In all seriousness, I'm pretty sure what Wallins proposed was just a general rule of thumb, something to provide a very rudimentary estimate before delving in to make the more accurate calculation. As long as the organization in question is reasonably on the mark, I'll give them a pass. They say they have a large army in the hundreds or thousands, and they've got a big town with a decent population and adequate supplies? Fine by me. It doesn't affect the actual outcome of an engagement. Engagements are still determined by just the PCs. The hidden population is just a bragging right, and to make our characters sound like less of a dumb ass when talking about how glorious their city of ten people is. And hey, if the guys that claimed to have an army of a thousand strong still loses to the guy with five hundred, they take the burden of embarrassment for losing.
I don't like hyper-realism, or unnecessary scrutiny. I mean, what the hell happened to us being fantasy? Jesus. Just don't go around giving Michael Phelps a run for his money in heavy cavalry armor or something. We wouldn't have half the pretty stuff on this server if we were strictly medieval. Say good bye to every decent looking ship on this server, or any mildly cool looking set of armor. I'm not saying to not do your research and spend time learning how different mechanisms, weapons, or general lifestyle habits worked at the time. I encourage it. Hell, that's what I do most of the time. That's what you should be doing, especially if your character is an artisan of some sort. But I'm getting off track.
Ultimately, I'm just here to have fun and build big things because I'm not compensating for anything at all. We're talking about Minecraft and roleplay. I live in a two hundred plot fortress that was largely built only by me (credit to
Elz and
Tempy_ for amazing help with interiors though). I dunno about you (and by you, I mean whoever has actually bothered to read this), I find it just a bit more ideal to assume I had some NPC help with that, without having to worry about building a mausoleum or whatever the hell.
Now to actually address the whole sailor/temp army NPC question. It's already been said that to properly man a ship at a one to one ratio at what it'd require in real life is unfeasible. Ideally, there should be at least one PC to every crucial position. I can mostly agree with what Naelwyn proposed on the first page. Having a guy at every cannon is never going to happen. A PC would collectively embody the other NPCs at work. These NPCs have no impact on the outcome of a battle. They're just there to make things actually work in the first place. For the most part, they wouldn't be roleplayed at all. They would just have an assumed existence. I don't see a problem with NPCs working the cannons, as long as there are real players in that position already. But being a naval gunner does require quite a bit of training, so the overall effectiveness of the cannons would only correspond to, say, the skill of the least skilled PC manning them. That aside, a lot of these broadside engagements were determined by who could get the drop on who, the quality of the artillery, and the movements that the captain decided upon (who without a doubt would be a PC). This is assuming that the naval battle is a straight up cannon volley anyways. A lot of the times it was just boarding the other ship (which, to me, would be a lot more fun to RP and is less complicated).
I dunno, I'm just rambling.