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I was watching The Clone Wars the other day and I realized, the Republic Navy almost always appears in a triangular formation (groups of 3) as opposed to the Grand Army of the Republic which has a square formation (groupings of four). I also tend to see many CIS vessels, but generally speaking only ever see 3 or 6 Republic vessels. I know the Republic vessels aren't always powerful enough to defeat CIS vessels who are quantitatively superior to them. So how do they seem to win all the time? How could they win the war if it takes a flotilla of them to team up on one Lucrehulk?

Each ship was also now so powerful due to the increased amount of power devoted to offensive and defensive systems that a whole flotilla of Republic Star Destroyers was needed just to bring down its shields.

I'm assuming a flotilla is either 3, or a multiple of 3, vessels. I'm also assuming that the CIS has more Lucrehulks than the Republic has Jedi, since it further appears that each Jedi commands his own group of 3 cruisers/destroyers. Even if they didn't have more Lucrehulks, I'd say that having a few dozen (approximately 36 and same source as above) participate in one battle is more than the 33 Jedi that survived Geonosis.

So, my questions are:
Why does the Navy operate in threes and the Army in fours?
Should it take three Republic cruisers (figure Venators for the purposes of the question) to take out one Lucrehulk?

The same reason most modern militaries are organized on 3-5 subunits per unit? I believe it is difficult for any one person to deal with much more than that at the same time.

Could be the army uses a slightly different template due to tradition/being different/strategy papers/Admirals whim.

recon20011 wrote:I was watching The Clone Wars the other day and I realized, the Republic Navy almost always appears in a triangular formation (groups of 3) as opposed to the Grand Army of the Republic which has a square formation (groupings of four). I also tend to see many CIS vessels, but generally speaking only ever see 3 or 6 Republic vessels. I know the Republic vessels aren't always powerful enough to defeat CIS vessels who are quantitatively superior to them. So how do they seem to win all the time? How could they win the war if it takes a flotilla of them to team up on one Lucrehulk?

Each ship was also now so powerful due to the increased amount of power devoted to offensive and defensive systems that a whole flotilla of Republic Star Destroyers was needed just to bring down its shields.

I'm assuming a flotilla is either 3, or a multiple of 3, vessels. I'm also assuming that the CIS has more Lucrehulks than the Republic has Jedi, since it further appears that each Jedi commands his own group of 3 cruisers/destroyers. Even if they didn't have more Lucrehulks, I'd say that having a few dozen (approximately 36 and same source as above) participate in one battle is more than the 33 Jedi that survived Geonosis.

Ok, I just have to point out how wrong this is, if you are seriously suggesting that the Geonosis survivors represent the entirety of the Jedi available. Now maybe I misunderstood you, but it is canon fact that there were at least 10,000 Jedi in the Galaxy. Not all were at Geonosis. Those deployed to Geonosis would probably be pretty much those who were on Coruscant at the time Windu left.

Also, there's no real definitive reason to assume that its a strict "1 Jedi to 3 cruisers."

As to your questions, I'm honestly not sure.

The Romulan Republic wrote: Ok, I just have to point out how wrong this is, if you are seriously suggesting that the Geonosis survivors represent the entirety of the Jedi available. Now maybe I misunderstood you, but it is canon fact that there were at least 10,000 Jedi in the Galaxy. Not all were at Geonosis. Those deployed to Geonosis would probably be pretty much those who were on Coruscant at the time Windu left.

Also, there's no real definitive reason to assume that its a strict "1 Jedi to 3 cruisers."

I actually truly had no idea how many Jedi there were. 33 seemed like a ridiculously low number but it was the only one that I recalled seeing. 10,000 makes vastly more sense though.
I assumed that the ratio was 3 cruisers to one Jedi because, at least in the cartoons, that is all we seem to be seeing.

Artemas wrote:The same reason most modern militaries are organized on 3-5 subunits per unit? I believe it is difficult for any one person to deal with much more than that at the same time.

Could be the army uses a slightly different template due to tradition/being different/strategy papers/Admirals whim.

I understand why they use a number between 3 and 5. I agree, that seems to be how most armies are organized. What I don't understand is the discrepancy between the Army and the Navy. shouldn't they be compatible?

Institutional differences. Why do the navy and army have different uniforms? Why does a marine squad have 12 dudes, whereas an army squad have 9-10? Why do (did?) east coast marines have different radio freqs than west coast marines?

I sorta figured the Army and Navy would cooperate to make carrying troops easier. And why do radio frequencies change? Because otherwise you might get random bursts scattered through the atmosphere and onto the channels of the marines on the opposite coast

recon20011 wrote:I sorta figured the Army and Navy would cooperate to make carrying troops easier. And why do radio frequencies change? Because otherwise you might get random bursts scattered through the atmosphere and onto the channels of the marines on the opposite coast

And then they would communicate! And know what the west coast marines are doing!

WE CANNOT ALLOW A COMMUNICATION GAP!

Its not that... its the confusion that would ensue... both groups are going to think they are talking to their own, imagine the comms mishaps that would bring about!

We really have no idea what standard Republic Naval tactics are, what we see are usually Skywalker pie in the sky hail Mary shit. I would assume 3 ships represent the smallest amount of vessels needed to perform standard maneuvers against a known target.

If you ask me, it's because they want to operate in a wedge formation.

Of course, maybe the CGI people are lazy but hey...

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:If you ask me, it's because they want to operate in a wedge formation.

Of course, maybe the CGI people are lazy but hey...

Could be both.
The wedge formation could be a sound tactical reason to operate by threes. I would prefer a diamond formation, better all-round protection. But if you're only expecting to be fighting facing forwards anyways, I suppose 3 vessels would be the optimum from a control standpoint. Its easier to keep 2 friendly vessels in sight from your flagship compared to 3.

And I also did some of the math out for a Venator's troop-carrying capacity (feel free to correct):
Walkers: 24 on each vessel, class of walker is undefined. 24*3=72. Total for a flotilla (for the purposes of this paper a flotilla is 3 Venators) is 72 walkers. Basic armored platoon consists of 4 walkers. 4*4=16. 16 walkers in a company. 16*4=64. 64 walkers in a battalion. That leaves 8 walkers unaccounted for. There are 4 companies of walkers in each flotilla, each company could be assigned a command vehicle (modified or not, it doesn't matter), leaving 4 walkers for the battalion headquarters.
Gunships: There are 40 gunships on each vessel, exact class of gunship is undefined. 40*3=120. Total for the flotilla is 120 gunships, divided by 4 (the number of Republic Army sub-units on-board) which gives each sub-unit 30 gunships.
Troops: 2,000 troops on each vessel, for a total of 6,000 in the flotilla. A clonetrooper regiment is 2,304 clones strong, not counting officers. If you include sergeants (256), lieutenants (64), captains (16), majors (4), clone commanders (2), and Jedi Commanders (1), that gives you a grand total of 2,647 souls in one regiment. Out of a flotilla's 6,000 troop-berths, 5,294 of them are taken if there are only two regiments of clone infantry on-board. This is where the trouble reconciling the Army's square formation with the Navy's triangular formation lies. That, plus the fact that a Venator has enough berths for 700 men less than a full regiment. Cut out a hangar bay for a couple dozen or so starfighters and replace it with bunks for 700 more clonetroopers? Why not? I wonder if 2,000 isn't just a convenient number to round to, and a Venator is indeed supposed to carry a full regiment.

Thoughts?

Elements that you are forgetting recon2011 is Armored battalion troops and support personal. If you included that I think it comes out closer to the two regiments with no spares. There could also be extra space for ARC troopers that do not fall within the regiment structure. This "lack" of troops is easy to explain if we remember that a Venator is not built for transporting troops, that is still the Aclamator's job. A venator might only need its troops as anti boarding or as a fast responce ship.

Alright then. A flotilla of Venators carries:
1 walker battalion (presumably AT-TEs, they seem to be everywhere) (72 walkers)
120 gunships (maybe 10 squadrons of 12 each? It divides itself better now, 5 squadrons to each regiment)
2 infantry regiments (5,300 troopers)

That seems a bit gunship-heavy to me. But then again, I suppose they are the reaction force.

Now that you've brought Acclamators up though, I'm curious to see how 3 Acclamators compare.

Walkers:
144 AT-TEs which equals 2 armored battalions (72 each).
108 SPHA walkers which equals 3 artillery battalions of 6 batteries each with 6 guns. (3*6*6=108) (Yes, I had to get away from the 4x4 organization for this one, but for some reason artillery tends to congregate in batteries of 6 guns each, and the numbers didn't seem to want to fit using a 4x4 organizational scheme.)
Gunships:
240 gunships in 20 squadrons of 12 each.
Scout bikes:
960 bikes. Going to steal from the Imperial order of battle: 5 bikes per squad. That means there are 192 scout squads, with 4 per platoon for 48 platoons. With 4 platoons per company that gives us 12 companies. 4 companies per battalion leaves us with 3 reconnaissance battalions.
Troops:
48,000 berths available for troopers and support crews. Since it worked so well in the Venators, where each regiment filled approximately 3,000 berths, including support personnel (tank drivers, gunners, LAAT pilots, etc) I'm going to use that here as well. 48,000 berths fits 16 regiments of infantry. That is one whole legion/brigade.

I'm going to make an assumption: If this is how many of each unit that a flotilla of Acclamators can carry, then wouldn't it make sense to assume that this is the standard make-up of a Brigade?
2 armored battalions
3 artillery battalions
20 gunship squadrons
3 reconnaissance battalions
16 infantry regiments
plus support troops

Sounds about right. Regarding why the Republic Navy works in threes, it is probably a scouting thing. They can have 1 ship in lead, and have both its flanks covered. That's my idea, though it could be altered depending on the size of the force.