Persian Invasion of 480 BC - articles

[Aryaman2]

I did! If there's something in the wikipedia article that is wrong, then say what it is! There's even a cool map that shows how the size of the army dwindled along the route. Why do I have to know everything about Napoleon to use this as an example?

Are you saying that Napoleons troops in Russia were not a proper 'field army' and in fact had a certain 'globalness' about them? If so, why could not Xerxes forces exhibit the same character in this regard?

Ok, I checked the Wikipedia article. Adam Zamoyski book on the campaign is cited as a reference, however the author of the article fails to note a very important point in his numbers that Zamoyski emphasize, that they include second line troops, according to Zamoyski the total number of troops actually entering Russia was about 450.000.

Those 450.000 were not a field army, at least in the sense I understand it is generally used the term. By that I understand (I posted this before) a force marching together as a single body and exacting supplies from the same source. In that sense Xerxes army is a field army (an Independent Tactical Force if you prefer something more technical), but Napoleon´s 450.000 are not. They were divided into several field armies following different roads and extracting supplies from different supply lines.
Napoleon´s main army had a paper strength (according to David Chandler´s detailed OOB) of 228.000 men, substracting second line troops you get a real strength of about 160.000, minus detachments, stragglers, etc, you get about 130.000 as an efective field army, that is my estimate, and the maximum total estimation for Napoleon´s army at the battle of Borodino.
Answering more precisely your previous question, Napoleon´s army arriving at Moscow and surroundings was under 90.000.