Slick new computer equipment means 70 Bermudian men who failed to answer the Bermuda Regiment's call this year may spend a few months in prison.

And officials warned yesterday those men have been given their final chance -- they must report for duty on December 15 or the legal papers that could put them in jail or result in a hefty fine will be issued soon afterward.

But Defence Department administrator Craig Swan denied rumours that the Regiment was drastically short of recruits this year or could soon fall under the optimum 684-strong force.

He said the 60 to 70 men who had so far failed to turn up was not an unusually high number -- and the law would eventually force those men to comply.

Even those sentenced to prison or fined would still be required to serve the mandatory three years and two months after they were released, had paid off the fine or both.

Until recently, Regimental records were manual so the Attorney General has been unable to proceed with legal cases against draft dodgers within six months of their failure to turn up in October, as the law required.

But Defence Department administrator Craig Swan said yesterday the new computerised records meant the Regiment "will prosecute all of them''.

"We now have the technology to come down hard on these men who refuse to serve their country,'' he said. "They can be sentenced to up to three months in prison or $900 fines or both.

"We are going to proceed with prosecutions against anyone who doesn't show up to the Warwick Camp on December 15 for a medical.'' He said this year there was a more urgent need for those called to enlist in the part-time force as a natural decline in the birth rate 20 years ago meant there was a smaller pool of males eligible to be called up.

Back in the 1980s there were between 400 and 600 Bermudian 18-year-old males but that had now dropped to just 200 to 350, he said.

"Generally in the past we've had more people so we've been able to reach the quota we've needed which is about 185 to 200 new recruits each year.

"This year we're down because there are fewer people of the right age in the community, but we can still get the number we need.'' He said some of the hundreds of names advertised recently for failing to turn up were college students or medically unfit men who had forgotten to reapply for deferment of their service.

There had already been several calls from concerned relatives who reported that some of those listed had moved abroad, he said.

"We always require official documentation of some sort or another so people cannot fake it to escape this.''