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In TTT, Thrawn has 5 ISDs. R$idiculous for a Grand ADmiral by anyones standards. How many do you think is a reasonable number for him to have?

He commanded more than 5 stardestroyers. That was just his personal armada.

It was more than just five, anyway-- the TTSB left out Peremptory and Relentless, at the least.

What has him being a Grand Admiral got to do with anything anyway?
He could have been the Emperor Reborn and if 7 ISDs plus supporting forces (which I notice you neglect to mention) is all he had access to, that's all he's got. Not that even barring the Katana force that was all he had-as already stated those 5 ISDs were his personal fleet, not the entirety of his resources.

Incidently, in the Duology one of the ISD Captains(could have been mentioned already) muses to himself that he was "always on the peripherary" of Thrawns campaign. Obviously the numbers Thrawn had were much greater than implied in the Trilogy, and Zahn scaled them upwards in the Duology(unless you aeriously think that the Imperial Remnant is much, much more heavily armed than Thrawn's Shogunate)

000 wrote:It was more than just five, anyway-- the TTSB left out Peremptory and Relentless, at the least.

There were actually at least eight named Star Destroyers under Thrawn's control: the Chimaera, Judicator, Death's Head, Nemesis, Stormhawk, Bellicose, Inexorable, and Relentless, or so says Wookieepedia.

On a somewhat off-topic matter, I'm still trying to figure out whether or not the spelling of "Nuumbers" in this thread's title was actually meant to be a joke; if it was, it was fairly clever. However, the conspicuous dollar sign in the OP leaves me with some doubts.

At one point in the Trilogy, there is a scene in which Bel Iblis, after becoming a New Republic general, is engaged in a battle in which he has something like 20 MC line cruisers on his side and is being trounced by a larger imperial force. This would require close to a sector group's worth of Star Destroyers to be present in that single battle. (if I am recollecting this incorrectly, feel free to call me on it)

Something I thought was made clear in the Thrawn trilogy was that the lack of warships mainly meant a lack of offensive capability. Both sides seemed to still have the resources to patrol and protect their own space reasonably well.

There was a picture in the Thrawn Trilogy sourcebook with a picture of Thrawn's fleet that included at least two dozen Imperator/Tector Star Destroyers and what looked like to be two examples of the Star Cruisers similar to Wermis's ship.

I believe it might still be up on Wookiepedia.

I think it was clear in the Thrawn Trilogy that Thrawn controlled a huge number of ships, and that the ships of his personal armada were only his striking force. It seems that by the Thrawn trilogy that the Empire and New Republic are about equal in forces, for instance to assemble a striking force the New Republic has to withdraw ships from many sector fleets to attack Bilbringi.

Many people seem to think the 200 ship Katana Fleet meant a change of balance in forces in absolute terms, I think it only meant the Empire would be getting 200 ships that have no other priorities such as being crucial to a sector fleet, and were therefore free to put all of them into use as an offensive force, which is what Thrawn did. This helped tip the balance towards the Empire's favor, while at the same time chewing up irreplaceable Republic ships and resources that would start a general collapse as the equality in forces tipped more towards the Empire.

However many ships Thrawn had, he's better than Daala.

She terrorised the New Republic with...THREE moldy ISDs.

I remember one offensive he attack three planets simultaneously. He had 5 SDs under his direct command with 8 SD's attacked the other two planets.

Remember where the heroes talk about how much effort it takes the Empire just to keep its sectors under control. Thrawn has a vast fleet, but probably most of it, like the Imperial fleet before it, is tied down to their respective sectors and systems. The Star Destroyers we hear mentioned are in his personal strike force, and others have mentioned we hear of other engagements too.

The Katana fleet was also invaluable as a psychological weapon.

It would be the equivalent of using the Black Pearl or Flying Dutchmen in PotC verse to terrorize the heck out of everyone else.

xerex wrote:I remember one offensive he attack three planets simultaneously. He had 5 SDs under his direct command with 8 SD's attacked the other two planets.

I assume you are referring to Ukio, which IIRC, he used the other ISDs to lure away the New Republic sector fleet away in packets, and one was sent to hit the sector fleet's base to ensure that no ships would interfere with his planned assault, perhaps showing he did not have the offensive resources at the time to defeat the New Republic's forces in a given sector.

MarshalFoch wrote:

xerex wrote:I remember one offensive he attack three planets simultaneously. He had 5 SDs under his direct command with 8 SD's attacked the other two planets.

I assume you are referring to Ukio, which IIRC, he used the other ISDs to lure away the New Republic sector fleet away in packets, and one was sent to hit the sector fleet's base to ensure that no ships would interfere with his planned assault, perhaps showing he did not have the offensive resources at the time to defeat the New Republic's forces in a given sector.

No, it just shows Thrawn's tactical brilliance. Note that a few weeks later, he is able to attack the forces of Bel Iblis, which may/may not have been a NR sector group, with Numbers at least as strong. The logical conclusion is that his other forces were busing taking other planets besides Ukio, which for all its importance is still just one planet.

Pelranius wrote:The Katana fleet was also invaluable as a psychological weapon.
It would be the equivalent of using the Black Pearl or Flying Dutchmen in PotC verse to terrorize the heck out of everyone else.

How about no? The Flying Dutchman and Black Pearl have a 'Oh noes! We're doomed because we saw them!' reputation the Katana fleet NEVER had. Indeed, they CAN'T have that much of a terror reputation as it is repeatedly commented upon in TTT that there was some market in fake 'where to find the Dark Force' maps. Doomed ships are rarely in demand enough to make such endeavors worthwhile. If anything the Katana fleet was a sought after prize, not a terror to be avoided.
Not that the NR forces would be able to TELL it is a Dark Force dreadnought attacking them anyway. Those things were apparently plentiful enough to make it worthwhile for the NR to refit into Assault Frigates (unsurprisingly as again according to TTT they were the backbone of the OR navy) so encountering one shouldn't be all that unusual and there's IIRC no telling a Katana from your bog-standard dreadnought from the outside.

Thanas wrote:

MarshalFoch wrote:

xerex wrote:I remember one offensive he attack three planets simultaneously. He had 5 SDs under his direct command with 8 SD's attacked the other two planets.

I assume you are referring to Ukio, which IIRC, he used the other ISDs to lure away the New Republic sector fleet away in packets, and one was sent to hit the sector fleet's base to ensure that no ships would interfere with his planned assault, perhaps showing he did not have the offensive resources at the time to defeat the New Republic's forces in a given sector.

No, it just shows Thrawn's tactical brilliance. Note that a few weeks later, he is able to attack the forces of Bel Iblis, which may/may not have been a NR sector group, with Numbers at least as strong. The logical conclusion is that his other forces were busing taking other planets besides Ukio, which for all its importance is still just one planet.

To be fair, Ukio is listed by the Enyclopedia as one of the top five producers of foodstuffs in the Galaxy, so it was considerably more than one planet. And if anything shows the ineptness of the New Republic commanders on Ord Pardron, allowing their force to be diluted so much as Thrawn did that he was able to take Ukio with only token resistance, rather than focusing on repelling the most immenent threats.

I'm not exactly sure, but I believe Bel Iblis is in command at Ketaris, which was a New Republic sector force afaik, which is after he has secured a supply of resources to feed his new Dreadnaught Fleet. He clearly does not have the resources to both defend what the Empire holds and go on the offensive against the New Republic, he institutes a massive building program to outstrip the New Republic, buys ships, and even attempts to steal Republic ships at Sluis Van, the capture of the Katana Fleet allowed him to speed up his offensive plans.

Batman wrote:What has him being a Grand Admiral got to do with anything anyway?
He could have been the Emperor Reborn and if 7 ISDs plus supporting forces (which I notice you neglect to mention) is all he had access to, that's all he's got. Not that even barring the Katana force that was all he had-as already stated those 5 ISDs were his personal fleet, not the entirety of his resources.

Well, I would have thought that with a Grand Admiral running ariund, various Imperial Warlords would have joined up. Going from 10s of thousands of ISDs at the Empire's peak to less than 10 under the command of the most brillant commander in the galaxy in 5 years seems... strange, to say the least.

Yes and no. Even though Thrawn is brilliant most of those Warlords now only care about their own bottom line and are out to get each other as much, or more, than the New Republic. Those Warlords are not ging to be any less inclined to help Thrawn that they would any other warlord out there. Now if Thrawn had managed to defeat the New Republic he might have been able to sway some of those warlords into his camp. As is it appears that the only Person they were willing to rally around was the reborn Emperor, perhaps he had dirt on them or something.

Admiral Daala found several people willing to help her resurrect the Empire, and she's a phsycopath. Thrawn, being alien, could empathize more with nonhuman subjects. He has real victories to produce, whereas Daala had zip. I maintain that he should have had more than what he got.

But him being an alien is also a problem for swaying warlords to his fold. Daala, while Female was at least human and willing to use brutish tacics to sway followers. She could wave the flag of being associated with Tarkin.

For Thrawn to get more support even being a Grand Admiral he would need to pull quiet a few rabbits out of his hat. If he had not been killed by Ruhk and had won the battle he might have gained the huge fleets of those sparring warlords. Until that point he is just another Imperial warlord who the other have no reason to trust.

Daala at least could claim ties to the great Grand Moff Tarkin to sway other warlords to come and talk to her.

Master_Baerne wrote:

Batman wrote:What has him being a Grand Admiral got to do with anything anyway?
He could have been the Emperor Reborn and if 7 ISDs plus supporting forces (which I notice you neglect to mention) is all he had access to, that's all he's got. Not that even barring the Katana force that was all he had-as already stated those 5 ISDs were his personal fleet, not the entirety of his resources.

Well, I would have thought that with a Grand Admiral running ariund, various Imperial Warlords would have joined up.

Despite the (at least in the EU) pretty blatant Imperial anti-alien bias and Thrawn was what again? Oh right, an alien. Plus as Isolder mentioned it was pretty much every Warlord for himself.

Going from 10s of thousands of ISDs at the Empire's peak to less than 10 under the command of the most brillant commander in the galaxy in 5 years seems... strange, to say the least.

It would had that ever happened. Too bad it DIDN'T. Did you actually read TTT?

For any one warlord to support Thrawn he'd have to get a majority of them to support him. For if one didn't join the party the rest wouldn't want to just to keep an eye on the one who didn't. AKA none of them are going to join if all their neighbors don't join as well. Thrawn would have do something pretty spectacular to get a majority to follow him given that he is an alien.

Master_Baerne wrote:Admiral Daala found several people willing to help her resurrect the Empire, and she's a psycopath.

And we all know how oh so very successful she was.

Thrawn, being alien, could empathize more with nonhuman subjects.

You mean the ones that (as per the EU at least) would be overjoyed they're finally RID of the Empire?

He has real victories to produce, whereas Daala had zip. I maintain that he should have had more than what he got.

He HAD more than what you grant him. WAY more. Did you actually bother to read the thread? Or TTT for that matter?

Since Ars Dangor and the Council was backing Thrawn, they could have leaned on people like Kaine to provide something in the way of manpower, if not in frontline soldiers, than perhaps with the maintenance and logistical ends.