“a battle group – typically, a carrier, six surface combatant ships, an attack submarine, a supply ship or two and a 70-aircraft fighter wing – costs more than $1 billion a year to maintain, Congressional analysts say.” - New York Times, May 20, 2001.
“retiring the [aircraft carrier USS] Kennedy would result in an estimated steady-state savings of roughly $300 million per year starting in FY2008, including roughly $200 million per year for crew pay and allowances, and roughly $100 million per year in ship operation and maintenance (O&M) costs” – “Navy Aircraft Carriers: Proposed Retirement of
USS John F. Kennedy: Issues and Options for Congress,” Updated August 29, 2006, Ron O’Rourke (a great guy, by the way), Congressional Research Service.
I can’t find a good figure for Bill Gates’ personal income, for some reason, but the Gates Foundation, the charity he founded, gave $1.36 billion in grants in 2005 and had $35 billion in assets (The Independent , June 27, 2006) before Warren Buffet gave it even more money this year, so it looks like Gates could easily maintain a single aircraft carrier with crew at $300 million per year, and, if he’d made the Gates Foundation about running a private navy instead of a charity, he’d comfortably and sustainably be able to operate a full CVBG (Fleet Carrier Battle Group) at over a $1 billion a year.
Buying the ships, aircraft, etc. adds a bit to the cost, obviously, but a carrier only costs $2.2 billion – that’s in my notes, I forget where I got it from – so he wouldn’t sweat about that, either.
And the United States, by the standards of historical empires, has a relatively poor group of super-rich individuals. I recall reading that in Roman times, there were several men who could have funded the entire imperial military for a year or so out of their personal fortunes. I presume the concentration of wealth in the Iron Empires, with its weak central governments and powerful feudal potentates, is much more on the Roman model than that of a modern democratic, capitalist society.
So a fairly unexceptional Forged Lord might be able to maintain quite an impressive force.