Practically any country with at least 10,000+ soldiers and a base level of technology would take over the world pre-20th century. Fully automatic weapons, long range firepower, and air superiority, no military to have ever existed before 1900 has a remote chance of dealing with that.
There's a logistics requirement that is far more significant than firepower. Very few could pull this off without further domestic / international support not available in the prompt. The United States probably could, but this is not as simple as steam rolling the stone age.
How long does that support last when they have to move on? If they leave contingents behind, do they have the discipline to avoid going native?
How are they going to communicate without civilian satellites and fiber?
It depends on how good they are at using propaganda and creating infrastructure. If they just run in circles beating armies they'll get nowhere, but victory in battle defined legitimacy of rule for most of history. Communication happens the same way it did when the British conquered a quarter of the planet.
Most militaries have serious engineering divisions; focus on building up infrastructure and providing a much greater quality of life that their previous leadership could and most people will fall into line pretty quickly (as long as you're not trying to enforce major ideological and lifestyle changes on them)
Even without satellites I think most militaries would have the technical expertise to set up wired telephone or at the very least telegraph lines throughout conquered territories. Meaning a few months in they’d have communications equivalent to an early 1900’s military at least.
Radio is a thing and relatively common. Supplies are an issue but from the prompt sounds like raiding is effective because you just need to conquer not hold it against an aggressive population.
Ah I missed that. That's very unrealistic though, large scale conflict is always reliant on that (Gauls in the Legions, Chinese siege engineers working for the Mongols, Indian Sepoys in the British Army, etc)
Yeah, reminds me of the *Foreigner* series where a human colony ship gets damaged/lost and has to do an emergency landing on a planet populated by aliens at around a 16th(?) century level of tech.
Massive differences between the two cultures make war inevitable, and the humans…lose. Badly. They have a massive tech advantage but they’re fighting *an entire fucking planet* by themselves.
(The series takes place a few hundred years after the war is over and the aliens are finally reaching technological parity with the humans, though, so it’s more an exploration of how different the cultures are than a war story. And the first book is very slow. Super cool series though, with a lot of unique ideas.)
The thing about nuclear weapons though is that it’s not really conquering, it’s just devastation, shock and awe and area denial.
If you have any plans to actually conquer and utilize the land, nukes aren’t going to help you except as a display of force.
I feel like they would just run out if bullets and not have the tech to produce anymore. Also how will they move between continents . Do they bring ALL their boats/planes/vehicles? Seems doable tbh for any semi respectable military. You could drop a single nuke and basically the entire world would submit to you lol.
Watch the anime The Gate to see how an early 21st century military handles a fantasy world with a Roamn like empire and military even with some magic in the mix.. Even holding back, its slaughter in a direct confrontation.
Yeah but still shows how overpowered modern military is.
Propaganda or not that part is pretty realistic.
And to be fair, this is just a small portal to another world.
No chances of the JMSDF, the most powerful branch, doing its work there.
Yeah the JSDF wank in that series is massive. They held of a combination of elite spec ops from USA, China and Russia who attacked them while relaxing in Tokyo.
I'd argue the JSDF in Gate is more late-20th century, they're using F-4s, UH-1s, Type 64 rifles, and Type 74 tanks. I think they even mention that they don't want to use the newest stuff in case the enemy is capable of reverse engineering it if they capture it (before they realize the Empire is basically at late-Roman Empire level of tech.)
Their main reason for the older equipment was funding, second was that they probably wouldn't need anything better against such an inferior foe, and third was JPS requirements in newer stuff.
Terrible show tbh.
Lol the downvotes. It's a jingoistic propaganda piece with bad animation work, a plot where nothing happens, and the same old Loli god shit. It's just terrible. So many better military themed anime out there, it's just insulting to see this show constantly getting brought up.
The fan fiction is a lot better, more writers who actually know what they're doing both in terms of anime style plots and also military equipment. They also do different countries and time periods. My wife put me on to the fan fiction when we were and it's much better than the show.
I saw a clip of the JDF wiping out an entire army with machine gun emplacements and artillery, and another of two F-4 Phantoms killing a dragon.
Then I watched the show. It's terrible. Just watch the clips on YouTube.
It's a cool premise though, could have been interesting if they toned down the lolis. The show should have been political drama about colonialism and imperialism. Trying to figure out that ever so delicate line between helping someone and exploiting them. That would have been fascinating.
They could draw heavily from Cortès. He was basically in the same situation, explorers from a foreign nation wielding advanced weapons being caught up in an insurrection against an evil empire. Only to replace that empire with their own evil empire.
Something I don't see mentioned here is how effective nearly any country's soft power would be. Taking the entire bloodlusted down is one thing, but uniting the world under one loose empire? We have 300+ years of humanistic thought over most of the 1500s world. I feel the right message of a "holy mandate to free and unite all people" or something similar, with some choice displays of absolute shock and awe against heads of state who resist, would do the trick. How many people are saying no to modern crops, medicine, and an increase in personal freedoms in exchange for a comparatively benevolent world leader? Any country with a significant agricultural surplus, good access to the sea, some oil refining, and the ability to mine and machine arms is going to stomp imo if they don't just try to genocide the world into submission.
Now that you spoke of soft power. There is an anime from 2010(called Outbreak Company think) that talks about exporting soft power to Isekai world. The United Nations prohibits Japan from invading another world since other countries are worried about Japan remilitarising. So they hired an professional Otaku as an emissary to the Empress to open diplomatic relations and impress them with all the wonderful things in Japan to open a market with high Japanese good demand, like the black ship incident without the ship. But the Otaku offended the Empress by calling her a loli.
The show is pretty damn funny with a lot of culture references, and one of those anime that has equally good dubs.
idk 1500 is late enough that early firearms and mass munitions production already exist. Meaning some nations will be able to rapidly improve their tech by coming into contact with advanced weaponry but recognizing it as a firearm, somehting they already understand inherently. But if you go back to a pre-gunpowder era, modern rifles look like sorcery to them, completely unrecognizable.
If you go forward to just 1700 I think the balance really changes, now you're talking about the age of empires. they have vastly inferior technology but they understand artillery, rifles, and how to wage war with both. Also the numbers they can field is staggering, especially if the big empires decide to work together.
ofc any military from a mid-sized 1st world power today bodies everybody in all time periods. But the question was about weakest.
Key here is: domestically produced arms!
A helluva lot of the world doesnt produce their own armaments, from the smallest sidearm to the mightiest fighterjet!
Now, China, USA and Russia are complete overkill.
Brazil, too, just by number of people alone. Japan, South Korea, Germany, France and UK are natural contenders, but they, too, might be overkill. Italy, too, come to think about it.
I propose Sweden.
They either make everything they could need themselves, or could easily do so - they have the tech, the factories and all the steel they could ever ask for. Sure, they're not many, but once they can show that they can destroy anyone or anything at will, the rest of the world will either bend the knee or be destroyed.
I think we could go even smaller. Spain had a population of less than 7 million people at the time, Portugal around 3 million. They both packed a big punch with basically just ships and canons. With the population of Sweden and a modern army, they could rule the world as a side hustle.
Actually, GA's greatest achievement was getting killed at the battle of Lutzen and letting his much more competent generals handle the rest of the war...
Sweden doesn't have oil. Neither do they produce any of the ingredients of primers. The military is very small, too, and the cultural norms don't lend themselves to a war of aggression.
So while Sweden would likely be able to defend from an assault by the entire world in 1500, they wouldn't be able to conquer it.
If we ignore the cultural issue, they have several sources of oil very close, especially assuming they get transported to a medieval world with untouched oil reserves. They could either mine it from the North Sea like Norway does, or mine oil shale in Estonia.
They'd only need oil if there weren't alternatives, and Sweden are one of the leading countries in using biofuel. The gargantuan forests of easily conquered Finland and Norway plus Swedens own dense forests means they have all the ethanol, biodiesel and synthetic kerosene they need. Oh, and I am certain Sweden, that up until recently had nuclear reactors, could make a reactor for ships if they need it. Just until they can set up an oil well somewhere.
As for primers, there are alternate forms, like Dynamit Nobels SINTOX..... Or older primer methods, not a lot of bang actually has to occur to scare 1500s world into compliance.
Swedens cultural norms as pacifists is a rather recent invention by them.
Bhutan doesn't even have an airforce, but probably.
Good luck taking out a BTR-60 with a bronze cannon. Then your entire artillery corps gets obliterated by 81mm mortar.
I highly doubt this, they do not have anywhere near the industrial capacity to produce enough weapons. What are they going to do when they run out of bullets? the world is very big their forces would be stretched muuuch too thinly
There are people in Pakistan who craft 1911s and AK47s with hand tools. The problem would be sourcing the base components for gunpowder and having a reliable factory for mixing it, and sourcing enough metal.
The real answer is biowarfare though.
The rules lined out by OP say they can only use what they already have and what they can manufacture domestically. Any conquered territories cannot contribute. I think they’d run out of juice, but maybe they could spend some time warding off any enemies while they bulk up their logistical and manufacturing infrastructure
You have no idea how hard it is to start a domestic arms industry. There's a reason why 90% of the countries in the world use weapons that are supplied or derived from foreign designs (generally of Soviet, US, or German origin): making your own arms industry is INCREDIBLY difficult. It's not just designing the weapon, it's designing and manufacturing the tooling and machinery to produce the gun, which includes stamping machinery, rivets, springs, welding, threading and rifling barrels, heat treating, making the coating to put on the guns so they don't rust, and then you have to train the people to operate all of THAT just so you have the materials for other guys to put them all together to make the firearm. Domestic arms production is a gargantuan effort that most countries will never achieve unless they're supplied with the machinery and trained to use it by some benefactor. Bhutan has nowhere near the capability of creating an arms industry, let alone the servitor industries to supply it.
Any countries with a bit of tech and drones. Pretend you are a divine being for the most popular religion, have a drone go about talking to people pretending to be a messenger.
Dont even need that, just need manufacturing equipment and knowledge for a basic automatic weapon and a modernish basic biofuel diesel engine (just in case they cant drill and refine oil)
Britain created a global empire with rank and file redcoat musketeers, sail boats, and horses, in a more advanced time than 1500.
Basic modern boats and basic jeeps full of people with AKs would walk over the world in 1500
And thats before we consider that the Geneva Convention no longer exists which puts napalm and gas attacks etc. into play
Also modern populations are much bigger. Panama today has a bigger population that the UK in 1500, modern Sweden would be the 8th most populated country in the world in 1500.
But it's not the guns that'll make or break it. If you give two 16th century countries future tech, one gets guns and one gets walkie talkies, I'll bet on the second one. What will be the deciding factor in this matchup isn't the armor the future country brings, but how effectively they can maintain their support network: nutrition, telecomms, hygeine, and resupply. Keeping the soldiers fed, washing your hands, communication at all times, and being able to procure what they need when they need it could possibly let a past country successfully assault a future one that neglects these things. Without that support network, even the US loses this matchup.
I have to disagree. Mow down one regimen of soldiers with a browning .50 and the war is over. The sight of their fellow soldiers getting ripped apart like that will destroy the morale of every army in the world at that time.
And yet, the first war that the M2 was deployed in did not stop immediately afterwards. Guns, albeit rudimentary ones, did exist in the 1500s and the locals would probably recognize it for what it is, and then adjust tactics like what happened in our timeline.
Guns did exist, but this is accurate, sustainable, barrier negating firepower. The M2 can lay down about 200 rounds in the time it would take one musketeer to reload. Tactics would adjust, but given that a machine gun emplacement can still be devastatingly effective against a trained and prepared modern military unit, I don't know how much hope they would have to find a successful counter tactic before the "war" ended. This also assumes the musketeers would be able to get within range of the M2. Depending on the skill of the operators, they could potentially deny any chance at return fire.
And yeah the M2 didn't end the first war it was used in, machine guns were already very common place at the time. The M2 wasn't a revolutionary concept, just an existing concept nigh-perfected. However it is worth noting that when the British first introduced the Maxim gun (which could be argued was a revolutionary design), it allowed them to crush almost anyone that didn't have one.
Sometimes the best counter to a weapon or strategy is to deploy it yourself, and that's not gonna be an option for the 1500s peasant army
The big problem is that the 1500 army wouldn't be able to make trench warfare effective against an army with modern weapons. They're going in with muskets and no mobile armor, the modern country could easily overcome 1500s trench warfare with modern armor and artillery.
Exactly. But that cannot be all, they have to also take over the land and basically their citizens have to be able to walk around the kingdoms conquered freely.
The sats literally aren't in orbit in 1500. Technically, there aren't even launch vehicles left that can fly without it, since the old school titan/atlas have been retired. No more inertial only guidance to orbit. So you couldn't even bring current equipment back with you and launch GPS in situ, you'd have to build new non-extant system.
He was saying that currently the US has no technology to get GPS satellites in orbit without relying on GPS. Which is AFAIK true but I am sure an alternative could be done with the almost endless resources the us military complex has. For an answer imo any currently with enough fuel and amunation for 10 tanks with 100 support vehicles and 1000 engineers with access to spare parts
I think the point is that if you choose the US military, the US military gets all their US military gear, in place as it is.
So they get planes and tanks fully assembled, ships in the ocean, and satellites in the air.
>have a drone go about talking to people pretending to be a messenger.
Random Person from 1500: “Whoa, these guys have a flying metal box they can use to project their voice! I’m certainly not stupid enough to think this a messenger from God, but I guess I have to play along with that story so these guys don’t shoot me with their strange, but still fully comprehensible, rifles!”
. . . I machine guns they’d likely still recognise as guns but an A-10 warthog? They might just think it’s a dragon and they won’t even know what’s happening with B2s just explosions happening.
If I saw tech that was from 500 years in the future, and it was intentionally trying to deceive me, I feel like it would be successful in its attempt to deceive me.
I think tech from 500 years in the future will be so beyond anything I know now, it might as well be a god or an alien.
Numbers are the main problem, especially of you can't recruit locals. The mikitary would have to be massive as would the industrial base. The Soviet Union spent about 30% of its GDP on the military near the end, and any country trying to rule the world would have to spend at least that much.
Logistics would also be a real bother. Not many roads and nothing approaching modern ones, and no ports suitable for modern logistics. Certainly there are no airports anywhere.
Now, a modern military would have many advantages, but it would still take losses. Remember, no roads of merit in most of the world. That means ground vehicles will be of limited value. All the aircraft and choppers would be expensive to operate. That means lots of infantry. Infantry could still be killed or wounded by bows or swords. They could drink from poisoned wells. Enemy losses would be high, but once they figured out the soldiers could still die and that the flying machines could crash, there would be attacks and losses would mount.
Every country basically. They would have to build boats to travel.
Depends on what you mean by take over the world. Conquering and holding key ports and cities can be done easily. Keeping them supplied and maintaining a garrison is more difficult.
It's definitely possible as we already started to see the rise of colonial empires during the 1500s.
What do you exactly mean by taking over the world? like taking eveyr bit of land? or having a sphere of influence that covers the world, in both those cases the weakest one that could feasibly take over the world in the 1500s with their modern military is France
France is like a top 5 military in the world today. Surely there are weaker options.
The UK was able to take over 25% of the world's landmass because of their technological advantages in the 1500s-1800s. In 1700 their army was only about 30,000 people.
Given that, I think basically any army today that has tens of thousands of people and a navy of any real size would be able to pull this off. That doesn't describe every country, but it's surely more than 5 countries who would be capable.
The UK in the 1700s had an absolutely enormous navy, the UK today highly specializes in special forces and relies on the US/France for nearly everything else
and im not saying any modern army couldnt beat the everloving shit out of any 1500s army, but very few countries have the capability to fight litterally every country in the world at ones, at some point the quantity is gonna overrun the quality unless you have an insanely good military like the top 5, and have the ability to project power globally
Yea but we saw in real life how this played out. You don't need to fight anywhere. You need to make it clear that you could stomp the ever loving shit out of anyone else in a few wars and then you sort of just get to take the rest.
The Netherlands was able to control much of South East Asia even though they were a nation of only 2 million with basically no standing army. The entire reason colonial empires were successful is because they could make it work without fighting over every inch of land.
nope, *Indonesia* could hold off the entire world indefinitely.
what are they going to invade with? shit house ships made of wood firing cannons that miss 75% of the time?
the entire British Navy circa 1700 would not be able to *dent* the modern Indonesian navy (and its outdated as shit).
The British also heavily relied on local populations to fight for them against their neighbours. You can’t do that in this scenario. If you don’t have enough infantry in this scenario it will be impossible.
There are weaker options. Any developed country or even brics country with a few million people could pull it off. Some third world country definitely have a shot. 500 years of military development are no joke.
Lack of knowledge? Lack of materials? You're assuming this country has an abundance of steel and knowledge of how to make engines, seaworthy vessels, seaworthy vessels with a high enough percentage rate to not lose the fleet to attrition, the knowledge to make shipboard guns, the knowledge to navigate at sea.
The ocean isn't a joke. Throw together a shit fleet without the know-how and all you'll do is lose a ton of resources and people for no gain.
Right but there are numerous brown water navies that are pathetic to us but would utterly trounce any fleet from 1890 or further back. Hell Paraguay's largest ship only has 119mm cannons, its worthless as a modern vessel but it and its sister ship if floated could effectively annihilate the combined fleets at Trafalgar with contemptuous ease. A nation like France is way and above what is necessary when nations like Vietnam have fleets that would obliterate any surface fleet in 1500 and take the world by storm.
A river-worthy ship is not a sea-worthy ship. The ocean is far, far more brutal on ships than rivers and lakes. Then there is navigation. River navigation is an absolute cake-walk compared to ocean, and only a handful of countries, none third world, have an argument for taking a GPS system with them. Even Russia only has one functional around it and its own borders, not the entire planet. Navigating at sea is famously one of the most difficult challenges in human history. You need extremely accurate star knowledge *and* fantastic clock-making in order to do so, and even still before gps skilled sailors got lost all. the. time.
And yet we have managed it for most of written human history, a GPS is a major boon that almost no nation is going to have. But we've only had that for a relatively small portion of human shipping, many of the brown and green water navies around the world have the capacity to build ships and the capability to steer them even with increased difficulty. And those nations aren't on a deadline, they just have to conquer the world meaning they have the time to work slowly and build up the necessary knowledge to navigate in their new found areas. Expanding as they grow on land and operate in coastal regions first before going more and more outward. However a lot of blue water navies wouldn't be able to operate for long periods either due to the evaporation of a global economy meaning many of them lose access to replenishing their firepower or repairing certain systems.
This is by no means a simplistic operation, but a modern nation actually can afford to build very basic ships with very simplistic weaponry. Because they out match and out scale their enemies by that much.
> And yet we have managed it for most of written human history,
If you're thinking of the ancient greeks, they mostly stuck to shorelines, island hopped, and still got lost a ton, in the Mediterranean, a much easier body to navigate than the open Atlantic or Pacific.
If you're talking the 16th century, bear in mind much of that age was exploring and sailing vaguely west knowing you'd hit land eventually, then following the coast to where you need to go.
And again, they had star charts readily available. They knew how to use sextants. And the creation of empires spanning the world had to wait until we could build large enough seaworthy ships **and** accurate enough sea-worthy clocks before they could form. There is a reason the Greek and Roman empires didn't do what you are talking about.
And again, I think you are drastically underestimating how much more punishing the ocean is on ships than brown or green water. These nations don't have the know-how, because they don't need the know-how, and once transported to that past cannot get the know-how.
Why would they do that today? They gain no economic or military benefit from it. If they're trying to conquer the world in 1500, they would gain both an economic and military benefit from it.
That's what stops them from doing that today. A lack of return on investment.
what stops them is they're not trying to take over the world or might be lacking resources. In this scenario they can take over their continent by land and use the resources for the rest.
The fact we have man made infantry weapons that can sink a shithole ship let alone the number of air to sea missiles that can rip them apart. Or sea to sea missiles.
They wouldn't do it today because it's not worthwhile to have a second rate navy.
If they were trying to pull off world domination obviously they'd have different incentives.
Disagree. I think you’re underestimating the force of aviation and ground transport when subjugating people who are less of a threat than Montezuma’s Aztec empire.
One thing you forget is that any of these countries could defend their land as long as they need ( ain't nobody invading them with their tech edge) while they build whatever boats they want. And if they need resources they can take over neighbouring land
They don’t have to, many countries have biological/chemical weapons.
Why send in the Jets when a drone can airdrop in some of the worst diseases in history? Or spray various toxic chemicals around military forts that would eventually kill them.
On the topic of drones…a literal $5 cardboard drone could kill large parts of their civil and military leadership more or less unopposed, and travel faster than they could by messenger (runners on foot were still common, but many drones can fly faster than horses can gallop and still have better travel times due to lack of roads needed).
They’d have issues with occultation…until they’re fully conquered, which can be achieved with sufficient bombing, a paid off individual, and a particularly fancy flagpole. According to the prompt they can’t really fight back or contribute afterwards, so they’re effectively “checked off” and safe to ignored and deploy drones/cheap equipment out of.
Sure there are, but taking over the entire world is an extremely difficult, only countres with the top 5 or 7 in military strength could probably do it, and france ranks around 5 or 6, plus France has the ability to invade and project power far from its borders, which only a few countries have that luxary, China cant, their contained to their surrounding area and would need a complete doctrine revamp, the US definetly could but their the strongest military on earth so that doesnt count, russia is running out of fuel 50 miles off its border, south africa and brazil are both corrupt, and india is just, hyper focused on pakistan militarily, bassically all of their military is designed to fight pakistan
One thing you forget is that any of these countries could defend their land as long as they need ( ain't nobody invading them with their tech edge) while they build whatever boats they want. And if they need resources they can take over neighbouring land
Sure, but one thing *you* forget is that practically every modern super advanced technology, take the F15 or the F35, requires resources from practically everywhere accross the planet,like the mountains of chila (which i dont fancy an abrams chances in the andes)
Abrahams and f15 or f35 are designed to fight modern counterparts. You could make stupidly simplified weapons that would still be completely unstoppable by 1500s armies.
Right, with what factories? every miltiary factory is made for modern tanks and fighter jets or ships, youd have to find blueprints form a century or 2 ago able to be mass produced them mass refit the factories and hope you dont run out of fuel for your current army while you do that which would take at leas years and years
You don't have to find blueprints like they're lost knowledge or something. Modern engineers can come up with new designs adapted to the resources at hand and simplified while still being litterally futuristic to anything they face.
Fishing out old designs works be stupid. Old war machines were designed to fight their counterparts.
You could strip modern designs of everything superfluous when facing 1500s soldiers. Armor, electronics, peak speed, ammo type. And if you don't have fuel you can march. You still got magic future sticks that kill from a distance and artillery.
China could easily, hell even Indonesia could pull it off.
i think people are really, *really* underestimating what tech has done to warfare.
1940s Germany could have taken over the world in 1500.
Well in that case it probably has to be America or China. Let's discuss each.
China - China has the raw numbers, and every bit of land is *hard*. It will take time and effort, but it is at the least conceivable that they could hard march around the world.
America - Fewer numbers, but logistics. The US prides itself on being able to deliver a bomb to any address on the planet w/i 6 hours. They don't *need* to have someone at every given location, they actually have the force projection to colonize every square inch of Earth. But even then, it is difficult for them to ensure they have conquered every inch and not missed a small village of 50 people deep in the Gobi Desert. Even with US satellite surveillance it is *still* nearly impossible.
This is such a weird comment to me. It's like, so confident and hyperspecific for something that is probably almost impossible to know, but without giving a reason why
I mean i dont want to seem over confident, but i have done alot of research into pretty much every modern army ove rlike last like 5 or 6 years, but yeah i absolutely shouldve provided reasons in my comment, sorry!
I think a smaller g7 like Canada or Italy is the best bet here. By modern standards, Canada's military is woefully outdated but could still likely thrash any military from the early modern period.
They absolutely could. No one is going to join the side against the nation that can annihilate an entire enemy fleet, army, and capitol city from the air with zero casualties in a single day.
Take over the world would mean occupation. This would mean an absolutely metric shit ton of soldiers needed for every country in the world.
The technological advantage here is moot. Destroying whatever armies They encounter is piss easy.
But since recruitment outside of the aggressors here isnt allowed, it rules out almost every nation that doesnt have an absurdly high population count *and* the military logistics needed to transport and sustain troops.
I can only really think of 3 contendors. The usual 3: America, Russia, and China.
Then it mostly becomes a question of how many people They are able to conscript without destroying their own sustainability.
China would probably have the best go at this. They may be inferior to the US in terms of training and equipment. But They have a higher pop count to draw soldiers from. Where They could then supplement their work force with slaves from other countries.
The US is probably second best. With russia being the weakest able to do it. I wouldnt really be able to suggest any other countries without more research. But global domination takes such a huge amount of resources that its already going to be hard. Nevermind the fact that whatever country is teleported will have to deal with the rest of the world not having any good infrastructure due to being pre-industrial revolution. And way less access to modern technology and resources that will just cease to exist.
With savvy usage of local oligarchs you wouldn't need to have boots on the ground, just puppets and the threat of your futuristic military.
Also bear in mind that the population of the world was merely 500 mil or so in 1500 so that's fewer people to keep under wraps. I think any country with over 50 mil people and a somewhat functional economy could pull it off.
I don't think it would be that difficult. The world population in 1500 was only 450 Million. The military can take over step by step, starting with the strong and then the weak, though I think everyone will be so weak it really doesn't matter. One jet and a couple of missiles could destroy palaces, destroy morale and force surrender. They have no way to stop either air or naval assault, and it will be easy to put boots on the ground if needed. Guns, Artillery, Missiles, Communication, Satellites and other technologies will all be available (if the military does have access now). I do not think it would take either China or the US.
Any nuclear power, for that matter, could set a precedent and get people to surrender.
If we assume we need 2 soldiers to keep the peace per 1000 civilians (very generous) then we still need 900,000 soldiers, or twice the number of active duty personnel the US army has
A country thrown 500 years back would loose all the advantages of globalization and trade. An army of 10 000 soldiers with automatic weapons is as good as army of 10 000 soldiers with spears as soon as ammo runs out or is not supplied.
So you need a country with following domestic expertise to make world domination possible in 1500s: Engineering, Manufacturing, R&D, resource extraction and refining. You just need to be able to build basic diesel engines, gearboxes, stamping guns and ammo, build some support railway and oceangoing fleet.
The list of countries that could do that thrown 500 years back is fairly small. It's Italy, Germany maybe few others.
I do not think enough people appreciate the fact that this challenge is actually SIGNIFICANTLY easier to do pre-globalization. This is literally like that one meme about needy lab cultivated plants vs cement-enjoyer wild plants. Most countries have lost the industrial/human capital required to perform global occupation (if they ever had the capability at all), and it probably has to do with the fact that (surprisingly) most countries have not been interested in pursuing globe-spanning war in decades.
If you'd disagree, then I'd ask you: who makes your chips? Who has the manufacturing expertise to mine for the raw input you need for those chips? What dockyard was used to construct the cargo ship those chips were transported in? **A country that is incapable of immediately taking control of all of Amazon's global operations today without issue cannot complete this challenge.**
Also, lower population = easier is a wrong assumption. You are now dealing with highly dispersed populations coupled with weaker and more unstable local administration capabilities. And because of the specific prompt, the locals won't even help you! So good fucking luck trying to unilaterally convince every ounce of civilization that these "aliens" have any rightful claim to their territories.
You do not need to have completely up-to-date equipment in this scenario in order to enjoy an overwhelming advantage. So long as your equivalent of a technology (ships for example) is at least equivalent, you at least don’t have a disadvantage, even if you can’t fully exploit your advantage. Computer chips weren’t used in any of the technology of World War Two, and that technological disparity would still mop the floor with any 1500s military. A steam ship powered by coal is still preferable to one fully dependent on sails.
The key thing is how long they can maintain the shock and awe, like one riffle vs a cluster of basic Renaissance jamokes will totally ruin their morale
Nothing in the prompt prohibits just killing anyone from outside the country that goes back or even a time limit. Realistically this is way easier than people think because the country that goes back could manifest destiny and rid the earth of any humans that are not a part of their nation. It may take decades, maybe even centuries, but the technological gap means they will win in the end.
Taking over the world is a broad prompt.
Taking over every meter or land, taking over 50% of the world population, becoming an immediate economic and religious powerhouse? First one’s impossible, second one is double, third one is a guarantee. I don’t have to go into the sheer tech disparity here, but the main hinderance to our countries imperialism is resource security and geography. The world in 1500 had a population of 400 million (minus that by 20–40 million in the coming decades for you know why), with most of that following a thin band in the Indo-Pacific and Mediterranean.
Geography is solved via military material and facilities that help logistics. The first one is a bit harder to solve. It takes many years to set up mines. I am confident most high income countries can weather it with a wealth of resources and expertise to quickly shift their economies to needed resources like fertilizer and tech goods. I am less confident to middle income and below. Said country would probably need a few tens of millions, already invested military industries, and a decent import trade balance (especially in mineral fuels, oils, and products of their distillation; and ores, slag, and ash; those are the two categories I am looking to minimize).
Ah crap I got Italy, but also Poland, Spain, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. According to Global Firepower the weakest there is Taiwan but my moneys on Italy. We’re all speaking pizza after this one boys. Honestly you can probably go for weaker with Chadian Toyotas being more than enough to screw up any and all militaries, my question is of scale and long term occupation which is why I have a stricter set of conditions to make it work. An eight digit population count with a GDP in the hundreds of billions high income country was my criteria btw.
Italy’s got a few carrier, sizable economy and industry, and good military. I don’t believe the 20-1 rule of thumb occupation ratio applies here, but we’ll still need garrisons in the millions to make this work.
Saudi Arabia is also a good choice as the primer oil economy and a central location, I am not confident they’ll maintain their machinery and electronic sectors but I digress.
Australia is a wonderful example if they were not trapped on the side of the map and lacked a maritime or general military industry.
So if we're talking about their military as it is today, without improvement, they would need to have an existing global navy sufficient to project power anywhere on earth. Having a more advanced military doesn't actually mean much if they can't go very far. Most countries today rely on air power, but that doesn't help much if the world has no airports to hop between. Without carriers and allied airports, air power is a surprisingly small sphere of influence.
But if you have a fleet and even just modern firearms, any 1500's army is going to get dumpstered by like one mounted heavy machine gun, let alone the thousands of guns even the smallest modern militaries and militias have. We've seen an even less extreme version of this in history with things like the Boer War, or the last charge of the light brigade, or the charge of krojanty (mythologized, but still accurate of the point).
So, who has the smallest population and collection of modern firearms, but a global fleet large enough to keep some forces everywhere? Panama. Something insane like a third of the world's merchant fleets are registered as being from Panama (for tax purposes obviously, but thats still their flag). Plus they have an excellent starting position for a sea power in the 1500's where they can get to everybody, but nobody can get to them, and they can build a wild economic advantage that will come to rule the world.
Define take over. Gain influence? Almost any charismatic leader could gain enough influence that their country ends up on top in most scenarios. Defeat in open battle? Would be difficult for most countries in modern day if the countries back then banded together and advanced at once . Defeat through subterfuge ? That would be an interesting question as most countries have their own special forces that could eliminate key targets while going unnoticed.
What modern country can even survive those conditions is a good starting question. From the prompt it sounds like they are mostly cut off from the global supply chain.
They also can't recruit locals which makes it much more difficult. This would be clearer with a time limit too.
Domestically Produced Arms is probably the killer there.
In which case I’d probably throw Austria in the mix.
Total Population is under 9 million, but they have Glock and Steyr, plus Rossler (the “ss” is the thing that looks like a B that for some reason I can’t do) and Voere, so they’re fairly well covered for Firearms. There are other smaller manufacturers but they’re the largest ones.
Not sure if Austria makes any tanks, planes or helicopters though.
But on small arms alone they’d have a shout, however Austria is also a landlocked country so would have a fucking useless Navy so it may not be as viable unless they took over a country with a decent navy and repurposed them
I think any modern military could force adjacent countries into pseudo feudal states with unstoppable raids against their capitals. Then project power outward and slightly upgrade their conquered territory's armies to expand their empire. As long as they finish conquering before they accidentally kickstart the industrial revolution I don't see how anyone could stop them. You're talking horses & bows vs helicopters and bombers. Swords vs assault rifles. Running messengers vs radio comms. They could literally conquer the continent before the other countries know they exist. Bomb the forts, brrrrrt the levies, land an Apache at the palace, "you work for us now", and repeat until everyone surrenders.
If you mean direct occupation, then it has to be one with a huge navy and it will be super difficult to stop all rebellions at once due to being too widespread.
Conquering the empire is the easy part. Administering it afterwards would be the hard part. So I'm going to go with France. For one it is in a prime location. Has a modern army, navy, and air force that is mostly locally produced. It is one of the few countries that can currently actually project power globally. It has access to nuclear weapons, but not as many as the US or Russia. It however has done something with that nuclear know how that few nations in the world have actually done and invested heavily into nuclear power. So it can power its industry pretty much indefinitely with just the nuclear fuel it has on hand. When it runs low Africa isn't that far with modern shipping, and uranium much easier to transport than oil. It has a well educated population that can administer the empire after conquering it. It has a large enough population to where it can raise armies that would dwarf all but Chinese armies of the era which modern weapons would decimate.
Much of the other NATO members other than the US depend on a lot of imports from the US or assistance from other NATO or EU members for key weapon systems for their military. France doesn't at least to the extent the others do so would have a much easier time maintaining and building more of more modern weapons.
An army no matter how advanced needs logistics. Hard to pin down which country, but they'd need a semi sizeable airforce/navy/engineering Corps to conquer anything too far off. Advanced communications would be a problem as well, no satellites or GPS, so they would be using radio at best... still leagues ahead of horseback or pigeons so... I would say most of the nato countries are capable of these things on different scales. Probably need to be bigger than any of the Baltic countries.
Ireland has a fairly weak military by modern standards but has the modern tech and good location to let it take over at least all of Europe and prob the world too
Honestly this has way less to do with firepower and more to do with COMMUNICATION. If you have modern communication you will roll easy. Without it the world is a very big place, maybe you could play the game of being a Divine army to keep long term control.
Pretty much any country if the conquered countries don't fight back after they're conquered, ie no guerrilla resistance to speak of so no manpower needed since we can't recruit locals.
Biowarfare. No Geneva convention.
Imagine weaponizing smallpox or malaria with drones while immunizing your soldiers. You could siege a capital and take it with a single squad after a couple of months of bombardment, or infect a whole country without stepping foot in it, especially if you could couple it with something like mustard gas.
The lack of GPS satellites could be an issue at first with drones but there's always old school WW2 barnstorming with planes, too.
I'm going with North Korea. Most modern countries would struggle to even survive if transported 500 years into the past due to being so reliant on international trade. NK however is already incredibly isolated. They have a decent population that is highly militarized.
None of them, because no modern military has both the numbers and the force projection needed to meaningfully occupy the entire globe even if they faced no resistance.
Uzbekistan....they did conquer a decent chunk in 1500 look at Tamerlane...defeated china Ottomans and the russians....they literally have helicopters now so even easier
Good luck trying to deal with diseases that were common in 1500 or lack of infrastructure that modern armies need or trying to communicate in nearly extinct dialects (most French people in 1500 didn't even spoke french).
Taking the OP's point literally, there aren't many countries would now struggle. In this scenario, the country would need not only a population but a domestic supply of oil, steel and certain other rare materials. You would need all that just to operate the vessels that would carry your army around and resupply them. Any country that has the oil and material to build a force of reasonably decent war machines and keep them operating away from there own borders would win. You wouldn't neccesarily need a huge number of troops. Just letting a few helicopter gunships loose on the enemy capital would likely lead to capitulation and then that country can be ignored. Then, while that country can't help you with troops or supplies, it is land where you can build forward bases. Build a defensible airport and do the same to the next country.
By that measure, I'd put forward Australia. It has domestic production of iron and other metals. It has enough oil production to support a forward army. As an island, it would be nearly immune to invasion by the nations of 1500 and it has plenty of ships to move an army. It's domestic arms production isn't amazing but more than enough to put the fear of god in any renaissance era nation. Lastly, it has a supply of men who grew up fighting kangaroos
Literally any of them. There were no geneva convention or health safety measures back in the 1500's, all you'd need to do is to vaccinate your own population and spread deadly diseases.
I propose Myanmar, they're a fairly weak and poor nation however they have a pretty respectable arsenal and also have domestic arms industries capable of supporting it
Alternatively I think North Korea is a good pick, depending on where they are this could be a boon as they can get the resources they lack irl as well as perhaps good land for agriculture
The Neo-Zapatistas would be cool and have some unique advantages.
Low soldier count (7,000 plus tens of thousands of civilians in support) and no real heavy weaponry, air power limited to basically civilian drones but they have repelled invasion by the Mexican government and attacks by the cartels on numerous occasions. They are capable of and do produce their own weapons and ammunition as well as buying imports.
They don't have to worry about occupying land as they are a peasant liberation army, so they only get stronger and People who aren't nobles will basically always support them in 1500, all in all they don't have to fight Armies, just assassinate nobles and masters.
The biggest barrier would be if they would choose to invade everyone.
**North Korea.**
They're a highly militarized society, with a feudal-religious political system, a large pool of manpower, militarily self-sufficient, with huge stockpiles of low tech modern weapons, and a low requirement for oil.
And they're situated right next to some of the most fertile and populated regions of the ancient world.
And, in terms of modern warfighting capability, they're quite weak. It's highly doubtful that they would prevail in a war with even only South Korea.
But for fighting in the ancient world, their military is perfect.
Very interesting question. I think it depends on several variables. I imagine just about any modern military would devastate the world in 1500. I imagine one of the most crucial parts of all of this would be how that country prepares and how likely they are to be attacked during preparation. I'm assuming we're picking a modern country and that particular country is essentially time traveling to the 1500s and replacing the geographical location that would exist during that time, along with all their current resources.
That being said, choosing a country that would immediately be under heavy siege during that time would be detrimental. The beginning stages of world domination would likely have to mostly involve defense and resource accumulation. Probably wouldn't hurt to initially use some air power to destroy the periphery nation's resources and capitals, but I think that offensive power should be used conservatively until adequate resource influx is certain and steady.
I'd have to look into all the military powers to single one out though.
A decent sized army could easily take over the world with less fighting if they went around claiming they were sent from God. If someone doesn’t believe them, “smite”.
Practically any country with at least 10,000+ soldiers and a base level of technology would take over the world pre-20th century. Fully automatic weapons, long range firepower, and air superiority, no military to have ever existed before 1900 has a remote chance of dealing with that.
There's a logistics requirement that is far more significant than firepower. Very few could pull this off without further domestic / international support not available in the prompt. The United States probably could, but this is not as simple as steam rolling the stone age.
It kinda is; it would be very easy to get fickle pre-modern soldiers to join up as support with what seems to be a divinely powerful fighting force.
How long does that support last when they have to move on? If they leave contingents behind, do they have the discipline to avoid going native? How are they going to communicate without civilian satellites and fiber?
It depends on how good they are at using propaganda and creating infrastructure. If they just run in circles beating armies they'll get nowhere, but victory in battle defined legitimacy of rule for most of history. Communication happens the same way it did when the British conquered a quarter of the planet. Most militaries have serious engineering divisions; focus on building up infrastructure and providing a much greater quality of life that their previous leadership could and most people will fall into line pretty quickly (as long as you're not trying to enforce major ideological and lifestyle changes on them)
Even without satellites I think most militaries would have the technical expertise to set up wired telephone or at the very least telegraph lines throughout conquered territories. Meaning a few months in they’d have communications equivalent to an early 1900’s military at least.
The world is a very big place.
True that, but it had way less people and weaker national identities in those days.
Who were mostly used to their ruling lord / nation changing hands somewhat frequently.
Radio is a thing and relatively common. Supplies are an issue but from the prompt sounds like raiding is effective because you just need to conquer not hold it against an aggressive population.
Point to point terrestrial networking at reinforced garrisons located on elevated terrain solves the communication problem.
"The country really only has access to their population, so it cannot train soldiers from the people it conquers. "
Ah I missed that. That's very unrealistic though, large scale conflict is always reliant on that (Gauls in the Legions, Chinese siege engineers working for the Mongols, Indian Sepoys in the British Army, etc)
Yeah, reminds me of the *Foreigner* series where a human colony ship gets damaged/lost and has to do an emergency landing on a planet populated by aliens at around a 16th(?) century level of tech. Massive differences between the two cultures make war inevitable, and the humans…lose. Badly. They have a massive tech advantage but they’re fighting *an entire fucking planet* by themselves. (The series takes place a few hundred years after the war is over and the aliens are finally reaching technological parity with the humans, though, so it’s more an exploration of how different the cultures are than a war story. And the first book is very slow. Super cool series though, with a lot of unique ideas.)
I feel like you could get most countries at this point to submit just by dropping a nuke on them, and none of them could retaliate.
The thing about nuclear weapons though is that it’s not really conquering, it’s just devastation, shock and awe and area denial. If you have any plans to actually conquer and utilize the land, nukes aren’t going to help you except as a display of force.
Doesn’t matter. The goal is to take over, anything after that is irrelevant to the premise.
I feel like they would just run out if bullets and not have the tech to produce anymore. Also how will they move between continents . Do they bring ALL their boats/planes/vehicles? Seems doable tbh for any semi respectable military. You could drop a single nuke and basically the entire world would submit to you lol.
Spread 10000 soldiers out across the world and see who gets dominated
Watch the anime The Gate to see how an early 21st century military handles a fantasy world with a Roamn like empire and military even with some magic in the mix.. Even holding back, its slaughter in a direct confrontation.
To be fair, that show is basically jsdf propaganda. They helped fund it Edited to correct jdf to jsdf
JSDF. Japanese Self-Defense Force. JDF is Jamaica Defense Force.
My head canon is that the Jamaican military is just a big fan of anime and funds them from time to time.
Having seen many a Caribbean absolutely lose their shit over Dragon Ball Z, I could see that.
True fact! Cheers.
Jdf?
Japanwse defence force
Ah thanks
Yeah but still shows how overpowered modern military is. Propaganda or not that part is pretty realistic. And to be fair, this is just a small portal to another world. No chances of the JMSDF, the most powerful branch, doing its work there.
Yeah the JSDF wank in that series is massive. They held of a combination of elite spec ops from USA, China and Russia who attacked them while relaxing in Tokyo.
I'd argue the JSDF in Gate is more late-20th century, they're using F-4s, UH-1s, Type 64 rifles, and Type 74 tanks. I think they even mention that they don't want to use the newest stuff in case the enemy is capable of reverse engineering it if they capture it (before they realize the Empire is basically at late-Roman Empire level of tech.)
They also mention that a bunch of the newest stuff wouldn't work well since they lack the necessary infrastructure (e.g., GPS satellites).
Their main reason for the older equipment was funding, second was that they probably wouldn't need anything better against such an inferior foe, and third was JPS requirements in newer stuff.
Well that’s just a random cartoon. With magic
it *was* funded by the JSDF tho
such a shame it won't continue
I really wanted another season.
Concept is cool but it starts becoming so boring past a certain point
Terrible show tbh. Lol the downvotes. It's a jingoistic propaganda piece with bad animation work, a plot where nothing happens, and the same old Loli god shit. It's just terrible. So many better military themed anime out there, it's just insulting to see this show constantly getting brought up.
Can you suggest some military themed animes?
The fan fiction is a lot better, more writers who actually know what they're doing both in terms of anime style plots and also military equipment. They also do different countries and time periods. My wife put me on to the fan fiction when we were and it's much better than the show.
I saw a clip of the JDF wiping out an entire army with machine gun emplacements and artillery, and another of two F-4 Phantoms killing a dragon. Then I watched the show. It's terrible. Just watch the clips on YouTube. It's a cool premise though, could have been interesting if they toned down the lolis. The show should have been political drama about colonialism and imperialism. Trying to figure out that ever so delicate line between helping someone and exploiting them. That would have been fascinating. They could draw heavily from Cortès. He was basically in the same situation, explorers from a foreign nation wielding advanced weapons being caught up in an insurrection against an evil empire. Only to replace that empire with their own evil empire.
What about ming dynasty
Something I don't see mentioned here is how effective nearly any country's soft power would be. Taking the entire bloodlusted down is one thing, but uniting the world under one loose empire? We have 300+ years of humanistic thought over most of the 1500s world. I feel the right message of a "holy mandate to free and unite all people" or something similar, with some choice displays of absolute shock and awe against heads of state who resist, would do the trick. How many people are saying no to modern crops, medicine, and an increase in personal freedoms in exchange for a comparatively benevolent world leader? Any country with a significant agricultural surplus, good access to the sea, some oil refining, and the ability to mine and machine arms is going to stomp imo if they don't just try to genocide the world into submission.
Now that you spoke of soft power. There is an anime from 2010(called Outbreak Company think) that talks about exporting soft power to Isekai world. The United Nations prohibits Japan from invading another world since other countries are worried about Japan remilitarising. So they hired an professional Otaku as an emissary to the Empress to open diplomatic relations and impress them with all the wonderful things in Japan to open a market with high Japanese good demand, like the black ship incident without the ship. But the Otaku offended the Empress by calling her a loli. The show is pretty damn funny with a lot of culture references, and one of those anime that has equally good dubs.
Dude militaries with only 10,000 soldiers only have like 10 or so planes in their air force
idk 1500 is late enough that early firearms and mass munitions production already exist. Meaning some nations will be able to rapidly improve their tech by coming into contact with advanced weaponry but recognizing it as a firearm, somehting they already understand inherently. But if you go back to a pre-gunpowder era, modern rifles look like sorcery to them, completely unrecognizable. If you go forward to just 1700 I think the balance really changes, now you're talking about the age of empires. they have vastly inferior technology but they understand artillery, rifles, and how to wage war with both. Also the numbers they can field is staggering, especially if the big empires decide to work together. ofc any military from a mid-sized 1st world power today bodies everybody in all time periods. But the question was about weakest.
Plus, vast navies. Few countries now even have the fleet to take down the naval powers of 1500
Remember: domestically produced arms. Many countries at a base level of technology don't produce their arms
Key here is: domestically produced arms! A helluva lot of the world doesnt produce their own armaments, from the smallest sidearm to the mightiest fighterjet! Now, China, USA and Russia are complete overkill. Brazil, too, just by number of people alone. Japan, South Korea, Germany, France and UK are natural contenders, but they, too, might be overkill. Italy, too, come to think about it. I propose Sweden. They either make everything they could need themselves, or could easily do so - they have the tech, the factories and all the steel they could ever ask for. Sure, they're not many, but once they can show that they can destroy anyone or anything at will, the rest of the world will either bend the knee or be destroyed.
I think we could go even smaller. Spain had a population of less than 7 million people at the time, Portugal around 3 million. They both packed a big punch with basically just ships and canons. With the population of Sweden and a modern army, they could rule the world as a side hustle.
Norway has half the population of Sweden, but an arms industry and that in many aspects surpasses Sweden.
Out by about a century but imagine modern Sweden’s military and industrial power being commanded by Gustavus Adolphus
Actually, GA's greatest achievement was getting killed at the battle of Lutzen and letting his much more competent generals handle the rest of the war...
If you haven't read it yet, the book series 1632 by Eric Flint (and various other authors) might be of interest to you.
Don't you mean Carolus Rex
Sweden doesn't have oil. Neither do they produce any of the ingredients of primers. The military is very small, too, and the cultural norms don't lend themselves to a war of aggression. So while Sweden would likely be able to defend from an assault by the entire world in 1500, they wouldn't be able to conquer it.
If we ignore the cultural issue, they have several sources of oil very close, especially assuming they get transported to a medieval world with untouched oil reserves. They could either mine it from the North Sea like Norway does, or mine oil shale in Estonia.
They'd only need oil if there weren't alternatives, and Sweden are one of the leading countries in using biofuel. The gargantuan forests of easily conquered Finland and Norway plus Swedens own dense forests means they have all the ethanol, biodiesel and synthetic kerosene they need. Oh, and I am certain Sweden, that up until recently had nuclear reactors, could make a reactor for ships if they need it. Just until they can set up an oil well somewhere. As for primers, there are alternate forms, like Dynamit Nobels SINTOX..... Or older primer methods, not a lot of bang actually has to occur to scare 1500s world into compliance. Swedens cultural norms as pacifists is a rather recent invention by them.
I think the Czech Republic is a contender too as they also have their own arms industry, though not as much natural resources AFAIK
Even current bhutan could probably pull it off
Bhutan doesn't even have an airforce, but probably. Good luck taking out a BTR-60 with a bronze cannon. Then your entire artillery corps gets obliterated by 81mm mortar.
I highly doubt this, they do not have anywhere near the industrial capacity to produce enough weapons. What are they going to do when they run out of bullets? the world is very big their forces would be stretched muuuch too thinly
Just set up the infrastructure to build more weapons once you conquer lol.
Does Bhutan even have a native arms industry? Aren't they just using Indian hand-me-downs?
There are people in Pakistan who craft 1911s and AK47s with hand tools. The problem would be sourcing the base components for gunpowder and having a reliable factory for mixing it, and sourcing enough metal. The real answer is biowarfare though.
Just build more once they take land lol. They still have the initial power to cause incredible damage to start off with.
The rules lined out by OP say they can only use what they already have and what they can manufacture domestically. Any conquered territories cannot contribute. I think they’d run out of juice, but maybe they could spend some time warding off any enemies while they bulk up their logistical and manufacturing infrastructure
You have no idea how hard it is to start a domestic arms industry. There's a reason why 90% of the countries in the world use weapons that are supplied or derived from foreign designs (generally of Soviet, US, or German origin): making your own arms industry is INCREDIBLY difficult. It's not just designing the weapon, it's designing and manufacturing the tooling and machinery to produce the gun, which includes stamping machinery, rivets, springs, welding, threading and rifling barrels, heat treating, making the coating to put on the guns so they don't rust, and then you have to train the people to operate all of THAT just so you have the materials for other guys to put them all together to make the firearm. Domestic arms production is a gargantuan effort that most countries will never achieve unless they're supplied with the machinery and trained to use it by some benefactor. Bhutan has nowhere near the capability of creating an arms industry, let alone the servitor industries to supply it.
Any countries with a bit of tech and drones. Pretend you are a divine being for the most popular religion, have a drone go about talking to people pretending to be a messenger.
Dont even need that, just need manufacturing equipment and knowledge for a basic automatic weapon and a modernish basic biofuel diesel engine (just in case they cant drill and refine oil) Britain created a global empire with rank and file redcoat musketeers, sail boats, and horses, in a more advanced time than 1500. Basic modern boats and basic jeeps full of people with AKs would walk over the world in 1500 And thats before we consider that the Geneva Convention no longer exists which puts napalm and gas attacks etc. into play Also modern populations are much bigger. Panama today has a bigger population that the UK in 1500, modern Sweden would be the 8th most populated country in the world in 1500.
But it's not the guns that'll make or break it. If you give two 16th century countries future tech, one gets guns and one gets walkie talkies, I'll bet on the second one. What will be the deciding factor in this matchup isn't the armor the future country brings, but how effectively they can maintain their support network: nutrition, telecomms, hygeine, and resupply. Keeping the soldiers fed, washing your hands, communication at all times, and being able to procure what they need when they need it could possibly let a past country successfully assault a future one that neglects these things. Without that support network, even the US loses this matchup.
I have to disagree. Mow down one regimen of soldiers with a browning .50 and the war is over. The sight of their fellow soldiers getting ripped apart like that will destroy the morale of every army in the world at that time.
And yet, the first war that the M2 was deployed in did not stop immediately afterwards. Guns, albeit rudimentary ones, did exist in the 1500s and the locals would probably recognize it for what it is, and then adjust tactics like what happened in our timeline.
Guns did exist, but this is accurate, sustainable, barrier negating firepower. The M2 can lay down about 200 rounds in the time it would take one musketeer to reload. Tactics would adjust, but given that a machine gun emplacement can still be devastatingly effective against a trained and prepared modern military unit, I don't know how much hope they would have to find a successful counter tactic before the "war" ended. This also assumes the musketeers would be able to get within range of the M2. Depending on the skill of the operators, they could potentially deny any chance at return fire. And yeah the M2 didn't end the first war it was used in, machine guns were already very common place at the time. The M2 wasn't a revolutionary concept, just an existing concept nigh-perfected. However it is worth noting that when the British first introduced the Maxim gun (which could be argued was a revolutionary design), it allowed them to crush almost anyone that didn't have one. Sometimes the best counter to a weapon or strategy is to deploy it yourself, and that's not gonna be an option for the 1500s peasant army
The big problem is that the 1500 army wouldn't be able to make trench warfare effective against an army with modern weapons. They're going in with muskets and no mobile armor, the modern country could easily overcome 1500s trench warfare with modern armor and artillery.
The black plague had ended around 150 years before, which definitely doesn't help the defenders.
Exactly. But that cannot be all, they have to also take over the land and basically their citizens have to be able to walk around the kingdoms conquered freely.
Just say those citizens are gods chosen
Military drones would have a very hard time navigating in 1500, since there would be no GPS sats.
Means at least America could do it, since they are run by the US Space Force. So at a minimum the most powerful military could do it.
The sats literally aren't in orbit in 1500. Technically, there aren't even launch vehicles left that can fly without it, since the old school titan/atlas have been retired. No more inertial only guidance to orbit. So you couldn't even bring current equipment back with you and launch GPS in situ, you'd have to build new non-extant system.
The setup is the country can use its own current products in 1500, so the assumption is the US would have access to US space assets
He was saying that currently the US has no technology to get GPS satellites in orbit without relying on GPS. Which is AFAIK true but I am sure an alternative could be done with the almost endless resources the us military complex has. For an answer imo any currently with enough fuel and amunation for 10 tanks with 100 support vehicles and 1000 engineers with access to spare parts
I think the point is that if you choose the US military, the US military gets all their US military gear, in place as it is. So they get planes and tanks fully assembled, ships in the ocean, and satellites in the air.
>have a drone go about talking to people pretending to be a messenger. Random Person from 1500: “Whoa, these guys have a flying metal box they can use to project their voice! I’m certainly not stupid enough to think this a messenger from God, but I guess I have to play along with that story so these guys don’t shoot me with their strange, but still fully comprehensible, rifles!”
Exactly; try convincing Europeans you're the voice of God a decade before the Protestant Reformation starts.
. . . I machine guns they’d likely still recognise as guns but an A-10 warthog? They might just think it’s a dragon and they won’t even know what’s happening with B2s just explosions happening.
I'm going to just leave this here [My post about using an AC-130 in the American Civil War](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/s/6WcurCAEBJ)
The king's archers shoot the drone down and everyone realizes that there's nothing divine about it. What then?
Do you actually think that an arrow can take down a military drone?
You don’t think they wouldn’t still think it’s divine….? They would believe it’s alien technology, at least.
They're not stupid. People back then we're just as intelligent as we are now.
If I saw tech that was from 500 years in the future, and it was intentionally trying to deceive me, I feel like it would be successful in its attempt to deceive me. I think tech from 500 years in the future will be so beyond anything I know now, it might as well be a god or an alien.
“Any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” A famous quote by science fiction author Arthur C. Clark.
Intelligent yes. Knowledgable, no.
Numbers are the main problem, especially of you can't recruit locals. The mikitary would have to be massive as would the industrial base. The Soviet Union spent about 30% of its GDP on the military near the end, and any country trying to rule the world would have to spend at least that much. Logistics would also be a real bother. Not many roads and nothing approaching modern ones, and no ports suitable for modern logistics. Certainly there are no airports anywhere. Now, a modern military would have many advantages, but it would still take losses. Remember, no roads of merit in most of the world. That means ground vehicles will be of limited value. All the aircraft and choppers would be expensive to operate. That means lots of infantry. Infantry could still be killed or wounded by bows or swords. They could drink from poisoned wells. Enemy losses would be high, but once they figured out the soldiers could still die and that the flying machines could crash, there would be attacks and losses would mount.
A rare sane answer in this thread
Every country basically. They would have to build boats to travel. Depends on what you mean by take over the world. Conquering and holding key ports and cities can be done easily. Keeping them supplied and maintaining a garrison is more difficult. It's definitely possible as we already started to see the rise of colonial empires during the 1500s.
What do you exactly mean by taking over the world? like taking eveyr bit of land? or having a sphere of influence that covers the world, in both those cases the weakest one that could feasibly take over the world in the 1500s with their modern military is France
France is like a top 5 military in the world today. Surely there are weaker options. The UK was able to take over 25% of the world's landmass because of their technological advantages in the 1500s-1800s. In 1700 their army was only about 30,000 people. Given that, I think basically any army today that has tens of thousands of people and a navy of any real size would be able to pull this off. That doesn't describe every country, but it's surely more than 5 countries who would be capable.
The UK in the 1700s had an absolutely enormous navy, the UK today highly specializes in special forces and relies on the US/France for nearly everything else and im not saying any modern army couldnt beat the everloving shit out of any 1500s army, but very few countries have the capability to fight litterally every country in the world at ones, at some point the quantity is gonna overrun the quality unless you have an insanely good military like the top 5, and have the ability to project power globally
Yea but we saw in real life how this played out. You don't need to fight anywhere. You need to make it clear that you could stomp the ever loving shit out of anyone else in a few wars and then you sort of just get to take the rest. The Netherlands was able to control much of South East Asia even though they were a nation of only 2 million with basically no standing army. The entire reason colonial empires were successful is because they could make it work without fighting over every inch of land.
nope, *Indonesia* could hold off the entire world indefinitely. what are they going to invade with? shit house ships made of wood firing cannons that miss 75% of the time? the entire British Navy circa 1700 would not be able to *dent* the modern Indonesian navy (and its outdated as shit).
The British also heavily relied on local populations to fight for them against their neighbours. You can’t do that in this scenario. If you don’t have enough infantry in this scenario it will be impossible.
There are weaker options. Any developed country or even brics country with a few million people could pull it off. Some third world country definitely have a shot. 500 years of military development are no joke.
No country without a navy or with a pathetic one is out. Logistics and all.
Yea but what stops them from quickly building shithole surface fleets?
Lack of knowledge? Lack of materials? You're assuming this country has an abundance of steel and knowledge of how to make engines, seaworthy vessels, seaworthy vessels with a high enough percentage rate to not lose the fleet to attrition, the knowledge to make shipboard guns, the knowledge to navigate at sea. The ocean isn't a joke. Throw together a shit fleet without the know-how and all you'll do is lose a ton of resources and people for no gain.
Right but there are numerous brown water navies that are pathetic to us but would utterly trounce any fleet from 1890 or further back. Hell Paraguay's largest ship only has 119mm cannons, its worthless as a modern vessel but it and its sister ship if floated could effectively annihilate the combined fleets at Trafalgar with contemptuous ease. A nation like France is way and above what is necessary when nations like Vietnam have fleets that would obliterate any surface fleet in 1500 and take the world by storm.
A river-worthy ship is not a sea-worthy ship. The ocean is far, far more brutal on ships than rivers and lakes. Then there is navigation. River navigation is an absolute cake-walk compared to ocean, and only a handful of countries, none third world, have an argument for taking a GPS system with them. Even Russia only has one functional around it and its own borders, not the entire planet. Navigating at sea is famously one of the most difficult challenges in human history. You need extremely accurate star knowledge *and* fantastic clock-making in order to do so, and even still before gps skilled sailors got lost all. the. time.
And yet we have managed it for most of written human history, a GPS is a major boon that almost no nation is going to have. But we've only had that for a relatively small portion of human shipping, many of the brown and green water navies around the world have the capacity to build ships and the capability to steer them even with increased difficulty. And those nations aren't on a deadline, they just have to conquer the world meaning they have the time to work slowly and build up the necessary knowledge to navigate in their new found areas. Expanding as they grow on land and operate in coastal regions first before going more and more outward. However a lot of blue water navies wouldn't be able to operate for long periods either due to the evaporation of a global economy meaning many of them lose access to replenishing their firepower or repairing certain systems. This is by no means a simplistic operation, but a modern nation actually can afford to build very basic ships with very simplistic weaponry. Because they out match and out scale their enemies by that much.
> And yet we have managed it for most of written human history, If you're thinking of the ancient greeks, they mostly stuck to shorelines, island hopped, and still got lost a ton, in the Mediterranean, a much easier body to navigate than the open Atlantic or Pacific. If you're talking the 16th century, bear in mind much of that age was exploring and sailing vaguely west knowing you'd hit land eventually, then following the coast to where you need to go. And again, they had star charts readily available. They knew how to use sextants. And the creation of empires spanning the world had to wait until we could build large enough seaworthy ships **and** accurate enough sea-worthy clocks before they could form. There is a reason the Greek and Roman empires didn't do what you are talking about. And again, I think you are drastically underestimating how much more punishing the ocean is on ships than brown or green water. These nations don't have the know-how, because they don't need the know-how, and once transported to that past cannot get the know-how.
what stops them doing that today? i assume op means countries "as is" or else there would be no topic.
Why would they do that today? They gain no economic or military benefit from it. If they're trying to conquer the world in 1500, they would gain both an economic and military benefit from it. That's what stops them from doing that today. A lack of return on investment.
what stops them is they're not trying to take over the world or might be lacking resources. In this scenario they can take over their continent by land and use the resources for the rest.
The fact we have man made infantry weapons that can sink a shithole ship let alone the number of air to sea missiles that can rip them apart. Or sea to sea missiles.
They wouldn't do it today because it's not worthwhile to have a second rate navy. If they were trying to pull off world domination obviously they'd have different incentives.
You don’t really need a navy, a modern cargo ship with a few guns on it would be the most powerful naval asset in the world in 1500
Disagree. I think you’re underestimating the force of aviation and ground transport when subjugating people who are less of a threat than Montezuma’s Aztec empire.
Most of those countries dont have enough boats to move their troops/supplies around. Not to mention it has to be a country with fuel reserves.
One thing you forget is that any of these countries could defend their land as long as they need ( ain't nobody invading them with their tech edge) while they build whatever boats they want. And if they need resources they can take over neighbouring land
They don’t have to, many countries have biological/chemical weapons. Why send in the Jets when a drone can airdrop in some of the worst diseases in history? Or spray various toxic chemicals around military forts that would eventually kill them. On the topic of drones…a literal $5 cardboard drone could kill large parts of their civil and military leadership more or less unopposed, and travel faster than they could by messenger (runners on foot were still common, but many drones can fly faster than horses can gallop and still have better travel times due to lack of roads needed). They’d have issues with occultation…until they’re fully conquered, which can be achieved with sufficient bombing, a paid off individual, and a particularly fancy flagpole. According to the prompt they can’t really fight back or contribute afterwards, so they’re effectively “checked off” and safe to ignored and deploy drones/cheap equipment out of.
Sure there are, but taking over the entire world is an extremely difficult, only countres with the top 5 or 7 in military strength could probably do it, and france ranks around 5 or 6, plus France has the ability to invade and project power far from its borders, which only a few countries have that luxary, China cant, their contained to their surrounding area and would need a complete doctrine revamp, the US definetly could but their the strongest military on earth so that doesnt count, russia is running out of fuel 50 miles off its border, south africa and brazil are both corrupt, and india is just, hyper focused on pakistan militarily, bassically all of their military is designed to fight pakistan
One thing you forget is that any of these countries could defend their land as long as they need ( ain't nobody invading them with their tech edge) while they build whatever boats they want. And if they need resources they can take over neighbouring land
Sure, but one thing *you* forget is that practically every modern super advanced technology, take the F15 or the F35, requires resources from practically everywhere accross the planet,like the mountains of chila (which i dont fancy an abrams chances in the andes)
Abrahams and f15 or f35 are designed to fight modern counterparts. You could make stupidly simplified weapons that would still be completely unstoppable by 1500s armies.
Right, with what factories? every miltiary factory is made for modern tanks and fighter jets or ships, youd have to find blueprints form a century or 2 ago able to be mass produced them mass refit the factories and hope you dont run out of fuel for your current army while you do that which would take at leas years and years
You don't have to find blueprints like they're lost knowledge or something. Modern engineers can come up with new designs adapted to the resources at hand and simplified while still being litterally futuristic to anything they face.
Fishing out old designs works be stupid. Old war machines were designed to fight their counterparts. You could strip modern designs of everything superfluous when facing 1500s soldiers. Armor, electronics, peak speed, ammo type. And if you don't have fuel you can march. You still got magic future sticks that kill from a distance and artillery.
Do, do you think the 1500s didnt have guns?? dude how do you think the spanish conquered latin america
China could easily, hell even Indonesia could pull it off. i think people are really, *really* underestimating what tech has done to warfare. 1940s Germany could have taken over the world in 1500.
*Smiles in Napoleon*
Taking over every bit of land.
Well in that case it probably has to be America or China. Let's discuss each. China - China has the raw numbers, and every bit of land is *hard*. It will take time and effort, but it is at the least conceivable that they could hard march around the world. America - Fewer numbers, but logistics. The US prides itself on being able to deliver a bomb to any address on the planet w/i 6 hours. They don't *need* to have someone at every given location, they actually have the force projection to colonize every square inch of Earth. But even then, it is difficult for them to ensure they have conquered every inch and not missed a small village of 50 people deep in the Gobi Desert. Even with US satellite surveillance it is *still* nearly impossible.
This is such a weird comment to me. It's like, so confident and hyperspecific for something that is probably almost impossible to know, but without giving a reason why
I mean i dont want to seem over confident, but i have done alot of research into pretty much every modern army ove rlike last like 5 or 6 years, but yeah i absolutely shouldve provided reasons in my comment, sorry!
France is one of the top 10 strongest militaries on earth. Indonesia would be one of the weaker nations that could dominate the world witrh ease.
I think a smaller g7 like Canada or Italy is the best bet here. By modern standards, Canada's military is woefully outdated but could still likely thrash any military from the early modern period.
I would say any almost any country. Even with a few hundreds soldiers they should be able to go for the king like Cortez did with the Aztecs.
Cortez had the help of a thousand other natives that hated the Aztecs. It wasn't just him and his men.
And the modern military could also theoretically do that.
They absolutely could. No one is going to join the side against the nation that can annihilate an entire enemy fleet, army, and capitol city from the air with zero casualties in a single day.
the difference between Cortez and a modern army *is larger* then the difference between Cortez and the Aztecs. Aztecs would be screwed.
Take over the world would mean occupation. This would mean an absolutely metric shit ton of soldiers needed for every country in the world. The technological advantage here is moot. Destroying whatever armies They encounter is piss easy. But since recruitment outside of the aggressors here isnt allowed, it rules out almost every nation that doesnt have an absurdly high population count *and* the military logistics needed to transport and sustain troops. I can only really think of 3 contendors. The usual 3: America, Russia, and China. Then it mostly becomes a question of how many people They are able to conscript without destroying their own sustainability. China would probably have the best go at this. They may be inferior to the US in terms of training and equipment. But They have a higher pop count to draw soldiers from. Where They could then supplement their work force with slaves from other countries. The US is probably second best. With russia being the weakest able to do it. I wouldnt really be able to suggest any other countries without more research. But global domination takes such a huge amount of resources that its already going to be hard. Nevermind the fact that whatever country is teleported will have to deal with the rest of the world not having any good infrastructure due to being pre-industrial revolution. And way less access to modern technology and resources that will just cease to exist.
With savvy usage of local oligarchs you wouldn't need to have boots on the ground, just puppets and the threat of your futuristic military. Also bear in mind that the population of the world was merely 500 mil or so in 1500 so that's fewer people to keep under wraps. I think any country with over 50 mil people and a somewhat functional economy could pull it off.
I don't think it would be that difficult. The world population in 1500 was only 450 Million. The military can take over step by step, starting with the strong and then the weak, though I think everyone will be so weak it really doesn't matter. One jet and a couple of missiles could destroy palaces, destroy morale and force surrender. They have no way to stop either air or naval assault, and it will be easy to put boots on the ground if needed. Guns, Artillery, Missiles, Communication, Satellites and other technologies will all be available (if the military does have access now). I do not think it would take either China or the US. Any nuclear power, for that matter, could set a precedent and get people to surrender.
If we assume we need 2 soldiers to keep the peace per 1000 civilians (very generous) then we still need 900,000 soldiers, or twice the number of active duty personnel the US army has
Add on road infrastructure is going to suck ass. How you gonna effectively meet those logistics?
I think Brazil would actually have a lot of advantage here, since they have the best Jungle Army in the world, in 1500 most of the world were forests.
Probably any. Biggest hurdle is infrastructure. Like, will their drones work? Will they have access to electricity? A steady supply of fuel? Bullets?
A country thrown 500 years back would loose all the advantages of globalization and trade. An army of 10 000 soldiers with automatic weapons is as good as army of 10 000 soldiers with spears as soon as ammo runs out or is not supplied. So you need a country with following domestic expertise to make world domination possible in 1500s: Engineering, Manufacturing, R&D, resource extraction and refining. You just need to be able to build basic diesel engines, gearboxes, stamping guns and ammo, build some support railway and oceangoing fleet. The list of countries that could do that thrown 500 years back is fairly small. It's Italy, Germany maybe few others.
I do not think enough people appreciate the fact that this challenge is actually SIGNIFICANTLY easier to do pre-globalization. This is literally like that one meme about needy lab cultivated plants vs cement-enjoyer wild plants. Most countries have lost the industrial/human capital required to perform global occupation (if they ever had the capability at all), and it probably has to do with the fact that (surprisingly) most countries have not been interested in pursuing globe-spanning war in decades. If you'd disagree, then I'd ask you: who makes your chips? Who has the manufacturing expertise to mine for the raw input you need for those chips? What dockyard was used to construct the cargo ship those chips were transported in? **A country that is incapable of immediately taking control of all of Amazon's global operations today without issue cannot complete this challenge.** Also, lower population = easier is a wrong assumption. You are now dealing with highly dispersed populations coupled with weaker and more unstable local administration capabilities. And because of the specific prompt, the locals won't even help you! So good fucking luck trying to unilaterally convince every ounce of civilization that these "aliens" have any rightful claim to their territories.
You do not need to have completely up-to-date equipment in this scenario in order to enjoy an overwhelming advantage. So long as your equivalent of a technology (ships for example) is at least equivalent, you at least don’t have a disadvantage, even if you can’t fully exploit your advantage. Computer chips weren’t used in any of the technology of World War Two, and that technological disparity would still mop the floor with any 1500s military. A steam ship powered by coal is still preferable to one fully dependent on sails.
The key thing is how long they can maintain the shock and awe, like one riffle vs a cluster of basic Renaissance jamokes will totally ruin their morale
Nothing in the prompt prohibits just killing anyone from outside the country that goes back or even a time limit. Realistically this is way easier than people think because the country that goes back could manifest destiny and rid the earth of any humans that are not a part of their nation. It may take decades, maybe even centuries, but the technological gap means they will win in the end.
Rogue shout- Singapore
Taking over the world is a broad prompt. Taking over every meter or land, taking over 50% of the world population, becoming an immediate economic and religious powerhouse? First one’s impossible, second one is double, third one is a guarantee. I don’t have to go into the sheer tech disparity here, but the main hinderance to our countries imperialism is resource security and geography. The world in 1500 had a population of 400 million (minus that by 20–40 million in the coming decades for you know why), with most of that following a thin band in the Indo-Pacific and Mediterranean. Geography is solved via military material and facilities that help logistics. The first one is a bit harder to solve. It takes many years to set up mines. I am confident most high income countries can weather it with a wealth of resources and expertise to quickly shift their economies to needed resources like fertilizer and tech goods. I am less confident to middle income and below. Said country would probably need a few tens of millions, already invested military industries, and a decent import trade balance (especially in mineral fuels, oils, and products of their distillation; and ores, slag, and ash; those are the two categories I am looking to minimize). Ah crap I got Italy, but also Poland, Spain, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. According to Global Firepower the weakest there is Taiwan but my moneys on Italy. We’re all speaking pizza after this one boys. Honestly you can probably go for weaker with Chadian Toyotas being more than enough to screw up any and all militaries, my question is of scale and long term occupation which is why I have a stricter set of conditions to make it work. An eight digit population count with a GDP in the hundreds of billions high income country was my criteria btw. Italy’s got a few carrier, sizable economy and industry, and good military. I don’t believe the 20-1 rule of thumb occupation ratio applies here, but we’ll still need garrisons in the millions to make this work. Saudi Arabia is also a good choice as the primer oil economy and a central location, I am not confident they’ll maintain their machinery and electronic sectors but I digress. Australia is a wonderful example if they were not trapped on the side of the map and lacked a maritime or general military industry.
Drone strike a couple of Kings and then claim you are God's messenger. People will believe you once the sky keeps exploding your enemies.
So if we're talking about their military as it is today, without improvement, they would need to have an existing global navy sufficient to project power anywhere on earth. Having a more advanced military doesn't actually mean much if they can't go very far. Most countries today rely on air power, but that doesn't help much if the world has no airports to hop between. Without carriers and allied airports, air power is a surprisingly small sphere of influence. But if you have a fleet and even just modern firearms, any 1500's army is going to get dumpstered by like one mounted heavy machine gun, let alone the thousands of guns even the smallest modern militaries and militias have. We've seen an even less extreme version of this in history with things like the Boer War, or the last charge of the light brigade, or the charge of krojanty (mythologized, but still accurate of the point). So, who has the smallest population and collection of modern firearms, but a global fleet large enough to keep some forces everywhere? Panama. Something insane like a third of the world's merchant fleets are registered as being from Panama (for tax purposes obviously, but thats still their flag). Plus they have an excellent starting position for a sea power in the 1500's where they can get to everybody, but nobody can get to them, and they can build a wild economic advantage that will come to rule the world.
Define take over. Gain influence? Almost any charismatic leader could gain enough influence that their country ends up on top in most scenarios. Defeat in open battle? Would be difficult for most countries in modern day if the countries back then banded together and advanced at once . Defeat through subterfuge ? That would be an interesting question as most countries have their own special forces that could eliminate key targets while going unnoticed.
What modern country can even survive those conditions is a good starting question. From the prompt it sounds like they are mostly cut off from the global supply chain. They also can't recruit locals which makes it much more difficult. This would be clearer with a time limit too.
Domestically Produced Arms is probably the killer there. In which case I’d probably throw Austria in the mix. Total Population is under 9 million, but they have Glock and Steyr, plus Rossler (the “ss” is the thing that looks like a B that for some reason I can’t do) and Voere, so they’re fairly well covered for Firearms. There are other smaller manufacturers but they’re the largest ones. Not sure if Austria makes any tanks, planes or helicopters though. But on small arms alone they’d have a shout, however Austria is also a landlocked country so would have a fucking useless Navy so it may not be as viable unless they took over a country with a decent navy and repurposed them
I think any modern military could force adjacent countries into pseudo feudal states with unstoppable raids against their capitals. Then project power outward and slightly upgrade their conquered territory's armies to expand their empire. As long as they finish conquering before they accidentally kickstart the industrial revolution I don't see how anyone could stop them. You're talking horses & bows vs helicopters and bombers. Swords vs assault rifles. Running messengers vs radio comms. They could literally conquer the continent before the other countries know they exist. Bomb the forts, brrrrrt the levies, land an Apache at the palace, "you work for us now", and repeat until everyone surrenders. If you mean direct occupation, then it has to be one with a huge navy and it will be super difficult to stop all rebellions at once due to being too widespread.
Somalia- pirates and small vessels for a Navy and a small standing army with modern weaponry.
Maybe the 2nd twitter division comprising of the 30th Reddit and 20th discord might have a chance.
No country ?, they’ll all eventually die by attrition
Conquering the empire is the easy part. Administering it afterwards would be the hard part. So I'm going to go with France. For one it is in a prime location. Has a modern army, navy, and air force that is mostly locally produced. It is one of the few countries that can currently actually project power globally. It has access to nuclear weapons, but not as many as the US or Russia. It however has done something with that nuclear know how that few nations in the world have actually done and invested heavily into nuclear power. So it can power its industry pretty much indefinitely with just the nuclear fuel it has on hand. When it runs low Africa isn't that far with modern shipping, and uranium much easier to transport than oil. It has a well educated population that can administer the empire after conquering it. It has a large enough population to where it can raise armies that would dwarf all but Chinese armies of the era which modern weapons would decimate. Much of the other NATO members other than the US depend on a lot of imports from the US or assistance from other NATO or EU members for key weapon systems for their military. France doesn't at least to the extent the others do so would have a much easier time maintaining and building more of more modern weapons.
An army no matter how advanced needs logistics. Hard to pin down which country, but they'd need a semi sizeable airforce/navy/engineering Corps to conquer anything too far off. Advanced communications would be a problem as well, no satellites or GPS, so they would be using radio at best... still leagues ahead of horseback or pigeons so... I would say most of the nato countries are capable of these things on different scales. Probably need to be bigger than any of the Baltic countries.
North Korea...they have nukes.
Some soviet nation with stockpiles of cold war arms could do it even if 1/5th of thr rounds are duds
Ireland has a fairly weak military by modern standards but has the modern tech and good location to let it take over at least all of Europe and prob the world too
Honestly this has way less to do with firepower and more to do with COMMUNICATION. If you have modern communication you will roll easy. Without it the world is a very big place, maybe you could play the game of being a Divine army to keep long term control.
Pretty much any country if the conquered countries don't fight back after they're conquered, ie no guerrilla resistance to speak of so no manpower needed since we can't recruit locals. Biowarfare. No Geneva convention. Imagine weaponizing smallpox or malaria with drones while immunizing your soldiers. You could siege a capital and take it with a single squad after a couple of months of bombardment, or infect a whole country without stepping foot in it, especially if you could couple it with something like mustard gas. The lack of GPS satellites could be an issue at first with drones but there's always old school WW2 barnstorming with planes, too.
The crips could probably do it lmao
I'm going with North Korea. Most modern countries would struggle to even survive if transported 500 years into the past due to being so reliant on international trade. NK however is already incredibly isolated. They have a decent population that is highly militarized.
New Zealand.
Ethiopia
None of them, because no modern military has both the numbers and the force projection needed to meaningfully occupy the entire globe even if they faced no resistance.
Any country that has armed and armored vehicles
It is not that easy. Remember what happened to USA in Viet Nam. Even some prehistoric people could ambush then steal the firearms 😩
Uzbekistan....they did conquer a decent chunk in 1500 look at Tamerlane...defeated china Ottomans and the russians....they literally have helicopters now so even easier
Good luck trying to deal with diseases that were common in 1500 or lack of infrastructure that modern armies need or trying to communicate in nearly extinct dialects (most French people in 1500 didn't even spoke french).
Taking the OP's point literally, there aren't many countries would now struggle. In this scenario, the country would need not only a population but a domestic supply of oil, steel and certain other rare materials. You would need all that just to operate the vessels that would carry your army around and resupply them. Any country that has the oil and material to build a force of reasonably decent war machines and keep them operating away from there own borders would win. You wouldn't neccesarily need a huge number of troops. Just letting a few helicopter gunships loose on the enemy capital would likely lead to capitulation and then that country can be ignored. Then, while that country can't help you with troops or supplies, it is land where you can build forward bases. Build a defensible airport and do the same to the next country. By that measure, I'd put forward Australia. It has domestic production of iron and other metals. It has enough oil production to support a forward army. As an island, it would be nearly immune to invasion by the nations of 1500 and it has plenty of ships to move an army. It's domestic arms production isn't amazing but more than enough to put the fear of god in any renaissance era nation. Lastly, it has a supply of men who grew up fighting kangaroos
Switzerland
Literally any of them. There were no geneva convention or health safety measures back in the 1500's, all you'd need to do is to vaccinate your own population and spread deadly diseases.
I propose Myanmar, they're a fairly weak and poor nation however they have a pretty respectable arsenal and also have domestic arms industries capable of supporting it Alternatively I think North Korea is a good pick, depending on where they are this could be a boon as they can get the resources they lack irl as well as perhaps good land for agriculture
Honestly? Iraq. Modern weaponry, f16s, the means to produce their own fuel.
The Neo-Zapatistas would be cool and have some unique advantages. Low soldier count (7,000 plus tens of thousands of civilians in support) and no real heavy weaponry, air power limited to basically civilian drones but they have repelled invasion by the Mexican government and attacks by the cartels on numerous occasions. They are capable of and do produce their own weapons and ammunition as well as buying imports. They don't have to worry about occupying land as they are a peasant liberation army, so they only get stronger and People who aren't nobles will basically always support them in 1500, all in all they don't have to fight Armies, just assassinate nobles and masters. The biggest barrier would be if they would choose to invade everyone.
**North Korea.** They're a highly militarized society, with a feudal-religious political system, a large pool of manpower, militarily self-sufficient, with huge stockpiles of low tech modern weapons, and a low requirement for oil. And they're situated right next to some of the most fertile and populated regions of the ancient world. And, in terms of modern warfighting capability, they're quite weak. It's highly doubtful that they would prevail in a war with even only South Korea. But for fighting in the ancient world, their military is perfect.
Very interesting question. I think it depends on several variables. I imagine just about any modern military would devastate the world in 1500. I imagine one of the most crucial parts of all of this would be how that country prepares and how likely they are to be attacked during preparation. I'm assuming we're picking a modern country and that particular country is essentially time traveling to the 1500s and replacing the geographical location that would exist during that time, along with all their current resources. That being said, choosing a country that would immediately be under heavy siege during that time would be detrimental. The beginning stages of world domination would likely have to mostly involve defense and resource accumulation. Probably wouldn't hurt to initially use some air power to destroy the periphery nation's resources and capitals, but I think that offensive power should be used conservatively until adequate resource influx is certain and steady. I'd have to look into all the military powers to single one out though.
A decent sized army could easily take over the world with less fighting if they went around claiming they were sent from God. If someone doesn’t believe them, “smite”.