Who was the oldest recorded participant in a battle whom we know of? @DVK calculate yourself: according to Krivosheev's study about military losses of Russia in XX century wars, totally there were 34476,7 thousand people under rifle in the USSR (pre-war+mobilized) and 21107 thousand in Germany. Given the population figures for the USSR (190 million) and Germany (80 million) we can conclude that total people under rifle were 18% of population in the USSR and 26,4% of population in Germany. At any given point the both figures were lower of course. Link to the study: lib.ru/MEMUARY/1939-1945/KRIWOSHEEW/poteri.txt