Imperial Sourcebook Calcs: Size of the Imperial Navy

[Questor]

I know this is close to the thread on Imperial Militerization, but I thought I would add a lower limit to Thelea's upper limit. In calculating the size of the empire I used the lower limit of 50 systems per sector and a scale of 3-1000 for the number of sectors in each of the regions. Because of this, and because I did not use full augmentation all the way through the system, but only in the regions where I thought it would be needed, this should be regarded as a lower limit.

A while ago I made some calcs based on WEG's Imperial Sourcebook for ASVS. I have updated those calcs. The full spreadsheet can be found at this location

The big addition is a calculation of the size of the Imperial Navy.

Here are the results:
Sectors in Empire: 2,208
Oversectors: 187
Imperial Navy:
Number of Units: 107,060,839
Starships: 106,679,477
Combat Starships: 100,838,227
Troopships: 652,320
Support Ships: 5,188,880
Space Stations: 381,362
Battlestations: 374,090
Support Stations: 7,272
Lancer Class Frigates: 33,353,448
Carrack Class Cruisers: 45,068,760
Strike Class Cruisers: 17,014,880
Interdicter Cruisers: 4,724,552
Imperial Class Star Destroyers: 656,712
Executor Class Super Star Destroyers: 16,102
Sovereign Class Super Star Destroyers: 3,636
Eclipse Class Super Star Destroyers: 187
Evakmar-KDY Transport Ships: 652,320
Torpedo Spheres: 373,920
Death Stars: 170
Deep Dock Facilities: 7,272
Corvette-size Support Ships: 1,823,120
Medium-size Support Ships: 1,542,620
Field Secured Container Vessels: 1,823,120

In the document I have notes regarding my assumptions.

[Connor MacLeod]

There are other much more conservative "lower limits" for fleet size based on the ISB (like the fact that the empire has "thousands" of Sector groups)

I might point out that according to the ISB, an average Sector has "hundreds" of worlds. 50 worlds per sector was the Old Republic definition, I believe.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Death Stars: 170

Dur?

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Executor Class Super Star Destroyers: 16,102
Sovereign Class Super Star Destroyers: 3,636
Eclipse Class Super Star Destroyers: 187

Dur again?

[SCVN 2812]

Death Stars: 170

Dur?

Death Stars don't really strike me either as the sort of thing you'd let even your most trusted or even force enthralled commanders use. Not a whole heck of a lot of good being the most powerful sith lord who ever lived will do you if one of your lackies decides to usurp the throne by superlasering Imperial Center.

[Illuminatus Primus]

You might want to explain your methodology, at least.

[Alyeska]

I can safely say those calcs are full of shit. For them to be real, you have to assume that the Empire was in such a massive disaray that it litteraly self destructed and 99.999% of the fleet was destroyed by political infighting and self proclaimed warlords.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Aly, you never get a post-Endor fleet count. And you can hardly go by, "well we never see them on any comic panel" - the EU is not that broad and comprehensive, and by the same logic no Sector Groups ever existed, since we never saw that either in between-the-films EU.

The only Imperial post-Endor lower limit is the Byss armada, which had tens of thousands of large ships easily.

[Alyeska]

The Post Endor fleet can be calculated by the fact that it was not capable of dealing with openly rebelious planets very effectively. Fleets that formerly traveled about numbering 50+ were now reduced to task forces of 10 ships or so with an ISD taking lead. The Rebellion could not have won with much of the Imperial fleet surviving. Byss technicaly counts as a loss because the Empire lost its heavy hitters.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The Post Endor fleet can be calculated by the fact that it was not capable of dealing with openly rebelious planets very effectively.

Quotes? (Anecdotal evidence is insufficient.)

Fleets that formerly traveled about numbering 50+ were now reduced to task forces of 10 ships or so with an ISD taking lead.

Examples? Similarly paltry fleets were seen both pre- and post-Endor.

The Rebellion could not have won with much of the Imperial fleet surviving.

Unless much of it was decentralized into warlord fiefdoms, already encorporated into the Republic, or recalled to Byss.

Byss technicaly counts as a loss because the Empire lost its heavy hitters.

Its not a loss because the Empire still had them, they just weren't using them. and there are hundreds of Deep Core worlds, and the warlords tore themselves to shreds for two whole years with little resources for replenishment since the Battle of Onderon and the destruction of Byss to Daala's mass assassination.

Pretty much any mass exodus of Imperial hardware can be explained by the recalls. I remind you the EU has been pretty tight-lipped about Core Worlds' and other well-populated regions' warlordism. Grand Admiral Grunger is our only current example.

[Alyeska]

Quotes? (Anecdotal evidence is insufficient.)

Its simple Math. If the Empire had 100 million capitalships at its disposal the Rebellion would have floundered. Either that or the Empire is incompetent to an extreme. Though this 100 million count would indicate that the Empire was made up almost entirely of ships about the size of a Corellian Corvette when you consider it only had 25,000 ISDs. Actualy thats the nail in the coffin for this fleet count. He claims more then half a million when it was stated they only had 25,000 at the height.

Examples? Similarly paltry fleets were seen both pre- and post-Endor.

Fleet sizes were far more pathetic post-Endor.

Unless much of it was decentralized into warlord fiefdoms, already encorporated into the Republic, or recalled to Byss.

We aren't talking 5 million ships being lost that way. We are talking loosing more then 100 million ships through sheer incompetence.

Its not a loss because the Empire still had them, they just weren't using them. and there are hundreds of Deep Core worlds, and the warlords tore themselves to shreds for two whole years with little resources for replenishment since the Battle of Onderon and the destruction of Byss to Daala's mass assassination.

Pretty much any mass exodus of Imperial hardware can be explained by the recalls. I remind you the EU has been pretty tight-lipped about Core Worlds' and other well-populated regions' warlordism. Grand Admiral Grunger is our only current example.

Byss is a perfectly example of a fleet loss. They were recalled by an element of the Emporer to a single location where the bulk of the Empire was unaware of the ships existance and were completely out of action for the vast bulk of the war leaving the Empire without much of its heavy hitting ships.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Its simple Math. If the Empire had 100 million capitalships at its disposal the Rebellion would have floundered. Either that or the Empire is incompetent to an extreme. Though this 100 million count would indicate that the Empire was made up almost entirely of ships about the size of a Corellian Corvette when you consider it only had 25,000 ISDs. Actualy thats the nail in the coffin for this fleet count. He claims more then half a million when it was stated they only had 25,000 at the height.

I'm not arguing specifics, I'm arguing generalities. A galaxy is a big place. There's ample space for an entity smaller than a single Sector Group to hide. Especially when they're selectively avoiding conventional confrontations.

Fleet sizes were far more pathetic post-Endor.

I said EXAMPLES, please. Your say-so is not an example.

We aren't talking 5 million ships being lost that way. We are talking loosing more then 100 million ships through sheer incompetence.

Incompetence is not your institutional bais toward successionism and warlordism and defection.

Byss is a perfectly example of a fleet loss. They were recalled by an element of the Emporer to a single location where the bulk of the Empire was unaware of the ships existance and were completely out of action for the vast bulk of the war leaving the Empire without much of its heavy hitting ships.

And this has what to do with what? Hm. The Galactic Emperor, the reigning Soveriegn of the Galactic Empire controlled most of its war materiel, and left his incompetent underlings to squabble over the weakly defended outer regions. "An element of the Emperor"? This is THE Emperor.

Its just another strategy of the Empire; and it would've worked too. Like I said, Byss and her many sister worlds provide a simple hole where a galactic-wide military very rapidly diminished, and with the EU unable to comprehend even the OOBs offered in the Sourcebooks.

[Questor]

OK, I'm redoing the calcs, based on several comments I have recieved.

Before I go any farther I want to get comments on my thoughts for lines.

I'm using the following classes for the following types of ships

Corellian Gunship is a Corvette.
Lancer Class is a Frigate.
Nebulon-B Class is a Frigate.
Carrack Class is a Light Cruiser.
Strike Class is a Heavy Cruiser.
Interdictor Cruiser is a Heavy Cruiser.
Victory Star Destroyers are Light Star Destroyers.
Imperial Star Destroyers are Star Destroyers.
Evakmar-KDY transports are Troop Transports.
Corellian Corvettes are Corvette-Sized Transports.
Imperial Star Galleons are Medium-Sized Transports.
Field Secured Container Vessels are Large Transports.
Torpedo Spheres are Torpedo Spheres.
Deepdock Complexes are Deepdock Complexes.

As for the lines, here are what I think they are, along with my rationalizations.

Attack Line: 6 Carrack Class Cruisers - I chose to use light cruisers in the Attack Line because heavy cruisers already have a place in the Heavy Attack Line.

Heavy Attack Line: 8 Strike Class Cruisers - I chose heavy cruisers here because they are the heaviest ship type that fits in the description.

Persuit Line: 10 Interdictor Cruisers - I chose to include Interdictors in the persuit line because of thier ability to trap a ship in real space.

Recon Line: 4 Carrack Class Cruisers - I chose light cruisers here because of the wording of the paragraph.

Skirmish Line: 12 Corellian Gunships, 4 Nebulon-B Frigates, 4 Lancer Class Frigates - I chose to use a mixed complement here because of the description in the ISB. It says that corvettes are the most common ships. They and the Nebulon-Bs harrass larger ships, while the Lancers protect against starfighters.

Troop Line: 2 Evakmar-KDY Transports, 2 Strike Cruisers - Make-up is taken directly from ISB.

Torpedo Line: 2 Torpedo Spheres - Make-up is taken directly from ISB.

Light Star Destroyer Line: Victory Class Star Destroyer - Included because numbers of Star Destroyers could get higher than 25,000.

Star Destroyer Line: Imperial Star Destroyer - Should be obvious.

All comments are appreciated and requested.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I imagine Coreward you might find other variant like Harrow-type Star Destroyer and examples of Allegiance.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

What's an "Evakmar"?

[Questor]

What's an "Evakmar"?

It's a starship manufacturer. The Evakmar-KDY Troop Transport can carry a full corps.


Yay! 100 Posts.

[Cabwi Desco]

im gonna say double WHA! on those Super Star Destroyer figures.
you want me to believe this?
Executor Class Super Star Destroyers: 16,102
Sovereign Class Super Star Destroyers: 3,636
Eclipse Class Super Star Destroyers: 187
are you nutzors? how in the name of all get out could there be sixteen THOUSAND executor class SSDs? Three THOUSAND Sovereigns? nearly two HUNDRED Eclipses? who do you take me for a fool? with those numbers the empire couldve taken on the vong singlehandedly! these numbers are SOOOOO farfetched i cant believe them!.
according to the only plausible sources available there have been 12 count'em TWELVE executor class SSDs!
Aggressor
Executor
Guardian
Iron Fist (originally named Brawl)
Knight Hammer (originally named Night Hammer)
Lusankya
Pride of Yevetha (originally named Intimidator)
Razor's Kiss
Reaper
Terror
Vacillitator
Vengeance

how can you possibly state there are over 16000 of those things!

Im also more likely to believe that there were TWO eclipse classes. I would REALLY liek to know where you got these astronomical figures!

[Illuminatus Primus]

im gonna say double WHA! on those Super Star Destroyer figures.
you want me to believe this?
Executor Class Super Star Destroyers: 16,102
Sovereign Class Super Star Destroyers: 3,636
Eclipse Class Super Star Destroyers: 187
are you nutzors? how in the name of all get out could there be sixteen THOUSAND executor class SSDs? Three THOUSAND Sovereigns? nearly two HUNDRED Eclipses? who do you take me for a fool? with those numbers the empire couldve taken on the vong singlehandedly! these numbers are SOOOOO farfetched i cant believe them!.
according to the only plausible sources available there have been 12 count'em TWELVE executor class SSDs!
Aggressor
Executor
Guardian
Iron Fist (originally named Brawl)
Knight Hammer (originally named Night Hammer)
Lusankya
Pride of Yevetha (originally named Intimidator)
Razor's Kiss
Reaper
Terror
Vacillitator
Vengeance

how can you possibly state there are over 16000 of those things!

Im also more likely to believe that there were TWO eclipse classes. I would REALLY liek to know where you got these astronomical figures!

They are projections based on proportion and the scale of the galaxy and its hypothesized order of battle.

And you missed several Executors. Additionally, since thousands of larger-than-ISD warships were either consumed by infighting after Endor, absorbed into the New Republic and turned against the Empire or scrapped, or recalled to Byss, it stands to reason that additional Executor-class vessels could easily have slipped away under the same pretenses as many of the classes of ship represented at Byss that clearly were more widely deployed prior to Endor. There is, admittably no proof, but if these ships were eventually asserted to exist, it would not contradict anything or be the least bit unreasonable, in light of the great context described above.

[Cabwi Desco]

Yes i understand these are hypothetical but i still cannot abide by these figures!

However i do have one request, DO limit the number of DSs

[Illuminatus Primus]

Yes i understand these are hypothetical but i still cannot abide by these figures!

If you awknowledge they are hypotheticals/projections, than what the fuck is there to complain about - unless you have criticism of his basic methodology?

However i do have one request, DO limit the number of DSs

Yes i understand these are hypothetical

If I remember correctly, the Death Stars were to be produced eventually as region-level mobile command centers. Its hardly unreasonable.

[Cabwi Desco]

right. Ok. then i have problems with themethodolgy of supposing that many death stars. I see it in a way like this, think of a RTS videogame, there are only so much of a certain resource on a map, or in this case a system.

The Prototype deathstar alone mustve cost the empire a mighty sum in resources seeing the many factors going into it.
-theres supplies, manufacturing ability, total area revenue, work force (yeah in this case prisoners or slaves), presense of specialized labor, energy values, chances of possible malfunction, insurance, training of officers, design flaws and the like.

The First DS, the only one to be completed i might add, had more firepower on board than the entire imperial navy at the time, this is actually said at one point in either the books or the movie, i cant remember which. You had in this case to find LOYAL AS ALL HELL people who could keep the station secret (this is saying nothing for the bothan spies) on top of all that you needed for the Prototype and more resources than before because this one isnt just a frame its a full solid sphere.

The second Death star. larger than before, not even completed, and relying on a moon based shield for protection, sure it was 'fully' operational, if you can call it that, no independent shields no drive systems and no real surface defense all along that still being built side. not only would it have taken EVEN MORE resources than the first ot was going to need even more manpower to build. Again this one wasnt even finished yet and the empire was feeling strain!

(i shall do two more due to their comparable scale)

The Tarkin Battle Station, not just the precursor to the DS but to the PROTOTYPE DS as well. This station was a gross misuse of resources, sure you can say it was the testbed for the superlaser but you couldve done the samething with the REAL prototpye instead of wasting resources on a second prototype weapon.

The Eclipse Super Star Destroyer. the absolutley only time when the empire finally put their resources into an EFFECTIVE weapon. The DS's were just battlestations, but this was an actual ship capable of dealing out nearly as much of a psychological blow as the deathstars and capable of not just smashing planets but smashing entire fleets as well. if only the empire had made four of these babies they wouldnt have needed such paltry deathstars. and no pesky thermal vents to drop torps into as well.

[PainRack]

If I remember correctly, the Death Stars were to be produced eventually as region-level mobile command centers. Its hardly unreasonable.

Why on earth would Palpatine do that? That would only serve to diffuse any form of stragetic power he had, and destroy the purpose of the Death Stars, which was to concentrate Imperial forces at his command, as opposed to giving more power to the governors.

[consequences]

Where do you get 'feeling strain' from? The empire had the DS2 built in secret, something that can't be done if its bankrupting the galactic economy. A single shipping line provided all of the needed suppport, and it was manufactured from raw materials on site.

[Illuminatus Primus]

right. Ok. then i have problems with themethodolgy of supposing that many death stars. I see it in a way like this, think of a RTS videogame, there are only so much of a certain resource on a map, or in this case a system.

The Prototype deathstar alone mustve cost the empire a mighty sum in resources seeing the many factors going into it.
-theres supplies, manufacturing ability, total area revenue, work force (yeah in this case prisoners or slaves), presense of specialized labor, energy values, chances of possible malfunction, insurance, training of officers, design flaws and the like.

You have precisely no comprehension of the scale of the civilization we are discussing. Check out Dr. Saxton's Star Wars Technical Commentaries (www.theforce.net/swtc)

Check the "Astrophysical Concerns" page and go to the Appendix labeled "galaxy."

First of all, the capital of the Empire contains (conservatively) hundreds of trillions (more than one followed by fourteen zeros) of citizens. There are several city planets like Coruscant (ref: TPM, AOTC). The Empire as a whole contains at least quintillions (one followed by eighteen zeros) of sapient inhabitants (ref: AOTC ICS).

The prototype Death Star was built in a highly secret research facility operated by a single Oversector governor at his personal discresion and with his personal resources (the Emperor was not supposed know about it, though he did, and for this to follow it must've been a Tarkin operation).

The First DS, the only one to be completed i might add, had more firepower on board than the entire imperial navy at the time, this is actually said at one point in either the books or the movie, i cant remember which.

No what GEN Dodonna said was, "the station has the firepower equal to greater than half the Starfleet."

What does this have to do with scale? Oh yeah - nothing. The average warship dedicates much less time and energy to such a single massive prime weapon as the Death Star. The number of ships needed to meet that firepower threshold probably exceeded the mass of the first Death Star.

And the first Death Star seems to have been a Grand Moff Tarkin pet project, so it is possible that it was constructed solely with the support of the Oversector Outer (this is especially likely in light of the still-existing Imperial Senate).

You had in this case to find LOYAL AS ALL HELL people who could keep the station secret (this is saying nothing for the bothan spies) on top of all that you needed for the Prototype and more resources than before because this one isnt just a frame its a full solid sphere.

So what?

Let's assume the Empire only recruits/conscripts 1% of the population. Let's say that of those servicemen, only .001% are completely politically reliable.

Well Coruscant has 100s of trillions of citizens, conservatively. So 1% is 1-9 trillion. Let's round down. Say that Coruscant has 100 trillion, so the Empire picks up 1 trillion people with the "right stuff." Ah, but only 1 out of a hundred thousand are politically reliable. That's ten million. Oh, what is the reported crew of the Death Star I? One tenth of that? Oh right. And that's from one Core World in the Empire. Yes, the Death Star's crew is probably much larger, but if you'll be stingy, I'll be stingy. And besides, I'm sure if necessary the Empire will lift more than 1% of the citizenry, and I'm sure more than .001% can be reliably found who carry essentially no risk of becoming Rebel spies. And even so, there are at least half a dozen Coruscant-size worlds, and a total of twelve million major inhabited systems. Consider a desertified rock on the Outer Rim like Geonosis: 100 billion inhabitants.

Even better, the Galactic Empire uses widespread cloning technology. At the time of the subjugation of Kashyyyk, 40% of the Imperial Marines were clones belonging to a single line, with no less than three other lines in use, with two of those at least still in production. And GeNodes, as Pax Empirica and countless RPG supplements reveal, are essentially 100% reliable.

And the builders? ITWSWT implies that large-scale construction is accomplished with exponentially self-reproducing construction droids (machines of this type are frequently, but perhaps incorrectly known as "von Neumann machines"). The work gangs? Convicts and Wookies stranded on Despayre without any means of escape or communication. Loose ends which were tied up by obliterating Despayre after the commissioning of the first Death Star.

The second Death star. larger than before, not even completed, and relying on a moon based shield for protection, sure it was 'fully' operational, if you can call it that, no independent shields no drive systems and no real surface defense all along that still being built side. not only would it have taken EVEN MORE resources than the first ot was going to need even more manpower to build. Again this one wasnt even finished yet and the empire was feeling strain!

The Galactic Empire completed 60% of this installation in six months. The entire construct was fabricated from raw materials on-site, the raw materials being shipped by the shipping fleet of a single corporation - Xizor Transport Systems. And ITWSWT suggests that Palpatine may have surreptiously intentionally delayed construction as a means of convincing the rebels that its main armament was not yet operational and speculatively, it provided a plausible reason for Palpatine and Vader to oversee the construction site (an excellent piece of disinformation by Palpatine).

And this station was hundreds of times the volume of the original Death Star. And its sheer scale did not adversely affect the galactic economy.

The Tarkin Battle Station, not just the precursor to the DS but to the PROTOTYPE DS as well.

No, you're wrong. The prototype Death Star was a proof-of-concept device for the original Death Star. The Tarkin was a fully-operational battlestation* designed to implement various refinements and adjustments of the superlaser concept since the destruction of the original Death Star.

(* As for why they built the Death Star II, I speculate that the much smaller Tarkin lacked the strength to punch through the strongest deflector shields, such as that deployed on Alderaan in ANH; possibly it was built with a philosophy shared by the much-later "Pulsar Station" concept.)

This station was a gross misuse of resources, sure you can say it was the testbed for the superlaser but you couldve done the samething with the REAL prototpye instead of wasting resources on a second prototype weapon.

Palpatine probably did not want to reveal the existance of the Maw by turning it into a massive construction site. Additionally, I doubt the Death Star prototype could be brought up to full specs or accomplish the Tarkin's purpose.

The Eclipse Super Star Destroyer. the absolutley only time when the empire finally put their resources into an EFFECTIVE weapon. The DS's were just battlestations, but this was an actual ship capable of dealing out nearly as much of a psychological blow as the deathstars and capable of not just smashing planets but smashing entire fleets as well. if only the empire had made four of these babies they wouldnt have needed such paltry deathstars. and no pesky thermal vents to drop torps into as well.

The Eclipse and Soveriegn probably lacked the power to punch through planetary shielding, GREATLY reducing their effectiveness and utility compared to the Death Stars. And the second Death Star lacked the Achilles Heel, so that's a complete strawman. Additionally, the Death Star II was just as effective (and almost certainly much more so) against fleets than the Eclipse,

[Illuminatus Primus]

Why on earth would Palpatine do that? That would only serve to diffuse any form of stragetic power he had, and destroy the purpose of the Death Stars, which was to concentrate Imperial forces at his command, as opposed to giving more power to the governors.

I just believe I recall that from WEG materials.

And are you blind? The Death Star was hardly a Palpatinist hammer to drive the Empire into cohesion - its VERY obviously Grand Moff Governor Tarkin's personal toy, with Vader there as Palpatine's watchdog.

I do not know what STAR WARS you've been watching, but the most basic film totally contradicts your assertions.