Good question. He definitely doesn't have the entire army bowing to him. As it is common in real life, the low troopers take orders from their superior. The highest ranking member of the Imperial Forces was Reiko, who took a big part of the Army with him. The shokans do their own thing really. And there don't seem to be so many of them left after being non-toxically nuked at the gates of Z'unkharrah (did spell that right?).
If the games take themselves seriously they shoul really expand on this and provide actual numbers.
I actually liked it that in the comics Reiko's troops were attacking trade routs and provisions, which is a tactical warfare technique, nice to see it implemented in the MK universe

Outworld used Dragonfly Transports for travel. I don't know how viable they'd be if militarized.

I'd like to know where all these Dragons came from if Onaga's Egg, guarded by Blaze was the last one. Then again, some could've been hiding, like Sub-Zero's Ice Dragons.

From what we've seen of Kotal's troops, they seem to be mostly ground based militia, with probable navy, as the kombat kids were held in a ship's brig, iirc.

A stage during a ship/armada battle, like Mitsurugi's SC3 stage would be neat.



Ka-Tra

Kotal Kahn's constituency are his true army. Who do you think is pulling the strings behind the scene? Clearly his confidential administration.