Could an ISD really carry nearly 50,000 people?

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2004-02-15 01:09am

Has everyone ever studied if it a 1,600 meter long star destroyer could carry a crew of 37,000 and 9,700 troops plus all the equipment? I thought about it and it just seems impossible. I would think the crew and troops would be packed into the ISD like sardines. The 37,000 figure from what I recall comes from WEG. Are there any canon or aleast official sources for the 37,000 figure?

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-02-15 01:49am

Volume of a 1600m x 900m x 200m triangular prism: 9.6E7 m^3
People onboard said triangular prism: 37,000
Cubic meters per person: 2600 m^3
Volume of a Nimitz class carrier of 333m x 771m x 41m: 1.1E6 m^3
People onboard said carrier: 5000
Cubic meters per person: 220 m^3

Not doing the math before asking a dumbass question: priceless

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-02-15 02:04am

Taking into account the huge amount of space taken up by the ship's reactor and engines, that should be just about right.

Besides, I've heard somewhere that the ISD has 100,000 or 150,000 people.

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2004-02-15 02:06am

paladin wrote:Has everyone ever studied if it a 1,600 meter long star destroyer could carry a crew of 37,000 and 9,700 troops plus all the equipment? I thought about it and it just seems impossible. I would think the crew and troops would be packed into the ISD like sardines. The 37,000 figure from what I recall comes from WEG. Are there any canon or aleast official sources for the 37,000 figure?

WEG IS official. It ain't perfect (far from it, in fact,) but it did give some good stuff like the Imperial Sourcebook.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2004-02-15 02:07am

Not doing the math before asking a dumbass question: priceless

Actually, it's about 2056m^3. You forgot the troops.

Post by **Vympel** » 2004-02-15 02:19am

Hey, even I thought 37,000 crew etc was bit excessive. I just never really put much thought into it.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-02-15 02:20am

StarshipTitanic wrote:
Not doing the math before asking a dumbass question: priceless
Actually, it's about 2056m^3. You forgot the troops.

Except I left out the tower and terraces. So we're probably back to about 2900

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2004-02-15 10:26am

Didn't Micheal January did some stats for the ISD, that showed that the ISD people to space ratio was even lower than the Enterprise and Nimitz equivalent?

GySgt. Hartman · Post by **GySgt. Hartman** » 2004-02-15 11:30am

That is of course not the space available to the crew, you have to subtract the reactor core, hangar bays, storage compartments, etc.
Mr. January actually said:

From this comparison, we can determine that an ISD is extremely under-crewed as it has the lowest ratio of crew-member per unit volume of the three vessels. [USS Nimitz, E-E, ISD]

Ignorant_Boy · Post by **Ignorant_Boy** » 2004-02-15 12:14pm

Howedar wrote:Volume of a 1600m x 900m x 200m triangular prism: 9.6E7 m^3
People onboard said triangular prism: 37,000
Cubic meters per person: 2600 m^3
Volume of a Nimitz class carrier of 333m x 771m x 41m: 1.1E6 m^3
People onboard said carrier: 5000
Cubic meters per person: 220 m^3

Not doing the math before asking a dumbass question: priceless

The Nimitz is 771m wide?

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-02-15 03:01pm

Finger spasm, that should read 71m.

Macross · Post by **Macross** » 2004-02-15 06:36pm

GySgt. Hartman wrote:That is of course not the space available to the crew, you have to subtract the reactor core, hangar bays, storage compartments, etc.
Mr. January actually said:
From this comparison, we can determine that an ISD is extremely under-crewed as it has the lowest ratio of crew-member per unit volume of the three vessels. [USS Nimitz, E-E, ISD]

Cool, the Nimitz has a "shield generator"

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2004-02-15 07:55pm

I always thought the stats for the crew of a typical ISD was 37,000 and that was including the 9,700 stormtroopers? Or is it 37,000 crew members plus the 9,700 stormtroopers?

Given the size of an ISD, isn't its TIE Fighter capacity, ground vehicle capcity, shuttle capcity, everything....a little......low?

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2004-02-15 07:56pm

I always thought the stats for the crew of a typical ISD was 37,000 and that was including the 9,700 stormtroopers? Or is it 37,000 crew members plus the 9,700 stormtroopers?

Given the size of an ISD, isn't its TIE Fighter capacity, ground vehicle capcity, shuttle capcity, everything....a little......low?

GySgt. Hartman · Post by **GySgt. Hartman** » 2004-02-15 09:16pm

It's 37,000 plus 9,700 stormies.
An ISD carries a TIE wing, landing barges, shuttle, transports, assault transports, gunboats, a number of other support craft, AT-ATs and AT-STs and even a pre-fabricated garrison base.
http://www.galacticempiredatabank.com/ISD.html
The reactor core takes up a lot of space, and the ISD is clearly a multi-role vessel. It can launch planetary assaults and is also a pretty good space combat craft. It carries enough crafts and troops to accmplish its role.

Smiling Bandit · Post by **Smiling Bandit** » 2004-02-16 08:49am

Hey, even I thought 37,000 crew etc was bit excessive. I just never really put much thought into it.

This is quite correct, to a point. If it were just designed for space assaults and planetary defense, it would not need nearly so many people. It could be made smaller and equally powerful. However, it fulfills a huge variety of other roles, including mobile carrier, garrison, and so forth. I assume the Empire found it overall cheaper to have such multi-role birds rather than trying to micromanage a billions soldiers and vessels per sector.

The Alliance adopted a similar principle, though probably because they had no choice but to do what they needed with whatever they had at hand.

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2004-02-16 09:12am

Vympel wrote:Hey, even I thought 37,000 crew etc was bit excessive. I just never really put much thought into it.

Yes, it is. Especially when you look at NR craft of similar duties and performance. They carry about 6000 or so men each, and about a regiment of troops.

Perhaps relatively blank volume takes up a lot of people in the SW universe. Even after the NR supposedly increased automation, the crew was still about 28000.

The only thing I could think of is the long endurance in KDY vessels compared to NR vessels (we are talking as much as ten times longer here.) The full:skeleton ratio is very high in a KDY vessel, like 7:1 when the Star Destroyer-level NR ships are more like 5:1 at most.

The crew may have gone to several places:
1) Dedicated FTS personnel for more major maintenance. Where a NR ship goes home to a yard, the ISD solves the problem with onboard FTS personnel and moves on.
2) Increased human specialization. Where a NR ship may have one generalist for a position, an ISD may have say 3 or 5 specialists. If the team of specialists are trained well, they can probably deal with major problems better than a single generalist can.
3) Simply more human bodies to use as replacements.
4) More shifts, to ensure the crew get more off-time. That may be important in maintaining morale and efficiency during a six-year deployment.
5) Perhaps even some manufacturing of small items, like protorps for the fighters.

All these take up crew, but if you could feed them, should be able to extend the time that you are out before the refit.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2004-02-16 07:39pm

That's what always gets me... games aren't considered "canon" and yet here we have a game dictating officiality to the rest of the franchise (except the films). Sigh...

But then I guess if you HAD to choose a game to use for official stuff, an RPG would be the one.

GySgt. Hartman · Post by **GySgt. Hartman** » 2004-02-17 06:48am

Games are official, so as long as they aren't contradicted, they are a source of information, and a pretty good one at that.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-02-17 06:53am

The big question is why does an ISD need so many crew members to operate ?

GySgt. Hartman · Post by **GySgt. Hartman** » 2004-02-17 07:50am

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:The crew may have gone to several places:
1) Dedicated FTS personnel for more major maintenance. Where a NR ship goes home to a yard, the ISD solves the problem with onboard FTS personnel and moves on.
2) Increased human specialization. Where a NR ship may have one generalist for a position, an ISD may have say 3 or 5 specialists. If the team of specialists are trained well, they can probably deal with major problems better than a single generalist can.
3) Simply more human bodies to use as replacements.
4) More shifts, to ensure the crew get more off-time. That may be important in maintaining morale and efficiency during a six-year deployment.
5) Perhaps even some manufacturing of small items, like protorps for the fighters.

All these take up crew, but if you could feed them, should be able to extend the time that you are out before the refit.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2004-02-17 10:01am

3) Simply more human bodies to use as replacements.

Especially if Vader is aboard...

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-02-17 10:06am

evilcat4000 wrote:The big question is why does an ISD need so many crew members to operate ?

Because it's a big ship.

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2004-02-17 10:51am

Well the ship also carries consumables for six years (the NR "New Class"-vessels for five MONTHS) and if - i think it was - Soldier of the Empire is to be believed, it has large recreation-facilities for the huge crew and the long service-times.

And, again if memory serves correct, a battleship will perform the better, the more crew you put on it.

Smiling Bandit · Post by **Smiling Bandit** » 2004-02-17 11:24am

I'm thinking the proper metaphor is a small armed city, not a ship. Of course, most wouldn't have to, being based around a sector and having a home base for recreation and so forth.

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Could an ISD really carry nearly 50,000 people?

Could an ISD really carry nearly 50,000 people?

Re: Could an ISD really carry nearly 50,000 people?