever more elite units have ever higher physical fitness, mental agility, and training requirements, cutting down on the number of people who can "hack it". Therefore, elite units, the most extreme being special forces and special forces support units, have much higher entry requirements-as well as much higher support requirements, increasing their draft cost.

There are four levels of competence-Reservist, Professional, Elite, and Hardened By default, all soldiers are bought as "professional". The four levels are described below with their cost multipliers.

Reservist

"How do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?"

Weekend warriors, reservists are semi-trained but not particularly motivated or dedicated. However, they cost much less to keep "in circulation" and can still make a significant difference. Reservist units cost 1/2 the normal draft and are generally relegated to homeworld defense and other roles which must be filled but the quality of units that fill them is not particularly necessary.

Professional

Professional soldiers make up the backbone of the modern military and fill the vast majority of roles. They cost normal draft and are found just about everywhere.

Elite

"Gallantly will I show the world that I am a specially selected and well-trained soldier. My courtesy to superior officers, neatness of dress and care of equipment shall set the example for others to follow."

Elite soldiers are a cut beyond the normal professionals, superior in physical ability, training, and generally experience. Although not as cost-efficient as a large, professionally trained force, a smaller elite force can be extremely potent when used correctly, and are a critical component of most militaries. Elite soldiers cost (~5) times normal draft. In general, they are used in positions where numbers matter less than per-unit effectiveness-airborne infantry, marines, veteran squadrons, and the like are generally elite.

Hardened

"With all due respect, sir, containing a city of 12 million might be slightly beyond my team's capabilities."

Hardened soldiers have gone through multiple grueling methods of selection, whether in training or by the Darwinian brutality of frontline combat. In general, these soldiers are rapidly closing on the limit of the potential of whatever species or subspecies they are, augmented or baseline, chromed or meat. They're almost always equipped with the best gear, the best support staff, and are talked about incessantly by military fanboys. For all that, they are limited by their numbers, and they are generally best put into positions where a small handful of soldiers can change the course of a war, instead of down in open combat.

Hardened units cost (20-50?) times normal draft, reserving this class of unit for extremely elite outfits like ace squadrons or special ops units.

Popular Support

Unpopular wars make military service unpopular, and therefore with low domestic support, the cost for personnel increases-even high prestige units are generally not immune to this. Very low domestic support therefore (may) increase the costs for draft, sometimes significantly.

Some other thoughts

Supersoldier projects should upgrade units of draft into the new and improved class of super-people.

Extremely high losses from an operation may upgrade the survivors in ability, as experience and the guys who weren't completely hard dying off makes them much deadlier per-person. This effect should still be small lest people decide to make poorly-equipped infantry meatgrinders as a method for promotion.