How big do you consider Cobra to be?

[Outrider]

I was thinking about army building of figures, and my thoughts wandered to how big everyone considers Cobra to be in their own Joeverse - is it an organisation of a few hundred, a few thousand or a mega army of 100,000? In my case, I tend to think of it as a world wide organisation of fairly large numbers. Take Cobra Island for example (if it exists in your Joeverse). It's the official Cobra "nation" so to speak, and it's main base of operations. There would have to be at least 20,000 troops of various specialties based there. After that I imagine Cobra would have everything from major bases to regional outposts all over the world, staffed by varying numbers of troops. That's going to add up to a lot of people. And how many vehicles would they have? 5,000 HISS tanks? 300 or 400 Mambas? How do you guys see it?

[vader9900]

All I know is that it is way larger than the figures & vehicles that I own! :mad:

[troopsofdoom]

I don't have any numbers but I imagine Cobra to as large as any other army in the world, if not larger. They would have to be to achieve their goal of world domination.

[guiltridden]

They gotta have at least 10,000 people minimum

[Prince Adam]

Hmmm. In all honesty I don't know if I can really put a number on it, but here's how I see it.

Cobra Island is the main base of operations. That's where the main Terrordrome is, Cobra Commanders temple and whatnot. It's not neccessarily a soveriegn state but it's got enough support and whatnot in the UN to keep Joe from traipsing in whenever they want. Not to mention the high level officials that secretly Cobra agents. Personnelwise I'd estimate it to be in the mid thousands, ballpark figure.

Outside of the Island it's a global network of groups in many countries around the world, certainly on all the continents. The networks break down in factions and while not all of them know they are Cobra agents, the Commander certainly has them in his grasp. All working, whether aware of it or not, toward the same goal. These would all ranged from 50-100+ depending on how big the branch is. For ex. Springfield would be much bigger as it's an entire town rather just a few scattered warehouses in say London.

I'm going to give it some more thought, but I think that's a good start.

[Rambo]

Mmmmm.... dont know. Have you thought about how many civilians would Cobra have?

[Lava Boss]

As far as toy universes went at some point I said the figures I had were the total of Cobra. Yeah, that may have been as little as 2 dozen guys at one point. It didn't matter since my toy universe wasn't based on the real world at all.

In the popular media, I imagine membership/troop strength has fluctuated over the years. From grassroots movement of hard core fanatics to a larger more bureaucratic organization of international malcontents, mercs, thugs, etc.

I'd probably say that armed forces are outnumbered by agents, operatives, etc...since where would armies be but cobra island and a few hidden bases. And Cobra Island isn't that big to support, even house, thousands of people.

[Scuba Steve]

OK, at least in my joeverse Cobra would be in the 100,000 's catagory. As a slight sneek peek into my diostory currently in production Cobra is a massive organization that has been building its numbers in secret for two decades. They are comprised of all the worlds malcontents from Islamic facists to disgruntled former KGB angry about the collaps of their empire. IRA terrorists who have been misplaced by cease fires and mercinaries out to see the world burn. All of them united by individual promisises made by Cobras charismatic and deceptive recruitment machine. Many fight under the banner of Cobra and many fight obliviouse to Cobras manipulation. All to achieve the tyrannical vision of a modern day mad man!

[Black Knight]

[QUOTE=Scuba Steve]OK, at least in my joeverse Cobra would be in the 100,000 's catagory. As a slight sneek peek into my diostory currently in production Cobra is a massive organization that has been building its numbers in secret for two decades. They are comprised of all the worlds malcontents from Islamic facists to disgruntled former KGB angry about the collaps of their empire. IRA terrorists who have been misplaced by cease fires and mercinaries out to see the world burn. All of them united by individual promisises made by Cobras charismatic and deceptive recruitment machine. Many fight under the banner of Cobra and many fight obliviouse to Cobras manipulation. All to achieve the tyrannical vision of a modern day mad man![/QUOTE]


Well said... that about sums it up for me too. I 'd agree with most of your points... Cobra Island being the main point of operations (shaped like it is from Resolute :D ) and various other "stations" through-out the world. I would picture the Cobra Armies to number somewhere in the half-mil range... but thats just my opinion.

[LordRaven]

To follow up Craig's question, does Cobra do much outsourcing? Let's face it, to quote Randall from Clerks "what does the average stormtrooper know about installing a toilet main?" Would that fall under a toxo-viper's specialty? Think of all the extra man power needed ON TOP of world domination.

[Sonneilon]

i gotta think about that one.

This is pretty subjective because some of us might NOT include certain classes. INcluding the venomized troopers and etc. I would like to think my vision would be pretty streamlined and I'd say that a lot of the regular troops would NOT be fully human or even human at all (ie; relying on BATs).

[Urban Saboteur]

I think that cobra would definately outsource... consider they would have night creepers or ninja vipers on missions someplace and would call in slice or dice for infiltration.

What about the other extra's the people in the pocket that work regular jobs but are paid by Arbco enterprises to do stuff like rat out information to the Crimson Twins and the Shadow Guard.

I've never thought about it really until i saw this thread. Taking into account standard infantry, specialists and a global operation we have to be talking in the hundreds of thousands category.
Best bet would be to take a head count on individual characters based within cobra. Then take a seperate count for troops that will be multiple based such as BATs and Officers and Vipers squads..
Multiply that figure by say 15-20 at most. I mean I know there are more soldiers but we're trying to get a guestimate... i think you'd have at least a couple of hundred thousand and thats before you even think about people paid into the organisation and freelancers.

[yorktownjoe]

Hmmm. Let's see. There's me, a few guys on this site, Cobra Commander, Destro, Zartan, Major Bludd, and all the CG's currently working in congress. Probably a few dozen. A hundred tops. :rolleyes: Not to worry, not to worry. ;)

Okay, now that I got a goofy answer out, let me think about this one. I would think if they have infiltrated into governments throughout the world, they would have to be fairly large. But in order to maintain security, they would need to work in smaller cells so the capture of one cell doesn't bring down the entire organization. Since Cobra is a hybrid, they would also have larger army divisions in addition to the countless cells around the globe. Best guess would be somewhere between a half mil and a mil altogether. (Including familes and support staff.)
<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">

[rnrhero]

I always figure around 10,000 or so. Vehicles in the small numbers also ie about 50 to 100 hiss's at the most. Remember, these things would be very expensive to make. The US military usually has only a couple hundred of each jet in service anymore and not many more then that of Tanks if I remember correctly. Its just too expensive to mass produce when a jet costs a Billion Dollors. Figure each Hiss would be in the Millions to make. Not exactly chump change even when you have ghost companies and the such all over the world. I figure the bulk of the Hightech stuff is for show and then alot of old Russion overstock stuff for the majority of gear. Think about how the Russions would fly the same 5 Bombers over Red Square over and over on Mayday Celebrations to make the public and Spy's think that they had hundreds. I figure the show of force on Cobra Island would be about the same. I like to think that they use Secret Ops for the majority of there Plans and the use of Stealth, ie. NIght Raven and such, for Stratigic bombing runs and offensive actions before sending in the troops. Now if Hasbro would only make those huge Transport Jets with the Snake heads that were in the Cartoon. That is how they would deliver massive forces into action all at once.


P.S. is there a rambling Censor out there LOL

[Death_at_Midnight]

In my Joeverse, COBRA is in the thousands, but I wouldn't be sure of the exact numbers. They are global, each region has its own recruitment.

Cobra HQ could be on Cobra Island, however my adventures will usually involve Cobra's R&D base in the Antarctic. Other locations will be in the Gobi Desert. Currently Cobra is located in an underwater cavern in the Pacific, accessible through a "blue hole" -- specifically my Cobra Vault where Cobra stores its riches and most important records/blue prints, etc.

[Agent Viper]

In my Verse COBRA is a full on Terroist organization, hitting the Globe where it hurts, America, Russia, Middle East. Trying to get enough Rebels, Pirates, Mercenaries together to over throw America and become a supreme Power

Thats my point of view

[neapolitan joe]

In my Joeverse, Cobra island is a nation with 2 or 3 millions people.

[lehsreh]

cant put an exact number on it. id say between 20,000 to 30,000. new ones join and others die everyday. very good question though.

[Death_at_Midnight]

I agree that Cobra would outsource too. As you all already know, in my Joeverse Destro is just one of many suppliers. There's a source for food supplies, uniforms, etc. Who does their laundry?

This is a very good question.

[ender098]

Hmmm...I'd say

battlefield troops~ 25,000 - 50,000 (Vipers/EEls/specialty Vipers)

Blue shirts(Techs/general Laborers that can fix toilets/do electrical work etc and then pick up a gun and fight, what I see as the civilian militia in Cobra towns) ~ 50,000 -100,000

Top Level Undercover (Seigies, spies, Sypathizers) ~ 2,500

Collaborators and people being used for intell and don't realize who they are working for ~ 100,000 or more

Merc's (At the high point) ~ 5,000 (To include Zartan/Dreadnoks/ Bludd/Firefly/Raptor, etc)

Iron Grenadiers ~ 5,000

[Roland da Thompson Gunner]

I dunno how big COBRA would be, toy wise I'm in agreeance with Lava Boss :)

From a hypothetical standpoint, I'd figure COBRA has probably 40 000 full fledged soldiers globally, but the number is probably tripled in terms of supporters (be it through donations, dudes who bought into pyrimad schemes, and those who'd be willing to die for the COBRA cause)

as for Vehicles, I'm not to sure, a lot of the stuff seems designed for Mass production

[ToneGunsRevisited]

[QUOTE=vader9900]All I know is that it is way larger than the figures & vehicles that I own! :mad:[/QUOTE]
Same here.

My COBRA is a nation based on Cobra Island and the main product of the country is mercenaries. Cobra Commander sells his soldiers to fight like a Private Military Contractors. And it is a BIG army, most like you think yours Craig.

[cyko]

It's a tricky question. You sort of have to freeze the timeline at some point. There's grassroots Cobra, with factions in most major cities (e.g. Springfields), then there's Empire Cobra, with legions of specialized Vipers (Air Viper, Eels, Eels v2, Snow Serpents, Ice Vipers, Toxo-Zombie-Vipers...), then there's Cobra post-Civil war which, while still Cobra, is fractured.

In my mind, Cobra has far more "civilian" members than actual soldiers. But then, I guess Crimson Guards under cover are still soldiers after all. Since their kids tote machine guns, might as well count them in with the soldiers. But the question still remains: is Cobra on the rise or diminishing? My Cobra collection is still in its beginnings (2 HISSes, a handfull of Troopers and very few specialized Vipers). But a Cobra at its height would easily be 500k-1mil including all it's low-grade troops (and families).