How large should the CIS/Clone Trooper forces be?
This poll is to help determine the scale of the conflict. In the movies, we see the Jedi getting gunned down by a handful of clones. But what if that squad turned into thousands or tens of thousands? Much more believable.
Here's some quick math/logistics to put things into perspective.
The two large ships the republic had during the war for troop transport are the venator shown in episode 3 and in engagements throughout the clone wars show. These large ships had a troop complement of only 2,000. Meaning to carry 1 million clone troopers, you would need 500 of them with no other ships.
The other ship was the acclamator, primarily only shown in episode 2. This ship is much better, but still only held 16,000 troops. 62.5 rounded to 63 would be enough to carry 1 million troops.
This doesn't include vessels specifically meant to transport troops, and in a galaxy with 1 quintillion lifeforms, maybe doesn't seem so impressive.
The logistics required to move 1 billion men would require 62,500 Acclamators. But in a galaxy where a Death Star was completed (in secret by slave, not droid labor) is this number so farfetched?
The way I imagine the conflict is that clones/droids primarily engaged in offensive actions, whilst ordinary people on both sides mostly engaged in defensive actions with the exception of officers.
Anyway, as the Kamino chapter is coming up, I'd appreciate your guys' feedback. Let's just say I have some dasterdly plans, and Palpatine will indeed have his potato salad trod upon.
Comments (17)
I think among the fandom, which has gone through this analysis a few times, it is more accepted that "unit" refers to army operational unit, which at the lowest level in an army refers to a squad "7-14" men, but personally I think based on what we see at the end of Attack of the Clones, for the parade in terms of Acclamators, the likely unit refers to a batallion (400-1200 men), the lowest level accepted for independent logistics structure and therefore independent action. This makes the initial attack on Kamino involve (If you assume they managed to get half of the available army ready, 100 000 units, packed and shipping in a matter of days, which is a stretch even given clone efficiency) about 120 million men, 240 million men initial production, with the total for the war being around 2.4 billion. This may not seem like a lot, BUT....if you take world war 2, which involved the mobilization of 120 million men, as the maximum standard for planetary level warfare, it would enable the Republic to carry out full on assault or defense in a maximum of 10-20 systems at the same time, which actually fits well with the Canon where we mainly see Jedi Council members be in charge of main system fronts and there are a maximum of 12 of those at any time. This also fits well with the GAR canon organization into 10 System armies. So I think it's a decent compromise between Canon and numbers that would more logically make sense for a galactic level war.
Sounds about right, with it mostly being about key systems along hyperspace lanes, core worlds, and specific strategic sites like large manufacturing plants/shipyards. Although one can't really say what they meant, and 2million is absolutely enough to start a large scale ground conflict on one planet. But considering the issues with mostly only having Spartoi/Spaarti type clones and the like for the rest of the war... That probably isn't the case. I think most ppl agree with that overall assessment, because they're hovering between 500mil and 10 billion in the votes.
Something to note down is the capacity that Kamino could produce, feed, etc. I honestly don't think they could do more than about 1 billion men at the most extreme, and I still question where they got the food from if nothing else (especially with the secrecy the project had). Also, it's an aquatic planet, just how big would their facilities be to hold 1 billion men, if not more. Personally, I always like the idea that a unit was a platoon of soldiers, which would hit the right balance between absolute minimum numbers to fight a galactic war (with local forces being auxiliary units to hold ground where there are far less enemy droids) and the carrying capacity of Kamino. This would put the total number of troops (which is canonically somewhere between 6-8 million units from what I can tell from some brief research) at around 250-500 million soldiers.
One of the big things I think is forgotten in Legends canon is local militias. During the Vlone wars there were many battles that were fought between the local militias and invading forces or against other local militias. Some of which were arguably some of the most effective and deadly fighting forces of the war. The biggest examples I can think of are Jabiim and Umbara. It helped Sideous to drag out the Clone wars and publicly justify sending resources from both sides, specifically Jedi, to them. It also helped to significantly cut down the numbers on both sides needed for planetary occupations.
Clone*
Gloves are off now. Palpatine was intentionally keeping Droids incompetence high. Now the CIS can take off the Gloves.
Una disculpa por escribir en español... Pero es mi idioma nativo. No votaré pero consejo de un escritor fracasado (si es que te sirve). Maneja números que tanto tu como la audiencia pueda dimensionar en mi vida he visto 10 mil millones de nada (ni siquiera granos de arroz). Para la continuidad no sabría como mostrarlos. Es una galaxia amerita grandes números pero yo preferiría algo menos extenso para que tanto perdidas y ganancias signifiquen algo. En fin gracias por la historia es execelente.
When they mention the 2 million units I canon i always just treat that as a single unit of men, ie legion or regiment. Otherwise the number just don't add up at all.
Have canon be canon, but expand upon how more troops were made as the war escalated. And put it around a billion+ Maybe not all clones, but as a total military, explaining how they can realistically hold at least all systems that are part of the former republic, and contest for expasion into more worlds.
Just use the official numbers, seems too complicated to use anything else tbh
Official numbers do eventually move towards a billion though. Or more like 500mil to 1billion. At least in the EU, which is what we've mostly been working with here. And also makes a lot more sense as the conflict escalates. They do ofc never reach the numbers one would need in terms of troops to directly suppress resistance from the entire galaxy. But that was never how it was handled. A mix of the threat of orbital bombardment, chokepoints on hyperspace lanes, control over trade, and co-operation with local militia and law enforcement has been the norm. Otherwise, only droids could realistically be used to enforce complete hegemony. Even though it's not nearly so much ppl to suppress as some numbers seem to suggest. For the twin reason of city-planets where the surface is all you really need to control, and planets whose "population" numbers in less than millions, and sometimes not even thousands.
Yeah in the beginning of the war there were low millions because only kamino made the clones. But later in the war other worlds also made mass produced clones of lesser quality. They cloned and grew them straight to maturity and imprinted the training straight into their brains. This made them a lot less effective and more droid like. So at the end of the war there would have been high tens to hundreds of millions if not at least a billion. In legends one of the moons of Coruscant was used by palpatine to mass produce clones for the war, in case the clones serving with the Jedi on the frontline were to few to kill them all.
There are plenty of planets with over 100 billion people living on them in Star Wars. So having a military force of at least that many would be about the same as having a police force of 1 cop for every 10,000 people. Even that would be a fraction of the amount of forces they'd need to handle their own territory. Which the Clones were really supposed to just be shock troopers and not the true backbone of their forces. It's just they were ready made and expendable. That's why they're shown the vast majority of the war with the Jedi. Since the Jedi were supposed to be purged anyway and having them die with the clones would be a win, as they're cheap and easily replaced.
Not quite. See, very few planets have such huge populations, and there's not 10 000 known habitable planets/star systems, let alone republic controlled planets. Also the weapons involved (mainly the threat of orbital bombardment) means they do not need to outnumber civilians by that much. And it ignores existing judicial forces on each planet. No they'd need something like 1-10billion to realistically control the galaxy, without any significant military opposition. At least when it comes to the surface. They're not likely to ever gain complete control over the underworld, or the lower levels of places like Coruscant or Taris. For that, they would indeed need thousands of billions of troops. And would idd beyond just the sheer magnitude of resources to make them, be a nightmare to supply that not even Sidious's new empire could have supported in canon. Truth is, you kind of need droids to even attempt that sort of complete hegemonic control over all inhabited systems in the galaxy. Which the run the risk of one day putting everyone under the thumb of a rampant AI, which has almost happened before.
Another issue of having so many troops is upkeep and space. How much food can they feasibly supply and spare from their other worlds? How much space do they have to bunk clones not on yet active duty or in storage if that’s the case?
Tbf, I think 10 billion might be, like, chump change and that they really start feeling it once it reaches 100 billion to a trillion. Remember how many people live on the surface of Coruscant, Nar Shadaa or Corellia? 10 billion seems like it'd be quite a small number to feed in the grand scheme of things. Though, the Republic would no doubt try to skimp out on it anyways, huh?
10 billion seems like a good number to me.