What would an Empire mobilized for total war look like?

[ArcturusMengsk]

"I ask you: Do you want total war?"



Assuming for the sake of assuming that the relatively undermilitarized Galactic Empire were to encounter a threat potent enough to force them to go 'all out' in terms of recruitment, starship construction, munitions building, etc., what might we expect the Galactic Empire to be capable of putting out?

To put it another way: what are the absolute maximum number of recruits an Empire spanning fifty million worlds should be capable of fielding? Knowing what we do about the speed and availability of their construction resources, how many vessels could they produce in a minimum timeframe? I understand that a great deal of this will be hypothetical, but I'm curious.

[Nathaniel]

IIRC the Deathstar II was at least 100 million times the size of a Star Destroyer and that would be completed in less than a year. So if we take a low end estimate, assuming that it's easier to build a Stardestroyer sized chunk of Deathstar than it is the ship itself and that a star destroyer only has a life of 30 0r so years, the empire should be able to maintain a fleet upwards of a billion Star Destroyers. Probably more.

[Coriolis]

IIRC the Deathstar II was at least 100 million times the size of a Star Destroyer and that would be completed in less than a year. So if we take a low end estimate, assuming that it's easier to build a Stardestroyer sized chunk of Deathstar than it is the ship itself and that a star destroyer only has a life of 30 0r so years, the empire should be able to maintain a fleet upwards of a billion Star Destroyers. Probably more.

Well, if you go by that...

The Death Star II's volume is roughly 380 milllion cubic kilometers. A star destroyer's volume is roughly 65 million cubic meters or .065 cubic kilometers (going by this site here). That come out to about 5.85 billion Star Destroyers.

Despite that, the GE only fielded 25k SD at the time of the Galactic Civil War. The problem with 6 billion star destroyers is how to supply them all. With a Death star, you have one target to keep supplied. If you have that many star destroyers running around, it'll be hell to keep track of them and supplied.

[consequences]

For a potentially silly thought:

What if the Death Stars, in addition to being planet-destroying beach balls o' destruction, were also intended as mobile, essentially unassailable logistics points to assist in supplying fuel for the vastly increased fleet needed for the next phase of Imperial military expansion?

Consider, you've got in the First Death Star a platform that consumes the peak output of a hundred million star destroyers or so when engaged in its primary function. When it isn't killing planets however, there's still that vast fuel store sitting there. A great deal of the issue with the Rebellion was the fact that they essentially preyed on the logistics chain. Said logistics chain would follow fairly predictable paths from whatever hypermass supply depots and generators exist, and would need to go out in essentially penny packets to every military command, or at least every Sector logistics base. In addition, protecting this logistics chain would take a hell of a lot of hulls and effort, and still not necessarily help against hit and run attacks targetting the tankers.

Enter the Death Star. Now you have a mobile platform, essentially invincible, that can go wherever it's needed, and is large enough to carry its own flottila of subordinate tanker vessels(or at least allow them to dock and fuel up). Realistically, it should have enough fighters to push out a combat space patrol bubble far enough to keep Rebels at bay, presuming they can even find it in the first place. At the very least, its ability to act as the logistical center of a major offensive effort shouldn't be discounted.

[Nathaniel]

IIRC the Deathstar II was at least 100 million times the size of a Star Destroyer and that would be completed in less than a year. So if we take a low end estimate, assuming that it's easier to build a Stardestroyer sized chunk of Deathstar than it is the ship itself and that a star destroyer only has a life of 30 0r so years, the empire should be able to maintain a fleet upwards of a billion Star Destroyers. Probably more.

Well, if you go by that...

The Death Star II's volume is roughly 380 milllion cubic kilometers. A star destroyer's volume is roughly 65 million cubic meters or .065 cubic kilometers (going by this site here). That come out to about 5.85 billion Star Destroyers.

Despite that, the GE only fielded 25k SD at the time of the Galactic Civil War. The problem with 6 billion star destroyers is how to supply them all. With a Death star, you have one target to keep supplied. If you have that many star destroyers running around, it'll be hell to keep track of them and supplied.

It shouldn't be any harder to establish half a dozen or so huge supply and repair bases than it would be to supply the Deathstar. In fact, since the DS would be constantly on the move it would be easier to send supplies to a few fixed points. Keeping track of an commanding them shouldn't be too difficult provided they are properly organised into enough sub groups.

I'm just guessing here but it seems possible that it could work with 50 billion SDs if the proper preparations were made.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

A fully mobilized Imperium? You'd probaby get lots of Death Stars, and lots of Star Dreadnaughts as fast as the shipyards at Kuat can churn out. No doubt that the lesser yards would be churning out ISDs by the hundreds if the Empire wanted to.

[RThurmont]

Despite that, the GE only fielded 25k SD at the time of the Galactic Civil War. The problem with 6 billion star destroyers is how to supply them all. With a Death star, you have one target to keep supplied. If you have that many star destroyers running around, it'll be hell to keep track of them and supplied.

Not at all. Automation is clearly extremely well developed in the gGalactic Empire, and consider also that on Earth today we already have fairly impressive computerized tracking systems for transportation: consider the vast fleets of shipping containers and the millions of airline passengers that are processed each day, with a relatively low error rate.

You wouldn't even need central supply bases for the vast fleets of ISDs...you could actually create continually flowing networks of supply ships that would be scheduled to intercept fleets of Star Destroyers at pre-defined points as they travelled to and from various ports.

[lord Martiya]

This don't negate the logistical issues for BOTH parts. So, a full mobilizated Empire will need more escort frigates of Nebulon-B and Lancer classes and escort carriers with relative fighters to escort the convoys, more Carrack and Bayonet class ships and armed platforms to defend the depots, more Strike-class cruiser and interdictor ships to disrupt enemy supply lines, and a lot of other ships to defend the fixed assets.

[Illuminatus Primus]

For a potentially silly thought:

What if the Death Stars, in addition to being planet-destroying beach balls o' destruction, were also intended as mobile, essentially unassailable logistics points to assist in supplying fuel for the vastly increased fleet needed for the next phase of Imperial military expansion?

Consider, you've got in the First Death Star a platform that consumes the peak output of a hundred million star destroyers or so when engaged in its primary function. When it isn't killing planets however, there's still that vast fuel store sitting there. A great deal of the issue with the Rebellion was the fact that they essentially preyed on the logistics chain. Said logistics chain would follow fairly predictable paths from whatever hypermass supply depots and generators exist, and would need to go out in essentially penny packets to every military command, or at least every Sector logistics base. In addition, protecting this logistics chain would take a hell of a lot of hulls and effort, and still not necessarily help against hit and run attacks targetting the tankers.

Enter the Death Star. Now you have a mobile platform, essentially invincible, that can go wherever it's needed, and is large enough to carry its own flottila of subordinate tanker vessels(or at least allow them to dock and fuel up). Realistically, it should have enough fighters to push out a combat space patrol bubble far enough to keep Rebels at bay, presuming they can even find it in the first place. At the very least, its ability to act as the logistical center of a major offensive effort shouldn't be discounted.

Because it moving and traveling through hyperspace will cost comparable amounts of energy to destroying planets. Its a logistics sink. It can only serve ships when they go to it, much less efficient than a distributed network of tankers moving the same tonnage of fuel without the superfluous weight of the superlaser and other engines of combat.

[Darth Massacrus]

What would occur if a fully mobilized Empire were to use World Devastators (or something similar) as a means to expand it's forces, along with whatever the various shipyards (KDY, Bilbringi, Yaga Minor, ect) were producing?

[Sarevok]

Would not how a fully mobilized Empire look like depend on what they are fighting ? We cant really decide without knowing what kind of threat they are fighting. Depending on whether they are invading a neighbouring galaxy, fighting a civil war or repelling an alien invasion the Empire's mobilization response could be very different.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Would not how a fully mobilized Empire look like depend on what they are fighting ? We cant really decide without knowing what kind of threat they are fighting. Depending on whether they are invading a neighbouring galaxy, fighting a civil war or repelling an alien invasion the Empire's mobilization response could be very different.

Let's say ROB pops in and informs them that they have a decade to prepare for a full-scale invasion by the Tyranids.

[Solauren]

Question; Do they get any of the 'we developed it and the rebels blew it up, and we haven't had time to restart manufacturing before Endor' technologies?

Because a few of those ones the Empire 'experienced delays' with during the Civil War would radically alter the face of a mobilized Imperial fleet.

[Nathaniel]

Let's say ROB pops in and informs them that they have a decade to prepare for a full-scale invasion by the Tyranids.

Well considering that Tyranid ships are vastly weaker and slower than the Empire's standard warships, there will be no need to mobilise fully to counter the threat. The empire should be able to defeat them without them even entering visual range.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Let's say ROB pops in and informs them that they have a decade to prepare for a full-scale invasion by the Tyranids.

Well considering that Tyranid ships are vastly weaker and slower than the Empire's standard warships, there will be no need to mobilise fully to counter the threat. The empire should be able to defeat them without them even entering visual range.

Look, I really don't care what they're fighting. That's not the question here. All I want to know is a rough benchmark as to the theoretical maximum limit of the Empire's wartime output. Several hundred million capital ships? A billion? How many soldiers? It doesn't matter what they're fighting; Palpatine may have gone utterly insane and gone to total mobilization on his own.

[FTeik]

What would occur if a fully mobilized Empire were to use World Devastators (or something similar) as a means to expand it's forces, along with whatever the various shipyards (KDY, Bilbringi, Yaga Minor, ect) were producing?

The only thing that seems to make the WDs different from (selfreplicating) construction-droids is their armament and the fact, that they are hyperspace-capable.

[Vehrec]

Let's make some conservative estimates of the Empire's population, to use as a benchmark for conscription figures. We shall assume that there are only 50 million settled worlds, colonies, moons, orbital habitats and all other areas where sentient life lives in the Empire. Assume that the average population for one of these is one billion, with ages ranging from newborn to 120 on average. Let us assume that these age-groups are evenly distributed and equal in size. So there are roughly 8.333 million persons of each age per world. Let us assume that the Empire will conscript 5% of it's population between the ages of 18 and 35.
8,333,333*17=141,666,661, 141,666,661*.05=7.083 Million Conscripts per world.
If each world gives up the same number of people, the total number of conscripts by these highly conservative calculations would be 354,166,652,500,000. Over 350 trillion men and women in uniform. How they would be divided up, trained, and what services they would go into would be beyond the scope of these most basic calculations.

[FTeik]

The entire sentinent population of the GFFA is estimated to be 100 quadrillion beings, IIRC. Unfortunately we don't know how many of them are human or near-human only that they form the majority.

[thejester]

To throw out some historical benchmarks:

The USSR had a population of 179,000,000 at the start of the WW2 (Oxford Dictionary of the Second World War). Total mobilised manpower was 34,476,700; of these, 29,574,900 were in the armed forces (Overy, Russia's War). That's a high-end example, without being extreme; Serbia in WW1 would probably provide a better example of total and utter mobilisation.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Does anyone have accurate, cited figures for the ISD's and Executor's volume?

[Solauren]

Question -

Are we assuming that the Imperial military is going to make heavy use of Droids for this? Because that would have an effect too. Staffing ships becomes easier if you're making them on the assembly line

i.e Some of the Trade Federation / Confederacy ships carried MILLIONS of droids.

We need more parameters to really figure this out, but the numbers are going to be absolutely jaw-dropping. Especially if you get World Devestator's that do nothing but build more Devestators....

[Darth Massacrus]

The numbers might be even more jaw dropping if slave labor is factored in...

[Ryan Thunder]

The numbers might be even more jaw dropping if slave labor is factored in...

I'm not so sure. Manual labour should be inferior in nearly all respects to droid labour...

[Darth Massacrus]

True, but some species (like the Wookies) seem especially suited to slave labor, especially considering that many Wookies were used to help construct the Death Star. Besides, the Empire could have used both droids and slave labor together to build extra ships and whatnot for the expanded war effort...

[fusion]

Remember the separatist's had quadrillions of droids...
So the empire would have droids in the quintrillions or
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 droids....


Also there was a rumor that there was supposed to be one Death Star for every sector... or about a trillion star destroyers...