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09-16-2011, 10:23 PM | #1 |
Cobra Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 197
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Size of cobra command
There have been a number of postings that deal with the size of Cobra’s army. In several of those postings, I have suggested that this is one of the most interesting topics that I like to talk about. In order to get an exact answer on this, I went back and watched all of the cartoons to try to ascertain the right size of the Army. When I was a younger kid I thought that the cobra army was innumerable and reached into the millions. I had considered the size based off of what I remembered from the cartoons, and the size of cobra Island. I believe that my last thought process was that the Army was approximately 20,000 people strong. However, in re-watching the cartoon from start to finish (at least those cartoons from Sunbow), I have come up with a new study on the number of people in cobra's army. Here is what I found… In any one given scene, the most “blue shirts” that we see in any given shot is approximately 354 soldiers. This is in the episode “a world without end.” At the end where there is a civil war between cobra. We also have to take into consideration that this is based off the fact that Cobra took over the world. So this number could be reduced if it was in the realm of reality (which, this particular episode was not). In addition, there are two times when we see a large amount of people in an arena watching some type of battle taking place. In the episode “the traitor” we see Dusty fighting it out with Lieut. Claymore. There are about 140 people per section in the arena, and presumably about 4-5 sections. We cannot tell if the seats are actually filled were not based off the animation, but if the seats were field then I would estimate that there were about 700 people in the arena and let's presume that all of them were blue shirts. In the first episode of G.I. Joe when they are in cobra mountain, there is an arena when Duke is fighting a large man. I would estimate that there are about 960 seats in the arena. It does not appear as though that they were all filled, but may well be. Again, let's presume that they were all blue shirts. This would place cobra's army and a maximum of around 700 to 1000 blue shirts. Other important observations are as follows: in the episode: “20 questions”, gung ho makes a statement that “every cobra in the world must be in that mountain” there are approximately 60 soldiers shown in this scene at the base. We can see that even with 60 people, he feels as though this is a tremendous amount of people whether he is exaggerating or not. In the episode called “the Viper” there is a rest and relaxation facility that has 50 soldiers. We are assuming that they were blue shirts. The base is referred to as facility #3, so we can assume that there are or were at least two others in existence which may house another hundred soldiers. We also see that cobra offers its own dental and health insurance and another episode. There are other episodes where there are a large amount of cobra personnel in a given shot, but we do not know if they are soldiers or other workers. For instance in the pyramid of darkness, there are approximately 200 workers that are working on the cubes in the factory, and also about 40 workers are seen getting off of the subway station reporting to duty to work on the cubes. We do not know how many workers are in each shift or how many shifts there are. In another episode called the rotten egg, there are 512 personnel in military dress who are presumably new recruits for cobra. It is not specified what the function will be, and it is not specified as to how many people make the training. As far as other soldiers, here are a number of counts that may give light to some numbers of soldiers in cobra's army. In the movie Arise Serpentor Arise, we see about 34 rows of Vipers that are for deep. There is a trail of Vipers leading out of the cobra base, we do not see the line of people start or stop. I am guessing at about 136 men. The next largest assembly of Vipers is in the episode called “the rotten egg”.there are about 30 Vipers on the oil rig in an attack. Wetsuit makes a comment that” there are more than 20 Vipers there”. This is interesting because originally my perception (which I have noted that others have shared to) of a Viper was that cobra decided to create a new uniform for the soldiers after the advent of the blue shirt. It appears as though this may not be the case, and that the Viper is more of an assault trooper specifically utilized in attacks. The cobra BAT numbers can be best seen in “Arise Serpentor Arise”. The BAT makes an appearance in several scenes. Taking into consideration the bats that could be re-deployed, and the bats that are destroyed in any given time, I am confident in a number of 128 BATs that are in existence in any given time. I was also surprised at the low number of snow serpent's and Eels. I love these figures, but it does not appear as though they are very numerous in the cartoon series. In “Arise Serpentor Arise”, there are 12 Eels,as a follow up, there are 11 in Eau de Cobra. So I would estimate that there were only a dozen eels. In the episode “Haul down the heavens” there appears to be between 10 and 20 snow serpent's. So I will go with the number of 20 snow serpent's at the maximum. Next, we have the G.I. Joe Green shirts. In “there is no place like Springfield” there are 143 green shirts. We find out later that this may have been part of a dream sequence; however, in the episode called “where the reptiles roam” there are 100 green shirts (give or take) in one scene. I am going to go with the number of 143 green shirts in order to make sure that I do not underestimate. The maximum number of crimson guards is 20 as seen in the episode “captives of Cobra” I had also overestimated the number of vehicles that each side has operated. It seems as though more true to the form of a special missions force, the G.I. Joe team did not have a huge armory available as I originally thought. I have provided below a listing of the maximum number of vehicles that where in existence at any given time in the cartoon. If vehicles are shown in multiple scenes, I try to determine whether or not those were vehicles that were repeated, or if they are additional to the counts provided in the prior scene. It is definitely conceivable that some types of vehicles were completely destroyed, and then they were replaced with other items for upgrades, I did not take this into consideration. I simply estimated the largest amount of vehicles that would have existed at any given time for that specific vehicle. For instance, if a mauler was destroyed and replaced, I would only count this once. If 5 Mobats were destroyed or upgraded to 5 Maulers, then I would count the five Mobats separately from the maulers. There are some interesting facts about the number of vehicles, and some other side points that I would like to make when calculating the number of vehicles. The APC vehicle is shown in one episode to have 61, but we find out that these are model toys used as a ploy against cobra. The actual count turns out to be 3. This is one of the only vehicles that I actually took a lesser number based off of ploy tactics. Bottom line was that whether or not 61 was believable to Cobra, there were only 3 in use. The vehicle that is most numerous is that truble bubble. And nobody sequence for the cartoon, we see that they are 99 truble bubbles. (This is the best job that I can do that counting them). In the show “the revenge of cobra” and “the pit of Vipers” we see only 20 trouble bubbles. Even though the 99 trouble bubbles are shown in the introduction for the show, I have to use this number as opposed to the 20 in calculating the proper number of vehicles. To give you a good idea of the size of the armory that G.I. Joe keeps, and one of the episodes of “Arise Serpentor Arise”, the G.I. Joe base undergoes an attack and the top brass of the Army says that 40% of their force was destroyed. Other tidbits of information regarding troop size and various vehicle counts. In the episode ”last hour to doomsday” we get a good count on the number of firebats. We see 47 of them leave the cobra base, then in a rough drawing shot we see 72, then we see 80. While it was a struggle to assume that seeing shorthand scribble marks from an animation artist, or seeing a radar shot on the screen to determine the number of vehicles was proper, I eventually decided to take these into account. So in this particular case the number of vehicles increased from a probable 47, to a calculated 80. I find it very interesting that they would have 80 fire bats because in the cartoon “lights camera cobra” we learn that firebats cost about $15 million to produce and the cobra team is very interested in getting ONE firebat back rather than destroying it (as we learned there is a homing device in each of the units). Money as I have said before each firebats cost $15 million Zartan receives $300,000 to recover the McGovern device in the episode cold slither, cobra owe over $200 million and is said to be broke. Extensive enterprises finances the pyramid of darkness according to shipwreck in the episode “cold slither”, cobra has actually been disbanded other items regarding the size of cobra in the episode the spy who wrote to me, Flint says, it looks like half of cobra's armies in there. We see 16 stuns and 23 motor Vipers. in the last episode produced before G.I. Joe the movie “Into your tent I will silently creep” Cobra Cmdr. creates his own army of Coil Vipers against Serpentor. There are 22 members. In another scene Serpentor wants to know where all of his Vipers are. In G.I. Joe the movie, it is a big deal that there are new recruits. But there are only six new recruits. As I have promised, I have created a list below that shows the maximum amount of vehicles that I believe are in existence in each of the two armies. Please note that this list is based off only the episodes that I watched in the Sunbow productions. I did not pay any attention to the Dic cartoon series. Also, I did not pay any attention to any of the comics. I know that there are collectors who pay more closely attention to the comics. If anybody has any serious concerns with any of the counts that I have provided, I have no problem telling you which episode those counts come from. If you do happen to know any other sources that would verify these larger number than that of which I have, please let me know your source so that I may accurately update my list. Also, I'm going to show the number of USS flags as 1. However, there is an episode where they are or four total flags (three are in mothballs), although, one can argue that those other three are not THE flagg, but just aircraft carriers. Yes, I am aware that there are four or five support personnel for every fighting soldier. Because these personnel were not taken into account in the cartoon (unless you want to count the workers that are shown), so I did not take them into account either. The list for your perusing pleasure. 3 apc 33 armidillos 16 asps 11 Awe Strikers 128 bats 5 battle bears 1 Bridge layer 27 claws 11 Conquests 20 Crimson Guanrd 6 Devil Fish 12 dragon fly 4 Dreadnock Cycles 12 eels 20 falcon glider 13 fangs 15 FERRETS 80 firebats 1 Flags 5 Flak 143 green shirts 3 HAVOCs 30 hiss 35 Maulers 7 mobats 11 Morays 36 motor vipers 15 Night Ravens 5 Polar Battle 18 rattlers 4 Recon Sled 4 Sharcs 6 silver striker 40 sky striker 4 Sluggers 10 snake armour 10 snow cats 20 snow serp 354 soliders 8 Stingers 8 Storm Shadows 28 Strato Vipers 35 stuns 8 swamp fires 1 Terror Drome 10 Tele-Vipers 1 Thunder Machine 6 Tommahawks 99 Truble Bubble Flight Pod 1 Triple T 3 Vamps 7 viper glider 136 vipers 24 vtol 9 water moc 12 whale 2 Wolverines |
09-16-2011, 10:26 PM | #2 |
Sith/Jedi Hybrid
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Middle TN
Posts: 3,197
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You are insane.
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"I can't promise I'll try...but I'll try to try." BUY/SELL/TRADE: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...ell-trade.html Feedback: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/buy-se...th-awgmon.html |
09-16-2011, 10:29 PM | #3 |
Cobra Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 197
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LMAO... you might be right!!!... But i am determined...
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09-16-2011, 10:37 PM | #4 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Iowa
Posts: 4,439
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That list resembles my collection!! LOL I wish!!
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09-16-2011, 10:38 PM | #5 |
Oktober Guard soldier
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Under the sea!
Posts: 5,468
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you lost me at vipers. LOL
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09-16-2011, 10:48 PM | #6 |
Banned
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: New Hampster
Posts: 4,505
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You did a lot of hard work, and its a great read as well.......but I am suggesting we start a Paypal donation fund to buy you a hooker.
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09-16-2011, 10:51 PM | #7 |
FKTHMDS
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: vancouver
Posts: 1,536
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Just can't read all that And yes you need a hooker
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my feedback http://www.hisstank.com/forum/buy-se...-feedback.html |
09-16-2011, 11:13 PM | #8 |
Sith/Jedi Hybrid
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Middle TN
Posts: 3,197
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Is that tax deductible?
__________________
"I can't promise I'll try...but I'll try to try." BUY/SELL/TRADE: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...ell-trade.html Feedback: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/buy-se...th-awgmon.html |
09-18-2011, 02:12 PM | #9 |
Iron Grenadier
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 528
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Thanks for posting your findings--interesting stuff.
One comment: If you saw, e.g., 20 Snow Serpents on the screen at once, then that is the minimum number Cobra has, since we likely aren't seeing their whole force in one location. As you mentioned, "The Viper" episode shows that Cobra has locations all over the globe. |
09-18-2011, 02:21 PM | #10 |
tht 1 guy with a mustache
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: madison
Posts: 12,914
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