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Karen Traviss (the author of RC: Hard Contact) and Ryan Kaufman, are writing a guide to the Grand Army of the Republic for Star Wars Insider, let this number drop in a thread over at the TFN here:

++http://boards.theforce.net/Literature/b ... 4243/p108/

Mind you, this number may not make it past Lucasfilm, much less become official, even if Traviss and Kaufman seriously intend to include a similar number in the guide. Plus, for all I know they may not have been serious when they mentioned it.

I bring it up because this seems, to me, to be a reasonable number for a SAS/Delta force type special forces organization that is expected to operate in a civilization like the one depicted in Star Wars. It is also a welcome change from the sort of silly screw ups like the 1.2 million clones business after AOTC.

Opinions?

10,000 Republic Commandos ... eh, seems to small.

Question: How elite are these Republic Commandoes supposed to be. Depending on the answer, it can be reasonable or too small.

If they are top of the line elite, like Imperial Royal Guardsmen elite or better, sure. If they are just "regular" elite, say like US Rangers elite, it is way too low.

As a reference, a Soviet Front, which is four or five Armies having a ballpark total of up to maybe 300,000 men, has a 1300 man Spetznaz "brigade" (and each Army has a little company). There are AFAIK some more brigades under direct Ministry Control. It is estimated Russia still has 7 brigades of Spetznaz.

USSOCOM is estimated to have about 46,000 people, but they figure the real combat guys inside the unit are 10,000 or less.

One can adjust his thoughts accordingly.

They're meant to be very good, but not quite as good as ARC troopers.

Judging by Delta Squad's list of accomplishments (while losing only one man), 2,500 squads can have a considerable impact on the outcome of a war. Of course, it's possible that Delta Squad is an exceptional case where chance and circumstance propelled them to greater heights than the typical RC team.


As an aside, how many ARC Troopers were made before they stopped manufacturing them?

Well, Delta Force and Seal Team 6 don't exist, so perhaps there are commando units "off the books."

You'd just have to say "SEALs", not "SEAL Team 6".
I think SEAL Team 6 is a counter-terrorism unit so that's kinda inappropriate.

That's IIRC, though, I may be wrong. Smack me if I am

Cykeisme wrote:You'd just have to say "SEALs", not "SEAL Team 6".
I think SEAL Team 6 is a counter-terrorism unit so that's kinda inappropriate.

That's IIRC, though, I may be wrong. Smack me if I am

Oh, sorry. You were correct according to the Wikipedia entry on SEAL Team Six.

Not a problem, really, since I expect that Republic Commando squads occassionally have to deal with CIS-sponsored small-unit actions (sabotage and such) on worlds in Republic space, which would be something like counter-terrorism.

Cykeisme wrote:Not a problem, really, since I expect that Republic Commando squads occassionally have to deal with CIS-sponsored small-unit actions (sabotage and such) on worlds in Republic space, which would be something like counter-terrorism.

My point was not the Republic Commandos' mission but that there might exist units that were not officially recognized by the GAR or the Republic, like Delta Force:

Wikipedia wrote:Initially, the existence of Delta Force was officially denied, even though it was commonly known that the unit took part in Operation Eagle Claw, the failed attempt to rescue American hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1979.

The official number of 10,000 Republic Commandos might be misleading.

Vympel wrote:10,000 Republic Commandos ... eh, seems to small.

I agree, especially in a universe of trillions of inhabitants .

Are there any hard numbers on the number of ARC-troopers?

The ARC-troopers in The Cestus Deception seemed to contradict the Clone Commandos description of the differences between ARC-troopers and Commandos:

Justin Lambros wrote:If you've got a problem, you can send one ARC trooper, you can send one hundred clone troopers, or you can send a squad of four clone commandos.

ARC-troopers in The Cestus Deception were deployed as a unit and were extremely effective. Also in The Clone Wars we see ARC-troopers deployed in groups. Were these unusual circumstance or was the "ARC-troopers go in alone" fabricated by the Clone Commando creators?

Mr. T wrote:

Vympel wrote:10,000 Republic Commandos ... eh, seems to small.

I agree, especially in a universe of trillions of inhabitants .

While that would be a distinctly valid concern when discussing the number of clone personnel in the entire Grand Army of the Republic, it may not be quite as applicable to a discussion of specialized Republic Commando squads.
The size of the population of the galaxy has far less bearing on the number of highly specialized personnel that are typically employed separately, away from the bulk of their army. The presence of a Republic battlegroup on a world does not necessarily mean that there are any Commando teams participating in that theatre.


It's possible that the low number of Commandos is due to the nature of their manufacture; perhaps they wanted more, but were unable to produce them in time.
Unlike the standard Clone Troopers, which can be mass-produced due to their automated computer-assisted training, Republic Commandos are apparently taught by living instructors. I don't recall the source, but if I'm not mistaken, the instructors are mercenaries, soldiers, bounty hunters and the like, selected and employed for their particular talents.

I don't recall the source, but if I'm not mistaken, the instructors are mercenaries, soldiers, bounty hunters and the like, selected and employed for their particular talents.

Republic Commando: Hard Contact. Each team is trained in a fairly sizeable group, in which ten or so squads train together.

Thanks! I've been meaning to pick up Hard Contact for ages, it's probably about time I do.

I'm guessing that the forty-man "classes" have more than one instructor, one for each specialized subject taught... but is there any way to infer the ratio of commandos to instructors, using the information gleaned from the novel?

Edit: The instructors may each teach more than one group, so I guess it may not be possible to determine the ratio unless the novel provides an exceptional amount of information on the training program.

I'm guessing that the forty-man "classes" have more than one instructor, one for each specialized subject taught... but is there any way to infer the ratio of commandos to instructors, using the information gleaned from the novel?

From what I could gather, each forty man "class" had one main instructor, although they might have had others, and Kaminoans to supplement the instruction of course.

[quote="Crom"]Are there any hard numbers on the number of ARC-troopers?

The ARC-troopers in [i]The Cestus Deception[/i] seemed to contradict the [url=http://www.starwars.com/databank/organi ... do/?id=bts]Clone Commandos[/url] description of the differences between ARC-troopers and Commandos:

[quote="Justin Lambros"]If you've got a problem, you can send one ARC trooper, you can send one hundred clone troopers, or you can send a squad of four clone commandos.[/quote]

ARC-troopers in [i]The Cestus Deception[/i] were deployed as a unit and were extremely effective. Also in [i]The Clone Wars[/i] we see ARC-troopers deployed in groups. Were these unusual circumstance or was the "ARC-troopers go in alone" fabricated by the Clone Commando creators?[/quote]

I think that meant that ARC troopers are more effective than the Commandos.

Crom wrote:ARC-troopers in The Cestus Deception were deployed as a unit and were extremely effective. Also in The Clone Wars we see ARC-troopers deployed in groups. Were these unusual circumstance or was the "ARC-troopers go in alone" fabricated by the Clone Commando creators?

while see ARCs work in unit Cestus Deception is not one of those cases as there's only one ARC (Alfa-98 aka Nate aka Jangotat) in the commando group sent to Ord Cetus

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:Question: How elite are these Republic Commandoes supposed to be. Depending on the answer, it can be reasonable or too small.

Keep in mind that if the US Army (or any other modern army) got ahold of a regular clone trooper, even without his gear, he would quickly be assigned to a special forces unit. With minimal re-training on modern weapons and equipment, the guy would easily become a SEAL or an SAS member. Not only is he likely to be physically more capable than most if not all of those soldiers (owing to his superior genetics), but he should also be bright and come with exceptional training.

Lord Revan wrote:while see ARCs work in unit Cestus Deception is not one of those cases as there's only one ARC (Alfa-98 aka Nate aka Jangotat) in the commando group sent to Ord Cetus

I'm a little confused. Here's what I think you're saying:

Revan wrote:While we see ARCs work in units, The Cestus Deceptionp is not one of those cases because there is only one actualy ARC ( A-98 ) who is command of the group of clonetroopers.

I thought, first of all, that they were all ARC-troopers, and what more, they still sent more than just one ARC-trooper, they sent an ARC-trooper with a squad of clonetroopers. Which still seems to fly in the face of the whole, "One problem, one ARC-trooper or four Clone Commandos."

Adamskywalker007 wrote:I think that meant that ARC troopers are more effective than the Commandos.

According to the Databank the ARC-troopers were replaced not on the basis of their performance but because of issues of independence. I suppose they could be as good or better than Commandos, though since Jango Fett personally trained the ARC, they might not be as versatile as the Commandos who seem to have a whole group of trainers. I wonder if this independence issue ties into the Order 66. But then I was under the impression that ARC-troopers were present in RotS. Weird.

Master of Ossus wrote:Keep in mind that if the US Army (or any other modern army) got ahold of a regular clone trooper, even without his gear, he would quickly be assigned to a special forces unit. With minimal re-training on modern weapons and equipment, the guy would easily become a SEAL or an SAS member. Not only is he likely to be physically more capable than most if not all of those soldiers (owing to his superior genetics), but he should also be bright and come with exceptional training.

I didn't get the impression that the Clonetroopers were equivalent to a SEAL or SAS from any of the movies. They seem to have incredible discipline which I thought made sense due to their heavy indoctrination and training. What gave you the impression that their genetics are superior and that they would be great candidates for modern day special forces?

Exceptional training? Pheh. Was there anything exceptional with the way CTs fought? No.

Crom wrote:

Revan wrote:While we see ARCs work in units, The Cestus Deceptionp is not one of those cases because there is only one actualy ARC ( A-98 ) who is command of the group of clonetroopers.

I thought, first of all, that they were all ARC-troopers, and what more, they still sent more than just one ARC-trooper, they sent an ARC-trooper with a squad of clonetroopers. Which still seems to fly in the face of the whole, "One problem, one ARC-trooper or four Clone Commandos."

it seem they have ARC captain (A-98 ) in command of squad of three Clone Commandos (CT-36/732, CT-44/444 and CT-12/74) it possible at that the need the added inpendence of an ARC, but also a team ( so they pick three Commandos and an ARC to lead them).

Lord Revan wrote:it seem they have ARC captain (A-98 ) in command of squad of three Clone Commandos (CT-36/732, CT-44/444 and CT-12/74) it possible at that the need the added inpendence of an ARC, but also a team ( so they pick three Commandos and an ARC to lead them).

IIRC they were definitely not Commandos, as in Clone Commandos. At least not in terms of armor, training, or equipment.