Size of the clone army

[Winston Blake]

Since one unit is one clone, i guess the possibilities are:

-1.2 million was the figure for Tipoca City, and other Kaminoan cloning facilities exist. You'd think an entire planet would have more than one facility for an industry they're meant to be experts in.

-The one million on their way are actually fully matured and are just still undergoing training, with millions more actually growing.

-(from what Sharky said) The Grand Army of the Republic is made up of 1.2 million clones as an elite 'Clone Corps' and the rest are normal human recruits. A few hundred troops from each member planet is bound to add up quickly.

-1.2 million really are the total number of troops in the Grand Army, and clones are so superior to battledroids that each clone is expected to defeat (at least) hundreds of thousands of droids.

Assuming they did study wars from 1,000
years ago, one would think that tech advances would render that stuff
meaningless.

If i may quote Dr Saxton:

Technological Stasis
Some observers of STAR WARS seem troubled by the issue of technological stasis in this fictional universe. Many readers have difficulty with this idea, because they wrongly take modern Western technological society as a point of reference for the STAR WARS environment. There are good physical reasons why a culture in a closed environment (be it bound to its home planet or bound to a particular galaxy) will eventually reach the limits of its resources and then either adopt a stable state or perish. History shows that most societies relax to a stable state when they run out of possibilities for territorial expansion etc. Also, there is bound to come a time when scientific discovery meets all of the needs of its society. This is not a bad condition, and it can be easily and convincingly argued that this is the natural state of humankind.

Objectively, the galaxy cannot have experienced major technological change at any time in recent millennia. The whole galaxy was governed in essentially the same way for over a thousand generations. The occurrence of vast periods of political stasis requires stasis in all of the fields of life that can affect politics. If any change of technology had been sustained and accumulated, it would have eventually altered the dynamics of the civilisation to the point where pre-existing institutions such as the Galactic Republic (and perhaps even the Jedi) would have been rendered irrelevent.

On a storytelling level, George Lucas did not set out to tell a tale about machines and technical developments. His stories are intended to be more eternal than the hundreds of factory-produced TV SF shows where the plot depends on the provision of some kind of novelty device.

None of the spin-off novels, comics or games published to date shows any empirical evidence of technological progress in the mainstream galactic society of the STAR WARS universe. On the fringes of the civilisation there are some exotic non-human societies that are experiencing technological change while they are adjusting towards a different status within or outside the supra-civilisation, by either ascending from a primitive state or else falling into decadence. However these isolated exceptions are not part of the technical mainstream. The only variations of galactic technology are due to either:


cyclic variations of fashion, as needs and preferences change so as to favour one kind of device over another, to accomplish the same task (eg. the use of hyperspace beacons in a peaceful era vs the autonomy of individual ships' navicomputers in unstable centuries);

changes of scale (eg. the Death Star, which is not fundamentally different from ancient blaster weapons, and which is only remarkable as an expression of concentrated political willpower in a militaristic regime).
There are no more "advanced" technologies, starships or products in the mainstream STAR WARS universe (excepting pre-interstellar primitive societies and fringe groups that are isolated from the galactic community). It appears to be simply a matter of balancing technical tradeoffs of competing items in a strategic environment that oscillates sluggishly about a mean galactic level over the centuries. In some eras, a highly capable device is developed and manufactured, and its makers may consider it incrementally superior. In a different generation, those capabilities would be downplayed and atrophied as other requirements come to the fore. Elegance of design or economy of manufacture are examples of utilitarian values that sometimes take precedence over attributes such as speed or firepower. Lucafilm designers for Episode I have stated versions of this principle in numerous printed interviews, especially with regard to the technical aesthetics of the Naboo culture.

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/preq/tpmte ... techstatic

[18-Till-I-Die]

Yes but i dont think we've seen any evidence of that. Anyway, there would be little reason to have trillions of soldiers. Who would train them, who would build their trillions of individual peaices of armor, thir trillions of peices of equipment and weapons.

Considering that millions of droids can be bashed by thousands+ of Clonetroopers, they'd only need a few tens of billions. Trillions, while possible considering the scale of their civilization, would be overkill in this war.

I'm not saying they couldnt amass such an army, but that they wouldnt need to.

[McC]

Yes but i dont think we've seen any evidence of that. Anyway, there would be little reason to have trillions of soldiers. Who would train them, who would build their trillions of individual peaices of armor, thir trillions of peices of equipment and weapons.

They seemed to be doing a pretty good job of training on their own on Kamino As to arms, armor, and equipment...please tell me you didn't ask this question Or should we talk about the sheer number of TIE fighters operated by the Empire? And I tend to think it's more expensive/difficult to build a TIE than to equip a soldier.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Yes but i dont think we've seen any evidence of that. Anyway, there would be little reason to have trillions of soldiers. Who would train them, who would build their trillions of individual peaices of armor, thir trillions of peices of equipment and weapons.

They seemed to be doing a pretty good job of training on their own on Kamino As to arms, armor, and equipment...please tell me you didn't ask this question Or should we talk about the sheer number of TIE fighters operated by the Empire? And I tend to think it's more expensive/difficult to build a TIE than to equip a soldier.

Well, there is the matter that it would be overkill. Considering the major weaknesses of Droids vs Clones, in that a few thousand clones curbstomped a massive droid army.

But there is something i was thinking about those 'dedicated agricultural worlds': ok, so how dedicate dare they? All agri-worlds, like in 40K? Prety tempting target for an attack, but we can station a few million troops on each to protec them. Ok, and a small fleet in-syustem to defend it from the air and space force sof the enemy. And equip a small garison, and feed it, so we'll need more argi-worlds. And planetary shields, and defenses.

Anyway, the Republic is unlikely to go through all the trouble. they were prety stagnant and hadnt fought a war in milennia. The Empire...now thats different.

[McC]

You're assuming that agri-worlds would be solely dedicated to feeding the army. My above statement was meant to indicate that finding sufficient resources would not be remotely difficult. There are probably many agri-worlds throughout the GFFA (many = thousands+) that supply food to all beings. These worlds would ostensibly also be tapped for the clone army.

EDIT: The multi-destination nature of agri-worlds would, by default, make them terrible targets, since hitting them would mean you're damaging your own food supply, as well as your enemy's.

[18-Till-I-Die]

That's a plausible theory, but there is still the fact about overkill.

Twenty elephants can kill twenty unarmed humans, but so could two elephants. So why use ten or twenty, when two would suffice.

The point is, one or two Clones could kill twenty or thirty or perhaps more Droids, using superior training, intelligence, and weapons. Why use twenty to kill twenty or thirty Droids when two is sufficient.

And why use a trillion Clones when ten, twenty, or thirty billion is more than enough. Surely a civilization spanning an entire galaxy could creae an army of trillions, but against an unimpressive enemy why would they wast ethe time and money and effort.

EDIT: what i shouldve said was 'dozens' of Droids, since i dont know a sure number.

[Ghost Rider]

That's a plausible theory, but there is still the fact about overkill.

Twenty elephants can kill twenty unarmed humans, but so could two elephants. So why use ten or twenty, when two would suffice.

The point is, one or two Clones could kill twenty or thirty or perhaps more Droids, using superior training, intelligence, and weapons. Why use twenty to kill twenty or thirty Droids when two is sufficient.

And why use a trillion Clones when ten, twenty, or thirty billion is more than enough. Surely a civilization spanning an entire galaxy could creae an army of trillions, but against an unimpressive enemy why would they wast ethe time and money and effort.

EDIT: what i shouldve said was 'dozens' of Droids, since i dont know a sure number.

Given that they are fighting a Galactic War...and how many planets are there.

It's up to you to show the Seperatist numbers are so low that it's overkill.

Nowhere has this been indicated and is a poor leap of logic to conclude as such.

[Winston Blake]

The point is, one or two Clones could kill twenty or thirty or perhaps more Droids, using superior training, intelligence, and weapons. Why use twenty to kill twenty or thirty Droids when two is sufficient.

Didn't you see the Geonosian factories pouring out battledroids? Probably "many tens of thousands of droids per day" (Mike Wong), and it takes ten years to make a clonetrooper!

You say one or two clones could kill twenty or thirty droids, but do you think one or two clones could kill twenty or thirty THOUSAND droids?

[Illuminatus Primus]

The short answer as to why is that George Lucas is stupid, and didn't realize what he was writing into his own movie.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well considering hwo quick Geonosis went down against 200,000 or so Clones, ten billion should be more than enough to take on almost a hundred billion Droids.

This is assuming that 1,000,00 droids were prescent at Geonosis, and 200,000 Clones. Given they squashed an army almost ten times their size, i think you're underestimating the strength of the Republic's army against the seperatists.

[Ghost Rider]

Well considering hwo quick Geonosis went down against 200,000 or so Clones, ten billion should be more than enough to take on almost a hundred billion Droids.

This is assuming that 1,000,00 droids were prescent at Geonosis, and 200,000 Clones. Given they squashed an army almost ten times their size, i think you're underestimating the strength of the Republic's army against the seperatists.

So you're equating an only millions droids...and also given that we have no ideas of casulties nor escape. You literally assuming everything except that it was victory.

Literally this is going like 1 clone = 10 droids...thus every battle is nothing more then a statiscal warfare, disregarding tactics and firepower or any such happenstance that may come to be.

So while we're assuming this immense leap of logic, why aren't the Jedis(who still number in the thousands) aren't mopping up the armies alone given their kill numbers are higher then any one clone?

[Stark]

The Separatists seem quite aware of their ability to rebuild armies, and this is visible in their tactics. In AOTC, they threw their droids thoughtlessly into a holding action while their ships fled, confident that their droid losses could be made good. And they're right; a planet with many factories could likely produce millions of droids per day.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well considering hwo quick Geonosis went down against 200,000 or so Clones, ten billion should be more than enough to take on almost a hundred billion Droids.

This is assuming that 1,000,00 droids were prescent at Geonosis, and 200,000 Clones. Given they squashed an army almost ten times their size, i think you're underestimating the strength of the Republic's army against the seperatists.

So you're equating an only millions droids...and also given that we have no ideas of casulties nor escape. You literally assuming everything except that it was victory.

Literally this is going like 1 clone = 10 droids...thus every battle is nothing more then a statiscal warfare, disregarding tactics and firepower or any such happenstance that may come to be.

So while we're assuming this immense leap of logic, why aren't the Jedis(who still number in the thousands) aren't mopping up the armies alone given their kill numbers are higher then any one clone?

It's not an immense lap of logic, i was just thinking that wiping the floor with an enemy army constituted a victory. And i was also stating the Clone tactics and firepower was what made them superior to droids.

Also, it's not like anyone has even tried to think of a reason why 'trillions' of Clones are nessecary to subdude a few tens of thousand sof planets, as oppose dto a hundred billion Clones or some smaller and more reasonable number.

Sure they could have eleventy-gazillion soldiers, but i dont think anyone has said why such huge armies would be nessesary to take down a weaker army with piss poor tactics and less than stellar firepower compared to the Clones.

And some planets would be just as easy to blast from orbit than invade. Yeah, i know, the Republic is squeemish about stuff like that, but if they have even a small grain of strategic know-how they'll use some strategic orbital fire. They might have on Geonosis, since teh Droid airforce was unseen, and so either they have such a superior airforce the Droids were slaughtered offscreen, or they blasted the fighter bases from orbit. Pinpoint bombardments could take care of some of these Droid foundries by blasting the entraces and surface structures from space.

The Jedi have also made a very good showing for themselves, taking out many, many Droids on Geonosis compared to their numbers. They could do something to offset the numerical lopsidedness.

[Ghost Rider]

So you're equating an only millions droids...and also given that we have no ideas of casulties nor escape. You literally assuming everything except that it was victory.

Literally this is going like 1 clone = 10 droids...thus every battle is nothing more then a statiscal warfare, disregarding tactics and firepower or any such happenstance that may come to be.

So while we're assuming this immense leap of logic, why aren't the Jedis(who still number in the thousands) aren't mopping up the armies alone given their kill numbers are higher then any one clone?

It's not an immense lap of logic, i was just thinking that wiping the floor with an enemy army constituted a victory. And i was also stating the Clone tactics and firepower was what made them superior to droids.

How not...you're using a very simplified techniquwe of going 1 clone = 10 droid thus a 1 trillion is overkill in a galactic war even though one does not know the opposing sides numbers.

Also, it's not like anyone has even tried to think of a reason why 'trillions' of Clones are nessecary to subdude a few tens of thousand sof planets, as oppose dto a hundred billion Clones or some smaller and more reasonable number.

Are you even reading your staement?

THOUSANDS of planets.

Literally they have to occupy them with something...or do you believe that the Seperatist will just go "You won fair and square...we'll never take back that world ever again."

Sure they could have eleventy-gazillion soldiers, but i dont think anyone has said why such huge armies would be nessesary to take down a weaker army with piss poor tactics and less than stellar firepower compared to the Clones.

Amazing that you say piss poor weak given we have clue as to SIZE of the Seperatist army.

And some planets would be just as easy to blast from orbit than invade. Yeah, i know, the Republic is squeemish about stuff like that, but if they have even a small grain of strategic know-how they'll use some strategic orbital fire. They might have on Geonosis, since teh Droid airforce was unseen, and so either they have such a superior airforce the Droids were slaughtered offscreen, or they blasted the fighter bases from orbit. Pinpoint bombardments could take care of some of these Droid foundries by blasting the entraces and surface structures from space.

Thank you for not understanding why armies are needed for OCCUPATION.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well, what exactly would your estimate for their required strength be? Assuming that they have to occupy EVERY seperatist world, as opposed to some just being blasted from orbit or not important enough to occupy.

[Winston Blake]

Well considering hwo quick Geonosis went down against 200,000 or so Clones, ten billion should be more than enough to take on almost a hundred billion Droids.

This is assuming that 1,000,00 droids were prescent at Geonosis, and 200,000 Clones. Given they squashed an army almost ten times their size, i think you're underestimating the strength of the Republic's army against the seperatists.

Even assuming a million droids, that's 5 times their size, not 10 times.

And are you forgetting that only some of those fought? The Separatists went into full retreat.

Oh yeah, and if the Republic has time to make ten billion clones, how many droids are the Separatists going to have (think a million droids a day).

[Ghost Rider]

Well, what exactly would your estimate for their required strength be? Assuming that they have to occupy EVERY seperatist world, as opposed to some just being blasted from orbit or not important enough to occupy.

So they just go randomly blasting planets? Because the words Pyrrhic Victory come distinctly to mind.

Worlds are deemed useless how again?

The Empire did this only in the most reserved situation and so far no such recording of it from the Republic...so please show me where it's stated that the OR goes around blasting worlds to lifeless husks instead of reoccupying THEIR OWN territory?

This is akin to saying in any war, why doesn't side A just nuke the the other side?

[18-Till-I-Die]

I dont mean BDZ.

I mean burrying a Droid factory by pounding it from orbit. Pinpoint, tactical bombardment. Also, there is little reason to beleive every plant has a Geonosis-sized factory.

And before evryone starts talking of planetary shields, they'd still have to knock those down with orbital fire even if they had a zillion infantrymen.

And this isnt even taking into account that the Clones showed superior armor (AT-TEs and mobile cannons) and better tactics and superior warships.

Maybe ten billion is too few (in fact now that i think of it i know it is) but it's just wanking to say they would arbitraily amassing trillions of soldiers. Considering not every world is worth fighting for, and some can be subduded from afar, and they have superior ground forces, a few hundred billion seems more likely.

Maybe 200 or even 500 billion.

But not 'trillions', which implies something more than 1,000,000,000,000 Clones and/or conscripts. And tens or hundreds of trillions would be way too outlandish, even for a galaxy spanning civilization.

[Stark]

But not 'trillions', which implies something more than 1,000,000,000,000 Clones and/or conscripts. And tens or hundreds of trillions would be way too outlandish, even for a galaxy spanning civilization.

Do the math, chief. Just thinking modern analogues, if 1 in every, say, 10,000 people is a soldier, how many soldiers is it for thousands of quadrillions of people?

[Ghost Rider]

I dont mean BDZ.

I mean burrying a Droid factory by pounding it from orbit. Pinpoint, tactical bombardment. Also, there is little reason to beleive every plant has a Geonosis-sized factory.

And these objects aren't amongst the most highly shielded items and they're just going to stand there and no deployment of their own?!

Great leap there.

And this isnt even taking into account that the Clones showed superior armor (AT-TEs and mobile cannons) and better tactics and superior warships.

Maybe ten billion is too few (in fact now that i think of it i know it is) but it's just wanking to say they would arbitraily amassing trillions of soldiers. Considering not every world is worth fighting for, and some can be subduded from afar, and they have superior ground forces, a few hundred billion seems more likely.

Maybe 200 or even 500 billion.

You are still under the assumption of giving YOUR number to what the Seperatist have...we don't know so saying too high or too low is aleap of logic.

But not 'trillions', which implies something more than 1,000,000,000,000 Clones and/or conscripts. And tens or hundreds of trillions would be way too outlandish, even for a galaxy spanning civilization.

Do you even begin to comprehend how large a GALAXY is?

Given the tech levels demonstarted by SW can you even begin to realize how even more asinine that is?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Fine, conceded.

We'll see in episode three, with any hope.

[Coalition]

Various numbers I crunched:

1) Droid factory in Geonosis = ~80,000 droids per day (from DW website). Assuming that was the only factory providing droids, it will produce over 2 million droids per month. So the losses in the battle in AotC reflect only 2 weeks of production, from one factory.

2) Poggle controls 9 Hives. I don't know how many hives there are on Geonosis, but assuming there was a 'Greater' as well, then that puts a minimum of 19 total hives on Geonosis.

3) Daily production for 19 Hives is (at most) 1.5 million droids (minus trade goods, tanks, larger droids, ship materials, etc.)

4) This is for one planet.

5) current US requirements for Iraq:
US troop level = ~115,000 average
Iraq population = 22 million

So that puts roughly .5% of the population in troops.

Assuming the same ratios for clonetroopers to population, those 1.2 million troops can only control 240 million beings. The current US population is ~290 million (July 2003 estimate from cia.gov factbook)

Assuming for just the 1000 systems mentioned in AotC, assuming each of those has only 100 million people, you need 500 million troops assuming all of them are pacified.

Also (again, using the US model), the population of Washington DC is ~570,000 (pe.net factbook). That is roughly 500:1 ratio of US to Washington DC population.

Assuming the same is true for the galaxy (Republic:Coruscant pop), then that is a galactic population of 500 trillion. To police all of that would require 2.5 trillion troops. Of course, not that many are revolting (some I think are merely horrible), but given the demands for war, 1 trillion troops will likely become the basis.

In ANH, Moff Tarkin mentioned the 'million systems' of the Empire. Assuming 1 trillion troops, that is only 1 million per planet, minus needs for starships (250 million alone for the Star Destroyers - 25,000 star destroyers with 10,000 troops on each).

Just some fun numbers to crunch.

Chatty, aren't I

[Stark]

Your production numbers are okay, but given the size of the Genosian factory, the Separatists could have any arbitary number of them, limted only be incoming resources. But at the very least, tens of millions of droids per day is not unlikely for a moderately industrialised planet.

Your post neglets that estimates of Coruscant population go at least to the hundreds of trillions, and it is not impossible that there are many planets with 10 trillion+ populations, out of 12 million inhabited systems.

Indeed, the Separatists NEED their vast droid production, because they are only a fraction of the galaxy, whereas the Republic can turn the tide by seizing a smaller number of planets. The Republic fleets also appear to be far superior to the Separatist counterparts, since their ships are at least ostensibly civilian.

Droid armies seem to fare quite poorly in the battles we've seen, so some disparity can be expected between droids and clones, but more and one or perhaps two orders of magnitude is unlikely, since even uber ARC troopers couldn't kill 100+ droids each. It should be noted however, that the strike at Genosis had many advantages on the side of the clones (surprise, heavy spacelift, artillery, Jedi), and this may not be true for other battles, particularly and Separatist offensives.

[Illuminatus Primus]

We'll just have to assume post hoc at some point after Shatterpoint more clone waves arrived, and there were more volunteer troops.

As is, you cannot get around 1.2 million total around Shatterpoint.

[PainRack]

We'll just have to assume post hoc at some point after Shatterpoint more clone waves arrived, and there were more volunteer troops.

As is, you cannot get around 1.2 million total around Shatterpoint.

The problem is, Shatterpoint seems to allude that the time lag till additional clonetroopers come online, and the militias the Clonetroopers are training is relatively long, thus yielding the stragetic advantage to the Seperatists.

That may indicate why the Clone Wars was so important an event in history. By the time additional forces come online, the Seperatists could had effectively carved out multiple sectors away from the Republic and their huge industrial potential would had meant extremely bloody attritional battles.