I know, I am scared too

Yes. Or that there was a general reorganization of the United States command structure.

Admittedly, it was a bad example. But he was the only one I could think of off the top of my head (related to the United States in the Fallout world) who is a Colonel but doesn't command as many troops as a Colonel generally would. Poor choice, but whatever. Moving on.....

Just stick with my real-life example as that's much more relevant.

I'm not scared. I live in the middle of nowhere, so I'm safe and ready for FO Live. Only thing that svcks is no FO4!


Give in to the dark side, Luke. You know deep down you want to see a Enclave General. A master of strategy and tactics, his army decked out in shiny new Enclave power armor and Enclave Advanced Combat Armors with shiny 2280s style laser and plasma weapons.

Luke...join me, and we can rule the galaxy together!! With the new Enclave!!!! Your hate has made you powerful!

I would not be able to call myself an Enclave supporter really if I didn't want to see that. I'd love to see an army of Enclave march across the wastes while Vertibirds fly overhead and "The Washington Post" plays. Hell, supporting the Enclave's plans inevitably ends with the goal of the Enclave taking over the wastes and rebuilding.

However there's a difference between what I want to see and what is going to happen in the game. Yeah I'd want the Enclave to win, but I mean.....

...that's pretty much the end of the Fallout series right there then. So they can't win. That and in order for the Enclave to not turn into the generic bad guys who just keep coming back they have to have a limit. Besides, its always nice to see new factions regardless.

(Also that's what I have mods for )

Anyway, off topic, back to the BOS. Personally I'm interested in seeing MWBOS numbers in the future. They could potentially have a good sized army supplemented with Calculator robots depending on what happened in tactics.

Well that is why the midwest would be interesting. Can find a lot of lore. MWBoS. DCBoS could appear, and possibly even some WCBoS could pop in along with Outcasts. Throw in Enclave mystery and it a lore, canon festival.

The DCBoS could be very large with a decade of heavy recruitment. Who knows, as the saviors of the CW with the Lone Wanderers help, who is BoS, they may rival the NCR numbers wise.

If MWBoS and Lyon's BoS don't count then all the ones back West would be roughly a few hundred because of their views on recruiting and the option given to the children when they reach maturity and can leave the BoS, not to mention the War with the NCR which forced them into hiding, so they are likely only a few hundred or even less.

Around 1'000 people forming the Brotherhood in 2077? That's insane.

As has been previously mentioned the rank of any officers stationed at Mariposa is entirely irrespective of how many people that they actually had under their command, espcecially when there's the invasion of mainland China going on. Secondly, is anyone expected to believe that this Captain led 1'000 people to desert the U.S. Army and take over a facility of tremendous importance? Yeah I know that nobody came to Mariposa looking for them but I re-call Maxson and his crew expecting something. These men have deserted from the Army and murder several scientists in addition to then bringing their wives and children into the base with them? Even assuming that the largely pointless security detail at Mariposa was very high, how many would stick around in such a scenario; what were they planning to do make Mariposa it's own country?

That figure of 60k sq. ft. covers the whole third floor which is called the "living quarters" for a reason. Once you turn that American Football field into sleeping quarters, an armoury, an infirmary, a mess hall and whatever else is covered by that term - the examples quoted being the actual confirmed rooms on that level in the game - then it certainly isn't going to hold 600 men; nor would there be any reason to have that many men there.

Let's look at U.S., food lines, mass civil un-rest and an invasion of China; a military base - that's already supposed to be a secret - is not going to have a large amount of security personnel there. In relation to the U.S.s domestic situation it would be a waste of troops, food and such. What exactly is going to warrant having a whole Regiment stationed there - which covers a 400-600 men estimate pretty nicely?

You are thinking in terms of number of United States Army troops. I am thinking in terms of people. You take the number of soldiers stationed at Meriposa. Then add their families (wives and kids) as well as none military personal at Mariposa, such as janitors, maintenance personal and the scientists (that Maxson did not execute) and their familes.

So you add up all the people military and none military and their families, you could easily get 1,000 people.

There are no brotherhood civilians. Everyone is Brotherhood.

After replaying Tactics, I think that in 2077 there had to be at least 1000 people.

Otherwise, how would the BoS have had the numbers for the group that would become the MWBoS? They didn't send 15 people in these zeppelins. I would also assume a generous estimate of 1/3rd killed or MIA from the storm would be fair.

Then, years later another group goes East.

All seems logical to me.

I agree with you, but I just want to say that Lyons group would have been significantly smaller group.

I agree with that, but it was still decent sized, and a decent chunk of BoS died in the Pitt. I also see the CWBoS growing pretty good with the clean water.

Really I think the only BoS in trouble is WC. Which is why I think the cavalry will come to save the day, which is probably what the WC Elders need to open their eyes.

It would be great to learn "What would happen if they encountered the orginal knowledge hoarding Brotherhood of Steel?"

Then again there is still Arthur Maxson and the CWBoS as well as the Outcast.

Only Ashur "died" in the pitt.

Ahh. Well for some reason I thought they took casualties. Well, that is power armor and training for ya I guess.

But mostly the fact that the individuals they were fighting were poorly armed, un-trained, sickly, and partly mutated raiders. As well as a smattering of non-combatants.

Interesting thing I just read tells about how brotherhood knights could destroy towns.

People seem to underestimate both BoS and Enclave fighting ability, and forget that they have implants that improve their fighting ability, which I also forgot until I replaying FO1.

Also in thing I read was that after FO2, BoS would have wanted Navarro, but would have sustained severe casualties had they tried to take it. Which again boggles me how NCR did it. But whatever, they did, or maybe Enclave let them.

Cause NCR is huge and can spare the men from their hundreds of thousands of citizens

I don't doubt either the fighting ability of the Enclave or the Brotherhood of Steel. I was just pointing out that largely, the reason they suffered no causalities in the Pitt was because they weren't fighting any enemy that could match them at all. Hell I doubt that the citizens of the Pitt at that time could even match a fairly healthy raider group from the CW.

Had they been fighting a more well-trained and organized force, the NCR for example, the casualties would have been higher.


The order to move East had completely depleted the Enclave's garrison at Navarro. Which basically just left a bare-minimal skeleton crew. Their automated defenses can only do so much.

Eventually the Enclave couldn't hold them off any more. The NCR simply can afford to send a thousand soldiers to their death whereas the Enclave can't by any means.

As House once said: "Energy weapons and power armor doesn't count for much when you are outnumbered 15 to 1."

Disagree, as power armor and energy weapons sure helped when the US Military was outnumbered by the Chinese Army... correct?

And numbers of NCR is questionable. And need to be real careful, cuz if people start throwing millions and millions of people into the USA, it is no longer FO. It now the old west, with future guns.

I don't want to sidetrack the point. Strategy and Tactics can be another thread.

I am sorry to say this evlbastd but you are the one throwing numbers around. There are at least 2.8 million people in Californa. The number of troops they have is up for debate.

The Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel sourcebook lists the Western Brotherhood as having 2,785 personnel in 2243. The Midwestern Brotherhood has about 6,426 people in 2243. Although a lot of the sourcebook is fan-made, the Fallout Bible has accepted parts of it as canon and has made corrections to itself when the Sourcebook author pointed something out.

The Fallout wiki lists the Mojave BoS having ~150 members in total during Operation: Sunburst.