True size of the Clone Army

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

I did some searching and asked a mod for permission to start a new thread about this subject. I realize it has probably been discussed quite a few times here already, but I'm currently in the process of writing an essay regarding the true size of the Clone Army and am in need of input. I'll post the reasoning and initial stuff I've put together, bear in mind this is still in quite a rough form. Haven't had time to clean it up properly. Please note that I haven't read any of the Clone Wars-era EU, but have seen all of The Clone Wars animated series, so there will no doubt be flaws in my reasoning.

The Logical Argument

3,000,000 total clones to fight the majority of engagements in a Galactic Scale war makes absolutely no sense. In AoTC, Count Dooku states off-handedly that 10,000 more star systems are expected to be joining the Separatists. Thousands of star systems involved in a conflict which was seen as a dual-solution set war for both involved parties, win or for all intents and purposes cease to exist. Considering the extent of infrastructure and production capabilities witnessed during the course of both the OT and the prequels, the idea that an army with a 3,000,000 strong primary combat force could fight a true Galactic Scale conflict is more than retarded, it's insane. However, since logic seems to play such a small part in these debates nowadays, I'm going to be presenting my argument supporting a number significantly greater than 3,000,000.

Canon-derived arguments

Arguing that 3,000,000 clones consists the entirety of the primary combat arm of the Republic requires ignoring certain sources which indicate or suggest otherwise. Considering that some of the sources suggesting a much larger army are presented matter-of-factly, infodump style, would logically carry a higher importance when trying to determine the facts. Nevertheless, lets look at the figures suggested by different levels of canon.

Attack of the Clones movie: 200,000 "units" ready to be delivered, 1,000,000 more ready soon. This is awfully vague, but logic would suggest that "unit" would mean several clones as military terminology treats "units" as formations of multiple troops. However, no clear-cut figure can be derived from from Lama Su's statement.

The Clone Wars animated series: No figure mentioned outside the droids outnumbering the clones 100 to 1.

Expanded Universe: This is where things get extremely complicated as multiple sources present differing figures, in-universe statements etc. by characters in several cases supporting 3,000,000 clones while matter-of-fact, infodump style information suggesting a larger army. I'm going to try looking at the EU evidence on a point by point basis. This is rather difficult since I haven't read most of the Clone Wars era EU so please correct me if I'm wrong in any of my points.

AoTC Novelization: Obi-Wan seems to assume that a "unit" means a single trooper. This is from a characters perspective and thus could be a false assumption. When one considers that the Republic hasn't fought a full-scale war in a thousand years and as such any Republic military organization would be created more or less from scratch, it wouldn't be far fetched for a Jedi with no direct experience of military organization to make such a mistake. Not to mention Obi-Wan was utterly oblivious to the existence of the Clone Army before he arrived to Kamino. "We are keepers of the peace, not soldiers".

Inside the Worlds of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: Tipoca-city is stated to be ready to deliver 200,000 clones with facilities across Kamino being ready to deliver millions more. A matter-of-fact, narrator perspective statement. Since "millions" can mean anything from 2,000,000 to 999,999,0000, this isn't exactly helpful.

Guide to the Grand Army of the Republic and Republic Commando: Triple Zero: Stated number 3,000,000. However, Ryan Kaufman denied that this was to be considered the total number of troops. LFL made it very clear that no fixed number of clones could or would be assigned. This makes the numbers moot. This could also be applied to Leland Chee's comment regarding 3,000,000 troops. LFL would override Chee as a higher authority (being the source of the movies, the highest canon). While Leland Chee does have the authority to discuss the canon regarding Licensed products and solve contradictions, LFL's decree of not setting a total number of clones would in this case override Chee's authority.

The Cestus Deception: The novel states that a million clones have died. If 3,000,000 clones was a definite number, they would have incurred 33% casualties during the first year of combat operations. This would represent catastrophic losses for the Republic, especially when considering that clones take 10 years to mature. When combined with apparent combat losses seen in TCW in the form of naval vessels, the casualty problem becomes even more prevalent.

Labyrinth of Evil & Revenge of the Sith: Visual Dictionary: These books indicate that clones are an "ubiquitous" presence on Coruscant and other worlds and being used as security as well as counter-terrorism forces. The term "ubiquitous" meaning "existing or being everywhere, esp. at the same time; omnipresent", this would suggest that Coruscant would have sufficient number of clones to effectively be present at pretty much everywhere on Coruscant. Coruscant being one giant city, this would require an immense amount of forces to act as a credible security force.

Revenge of the Sith novel: The Sector Governance Decree set that individual governors were assigned to each and every planet in the Republic with regiments of troops for their protection. These actions were occurring at a time when the Republic forces were stretched thin and to the point of being pushed out of system after system as well as conducting the lengthy Outer Rim Sieges.

Dorling Kindersley books: It should be taken into consideration that these books represent out-of-character, narrator style factbooks. They discuss the issues they address matter-of-factly and would as such present information as it is, instead of going into deceptions, character interpretations etc. I also would recall that the ROTS: ICS speaks of Grand Armies in plural form. The existence of a military formation carrying the Grand Army designation would explain a lot of the contradictions while still making it possible to apply The Grand Army as meaning the entire offensive arm and "The Grand Army" naming aimed for the public, which by the lack of large scale armed conflicts would be largely oblivious to military terminology or organization. For example, Army is a military formation, Army also describes the primary ground combat branch of a country's military forces.

Additional sources exist, however as I mentioned I have read precisely none of the Clone Wars era EU. I have watched all of TCW, but since the subject isn't touched much in the series, seeing the show isn't too helpful. However, from the information I could gather, the statement by Ryan Kaufman about LFL decreeing that there could not and would not be a set number of clones makes the matter rather clear-cut. As is, since the highest authority (par Lucas) has decided that there will not be a set number of clones stated, the 3,000,000 figure flies out of the window. This allows us to start attempting to set the apparently contradictory pieces of evidence together. One method of doing this is to simply use the mention of "Grand Armies". There are multiple "Grand Army" formations with the most commonly used name for the forces for public consumption also being The Grand Army of the Republic.

There is also the question of fleet size. The Republic ordered 1,000 Acclamator-class ships at the outset of the war with un-stated number of warships beginning to fill up the ranks of the Navy. It is also stated in the RoTS: ICS (again from a narrators perspective) that the Separatists had millions of warships locked in battle with Republic fleets. Are we supposed to accept a fleet capable of taking on 2,000,000+ strong Separatist navy, but a primary ground combat branch numbering 3,000,000? Not to mention, if we are to accept the statement of all Acclamator's being crewed by clones in Triple Zero, we would arrive at 16,000,000 clones for the Acclamator's alone. Once again a direct contradiction if trying to justify 3,000,000 as a total number of clones.

Ultimately, it seems utterly impossible to reconcile all pieces of evidence into a working whole. Taking the 3,000,000 figure as the absolute truth requires one to accept Traviss as the sole figure of authority on the matter, as well as a statement from Leland-chee which contradicts with LFL's stated opinion regarding the size of the Clone Army. However, if we accept ROTS:ICS' suggestion of multiple formations carrying the name "Grand Army", it becomes possible to reduce the number of actual serious contradictions.


That's what I have thus far. Please feel free to blast it apart at your leisure

[VT-16]

The Clone Wars Campaign Guide added that the many clones serving in the navy, security forces patrolling Republic worlds, the pilots and technicians etc. are not technically part of this 3 mill force. So I guess that's a slight retcon, one which makes the 3 mill GA out to be a small portion of the overall clone military.

[Darth Yan]

I'd put the clone army at 100,000,000,000,000

[Big Phil]

Is it canon that only clones served in the Grand Army of the Republic (or the Navy, for that matter)? Considering that it takes 10 years to grow a clone, vs. perhaps a year to train a conscript or volunteer, why wouldn't the Republic forces have included non-clones?

[Kingmaker]

In Jedi Trial you've got a division of clones (20,000 if I recall correctly) reinforcing a larger army of volunteers attempting to retake the planet (Praesitlyn) from a million CIS battle droids. It has been a while since I read it though, so I don't remember how large the volunteer army was, or how typical non-clone Republic forces were.

The way the Clone Army was presented in that book suggested that it was more of an offensive/reinforcement force while volunteers and/or conscripts did most of the fighting. The clones just get more attention because the clone armies staging a daring assault to retake a major world is more glamorous than a group of grunts from a planet you've never heard of, fighting to retake another planet you've never heard of. There are still way more than 3 million clones, but you no longer need to resort to impractically slow techniques for building and maintaining an army

[VT-16]

It doesn't take 10 years to grow them, that's been shown in several novels. It's the total amount of training and maturity in the initial army that took that long, once the war got underway, new batches were grown and flash-trained in months. As for the Navy, higher ups were usually non-clones and less-advanced ships were usually crewed by volunteers from existing home fleets.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

The 10 years to grow a clone suitable for combat is weird especially considering the losses the GAR took in the process of prosecuting the war against the CIS. Is there any information in the EU regarding how large portion of the crews of Naval vessels were clones during the war?

[Shroom Man 777]

Nothing indicates that Kamino was the only source of clones, anyway. For all we know, Kamino could've been just one of the many parties the Republic outsourced its clone soldiers from.

[Darth Fanboy]

Nothing indicates that Kamino was the only source of clones, anyway. For all we know, Kamino could've been just one of the many parties the Republic outsourced its clone soldiers from.

Official sources have cloning facilities on Coruscant and its moon. However due to the failings of a certain author who thought herself the authority on clones, the clones not produced on Kamino were shitty in comparison to her "Mando Uber Alles".

[Juubi Karakuchi]

In Jedi Trial you've got a division of clones (20,000 if I recall correctly) reinforcing a larger army of volunteers attempting to retake the planet (Praesitlyn) from a million CIS battle droids. It has been a while since I read it though, so I don't remember how large the volunteer army was, or how typical non-clone Republic forces were.

The way the Clone Army was presented in that book suggested that it was more of an offensive/reinforcement force while volunteers and/or conscripts did most of the fighting. The clones just get more attention because the clone armies staging a daring assault to retake a major world is more glamorous than a group of grunts from a planet you've never heard of, fighting to retake another planet you've never heard of. There are still way more than 3 million clones, but you no longer need to resort to impractically slow techniques for building and maintaining an army
In Jedi Trial you've got a division of clones (20,000 if I recall correctly) reinforcing a larger army of volunteers attempting to retake the planet (Praesitlyn) from a million CIS battle droids. It has been a while since I read it though, so I don't remember how large the volunteer army was, or how typical non-clone Republic forces were.

The way the Clone Army was presented in that book suggested that it was more of an offensive/reinforcement force while volunteers and/or conscripts did most of the fighting. The clones just get more attention because the clone armies staging a daring assault to retake a major world is more glamorous than a group of grunts from a planet you've never heard of, fighting to retake another planet you've never heard of. There are still way more than 3 million clones, but you no longer need to resort to impractically slow techniques for building and maintaining an army

That was pretty much my interpretation also.

As for the matter of clones being assigned to Governors for protection, let us remember what is really going on. The entire war is little more than a giant game of Dejarik between Sidious and Tyrannus, which Sidious is using to lay the foundations for the Empire. As is shown in the ROTS novelization, Anakin simply deactivates the CIS droid armies once the leaders are dead, meaning that it was never necessary to gain actual victory. Any decisions that seem strange from a military point of view should be considered in light of this.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Nothing indicates that Kamino was the only source of clones, anyway. For all we know, Kamino could've been just one of the many parties the Republic outsourced its clone soldiers from.

Official sources have cloning facilities on Coruscant and its moon. However due to the failings of a certain author who thought herself the authority on clones, the clones not produced on Kamino were shitty in comparison to her "Mando Uber Alles".

How were they inferior? Common sense would suggest that the cloning process would be largely standardized by the time the war actually started.

[Bakustra]

That was pretty much my interpretation also.

As for the matter of clones being assigned to Governors for protection, let us remember what is really going on. The entire war is little more than a giant game of Dejarik between Sidious and Tyrannus, which Sidious is using to lay the foundations for the Empire. As is shown in the ROTS novelization, Anakin simply deactivates the CIS droid armies once the leaders are dead, meaning that it was never necessary to gain actual victory. Any decisions that seem strange from a military point of view should be considered in light of this.

On the other hand, the plan is not available to the Jedi, Grievous or the Separatist leadership. Anything that is too strange will lead them to ask questions and possibly start acting more independently. Further, the troops sent off with the governors weren't noticed by the Jedi, or else they didn't care, but either interpretation means that the troops cannot be a significant part of clone manpower (and the troops were all clones). Further, clones were ubiquitous as military police on Coruscant, they provided the larger part of naval crews in the Open Circle Fleet at least, and they are ubiquitous throughout the battles depicted visually in the Clone Wars cartoons and the battles seen in Revenge of the Sith proper. The clones are a significant fraction of Republic manpower.

Nothing indicates that Kamino was the only source of clones, anyway. For all we know, Kamino could've been just one of the many parties the Republic outsourced its clone soldiers from.

Official sources have cloning facilities on Coruscant and its moon. However due to the failings of a certain author who thought herself the authority on clones, the clones not produced on Kamino were shitty in comparison to her "Mando Uber Alles".

How were they inferior? Common sense would suggest that the cloning process would be largely standardized by the time the war actually started.

It's Karen Traviss. She just wanted to work in a way for her conception of a galactic civilization being incompetent with cloning. Alternately, the Coruscant facilities used Spaarti processes that turned out lower-quality clones than Kaminoan processes. I will note that nothing states that the Kaminoans didn't have more clones in the pipeline besides the 1.2 million units available by AOTC. We see them with infant clones being grown in AOTC, so they clearly were raising a number of clones still for the Republic Army. They could very well have staggered the clone production so that they'd have another batch ready every month or so, with them continuing to produce clones until well into the Empire, by which point GeNode types had become more prevalent.

[Connor MacLeod]

Official sources have cloning facilities on Coruscant and its moon. However due to the failings of a certain author who thought herself the authority on clones, the clones not produced on Kamino were shitty in comparison to her "Mando Uber Alles".

That was, as I recall reading, an entirely subjective assessment of one of "her" clones - it can hardly be taken as a representative sample of general capability, and even then it doesnt really tell us much than "new clones aren't as trained as old clones" which is something you could tell wiht the "ten year timeframe" constantly shrinking as it is. Once you separate all the mando-crap from the concept, it actually isn't that unreasonable. A regular soldier can be trained to a reasonable competence in less than a year, after all. Why should it be any less different for cloning?

I would also venture a question as to how much extra benefit additional (years?) of training might benefit. Better acclimation to combat? Familiarity with equipment and training? Espirit de corps? Such things could be valuable, but time and money can also be valuable, and its a tradeoff between the two (Not only might you need those troops sooner, but the money you invest in improving existing troops can be devoted to training/growing new troopers, giving you a larger army.)

The qualitative differences between the Mando approach and "other" training methods is also wholly subjective, as is the degree of improvement, so that doesn't tell us anything either (nevermind being somewhat biased, obviously).

[Connor MacLeod]

Is it canon that only clones served in the Grand Army of the Republic (or the Navy, for that matter)? Considering that it takes 10 years to grow a clone, vs. perhaps a year to train a conscript or volunteer, why wouldn't the Republic forces have included non-clones?

Frankly thats my question. I never liked the idea much of an "All clone" army and with the battle droids involved the term "Clone Wars" has become largely meaningless like other military names ("War on Terror"). I believe that some sources like the Chronology mentioned significant numbers of non-clone volunteers, and we certainly saw non-clone troops fighting alongside the clones in the movies and animated series (both micro and regular).

Nothing indicates that Kamino was the only source of clones, anyway. For all we know, Kamino could've been just one of the many parties the Republic outsourced its clone soldiers from.

There were later in the war I believe (the ROTS ICS mentioned them anyhow.) but initially its just Kamino doing it. Which kinda makes sense since a possible bottleneck in troop production will be available transport anyhow. Any excess clones will be little more than garrison or defense troops (and non-clones already served that role as it is.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Would anyone happen to have the quote from the RoTS Novelization regarding the Sector Governance Decree at hand? I'd like to include that in the essay as well. In addition, is there any information regarding the extent of cloning facilities at Coruscant and its moon?

[lord Martiya]

How were they inferior? Common sense would suggest that the cloning process would be largely standardized by the time the war actually started.

The only possible explanation would be the Spaarti clones: as far I know, they were pitifully trained and tended to go mad more often than the Kaminoan ones.

[Connor MacLeod]

Well there's Spaarti clones but they probably shorten training times in Kamino. I believe Season 1 of the TCW series implies that Kamino is pumping out constant supplies of recruits, thereby implying shorter "construction" rates.

[darthscott]

I'd put the clone army at 100,000,000,000,000

I think I might be okay with that number.

Even considering that the city planets of the Galaxy have official (officially awful) populations that give them a population density of a small rural Earth city and pretty much all others have a populations less than present day Earth, I still think the Grand Army should be in the countless trillions.

Some sources have mentioned that the local planetary forces and draftees also served in the Clone Wars, so that only makes the use of the word "millions" when describing the Army even stupider. I do really wish we would see a lot more of these planetary Armies and Navies used more in SW stories.

[lord Martiya]

Well there's Spaarti clones but they probably shorten training times in Kamino. I believe Season 1 of the TCW series implies that Kamino is pumping out constant supplies of recruits, thereby implying shorter "construction" rates.

Or that they increased the production after the first batch of 100.000 units didn't show glaring flaws (or, if it did, they had been corrected).

[Connor MacLeod]

Just some interesting tidbits I pulled from the Clone Wars campaign guide.

Other words are practically enslaved to meet the demands of their military masters, and the natural resources of entire planets are consumed in a matter of months to keep the fight going.

This does, I think, offer an interesting counterpoint to Traviss' "analyst" in universe about the inability of "quadrillions/quintillions" of droids to be produced (particularily depending on how you define "natural resources")

The Clone Wars embodies traditional warfare better than any other war in the Star Wars saga. Whereas the Galactic Civil War features guerilla warfare against a monolithic Empire, the Clone Wars are a struggle between more evenly matched forces using more conventional tactics and strategies. Battles of the Clone Wars involve two comparable military forces clashing on expansive and exotic battlefields in a struggle to cpature and secure territory.

Both sides are conisdered "evenly matched." This cannot be strictly in terms of numbers, since the Republic held a substnaital qualitative advantage in many ways (equipment, etc.) but it could suggest broadly similar numbers overall, and seems to suggest (at least) the idea of 3 million clones total, throughout the entire war, is absurd.

Large-scale battles are common throughout the Clone Wars. Battles of the Clone Wars reach truly epic proportions, spanning multiple star systems or covering the surface of an entire planet.

Again this isn't definite, but "covering the surfacE" of an entire planet with war, even if you have a single clone occupying hundreds of square kilometers each, it would be well in the millions range for such planets.

At the absolute minimum it argues against the sort of "special operations/brush fire" conflicts Traviss wsa arguing for.

A unit represents a large group of more-or-less identical creatures that work together in mass combat. Unlike a vehicle, a unit is composed of dozens, or even hundreds, of individuals.

Units as defined in the "mass combat". Obviously this could be applied to the definition of "units" in AOTC to achieve different results, and suggests "unit" equals more than just one trooper. (other sources also suggest that.)

Sample unit: Clone trooper battalion
The following statistics are for a unit of clone troopers.

Suggests a unit is of battalion size.

Coruscant experiences a number of radical changes after the start of the Clone Wars.
Large swathes of the cityscape are laid low to make room for military staging areas. Millions of citizens are displaced by the urban renewal, the vast majority of them impoverished, members of alien species loyal to the Confederacy, or both.

An indication of the scale of the staging areas (presumably the ones we saw in AOTC)

Clone troopers patrol much of the planet in force. Ostensibly, this is to combat and root out terrorits threats, more often than not, it is to maintain order and keep public protests to a minimum. Given the clones' military training, they are prone to using deadly force in situations that don't warrant it, and they have little compunction about doing so. Local authorities are helpless ot intervene, and they can do little more than stand by idly and watch events unfold.

Shocktroopers patrol much of Coruscant, echoing similar statemntes made earlier.

Though the clone troopers that comprise both orders are created from the same genetic stock, they are trained differently for different purposes: the Special Operations Brigade for infiltration, sabotage and the occasional assassination, and the Grand Army to fight on the front lines and to occupy captured areas.
..
The precise number of troopers varies for different units, and the following order of battle shows only the structure of infantry units (not including clones in support and command roles, usually at the company level and above.)

Purpose of the Grand Army and the SpecOps sections. The Grand Army is basically an offensive military arm. The passages also suggest that troop numbers might have variance (perhaps in the same way the old ISB suggested organizational units could be "augmented" with additional forces if need be.) The fact that the 3 million figure is merely a minimum in this source does reinforce that idea.

Regiment (2,304 troopers plus support personnel): a regiment consists of 4 battalions, led by a clone commander (sometimes known as a clone regimental commander) and a Jedi commander (usually the Padawan of a Jedi general in a parent unit).

Brigade (9,216 trooers plus support personnel): A Brigade consists of 4 regiments, led by a clone commander (spometimes known as a seniro clone commander) and a Jedi General (a Jedi Knight who has not yet finished training a PAdawan). A brigade is sometimes referred to as a "Legion", depending on the specific unit.

Corps (36,864 troopers plus support personnel): A corps consists of 4 brigades, led by a clone commander (sometimes known as a clone marshal commander) and a Jedi general.

Sector army( 147, 456 troopers plus support personnel): a sector army consists of 4 corps, commanded by a senior Jedi General (usually a Jedi Master who as trained one or more PAdawans through the Jedi Trials).

Systems army (294,912 troopers plus support personnel): A systems army consists of 2 secotr armies, commanded by a high Jedi general (a member of the Jedi High Council).

Grand Army (3,000,000+ troopers plus support personnel): The Grand Army consists of all 10 systems armies, led by the Commander in Chief (Supreme Chancellor Palpatine).

Funny enough, if you run these numbers in conjunction with the number of Jedi, you do get numbers far in excess of the three million figure

Additionally, other clone troopers are not technically a part of the Grand Army of the Republic, such as the clone shocktroopers who operate in a law enforcement role as a part of the Homeworld Security Command.

Reference to there being more clones than those in the GAR, such as the shocktroopers (which are only one example, so others presumably exist.) Given the role of the shock troopers, these troops would fill a defensive/garrison or security role as opposed to an offensive one. This makes sense, since the ability ot attack the enemy will invariably depend on your military transport capability, and that number is undoubtably going to be far smaller than overall troop numbers. The "garrison" troops could fill a double role in replacing troop losses the GAR suffers (or its possible troops get rotated out of the GAR forces into other sections as the war gets on or they take losses, to keep the GAR at full strength.

Note that we KNOW the CIS has a mere "millions" of warships, as opposed to billions (which you would need to haul quadrillions or quintillions of droids around), so the CIS is clearly limited in its numbers of deploying offensive operations.

Clones fill shipboard roles as marines, starfighter pilots, and gunners. Many of the Republic Navy's nonclone captains come from either the navies of various Sector Forces or the ranks of the Judicial Fleet.

Naval forces - including marines are not apart of the GAR structure either. One wonders if the GAR's own military transport capability is treated separately from the Navy.

The Republic Navy is divided into multiple fleets, each representing the entirety of the naval forces in any given sector. There are several hundred republic fleets, each configured for whatever purpose is most neccessary in a given sector.

1 sector = 1 fleet. "hundreds" of Sectors seems low, given that the numbers of sectors supposed to exist extend into the thousands.

Fleet(100-300 vessels, plus support units): A fleet consists of 3-6 battle groups, led by a fleet admiral or senior Jedi general (A Jedi Master). Fleets vary considerably in composition, and they are likely to be reorganized into ad hoc task forces as deemed neccessary for a given sector.

Armada(1,000-5,000 vessels, plus support units): An armada is an organizationla nit that is not meant to engage in battle but rather to represent the total forces assigned to a major theatre of battle, such as the Open Circle Armada under General Kenobi durin the Outer Rim Sieges. An armada typically includes 10-50 fleets, collectively commanded by a high jedi General (a Jedi Master serving on the high council)

Navy: The Galactic Republic Navy consists of all the armadas (and their hundreds of fleets) serving the REpublic, collectively led by the Commander in Chief (Supreme Chancellor Palpatine)

Scale of a fleet and a reiteration of "sector resources including the "hundrds" of fleets" comprising armadas. No idea how many armadas there are in here, but if we know we could probably work something out from the data given.

..the Grand Army of the Republic consists of over three million troops created from the basic genetic template provided by the Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett.

AGain.,.. "over three million" suggesting it is merely a lower limit than an absolute figure.

Lastly I should note that the Clone Wars Campaign Guide lists Kamino as having a 1% Clone population, 1% "other" (mostly other races coming from other planets), and 98% Kamino. Kamino's Kaminoan-only population (start of the Clone Wars) was about a billion (The essential ATlas, the Inside the World AOTC book, and GEonosis and the Outer Rim) - giving a population of 10 million clones on Geonosis.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Extremely interesting information. Certainly it speaks heavily against the minimalist argument. The quite clarifying information regarding "units" is especially helpful.

[Connor MacLeod]

Oh there's lots more that's interesting in the saga edition like these tidbits, which are more peripherally related to the clone wars numbers thing but interesting nonetheless.

The Imperial military is a massive organization, with tens of trillions of regular army soldiers, trillions of fleet crew, and a vast force of stormtroopers both cloned and conditioned. The sheer weight of numbers enables the Empire to simply overwhelm opponents in head-to-head battle.

Yep, that's right. Tens of trillions of troops. Even if only 10% of those were fleet crews, or even 1%, you're gettin hundreds of thousands or millions of ISD-crewed equivalents at least.

The success of the vessel in the early days of the Clone Wars pormpted the Republic to order a thousand more from RHE, which by that time had begun desgining bigger and better variations, along the lines of battleships and destroyers.

The 1,000 Acclamator quote from the old revised pre-saga edition D20 RPG. Implies 16 million clones at some early stages in the war.




Starships of the Galaxy Saga edition:

Produced on a scale to match that of the clone troopers it was desgined to carry, dozens of the ships were crewed and ready to depart when Jedi Master Yoda arrived to mobilize an invasion force.

"Dozens" of Acclamators were ready to be dispatched to Geonosis, which is an assessment echoed by certain other s ources (the numbers disparitiy in the ITW:AOTC book suggested more, for exmaple, and there was the unknown space battle in orbit).

Galaxy at War:

"With no active combat killing off Nova guard soldiers, the high reproduction rate of the

Ailon soon swelled their military past its capacity. At its height, the Nova Guard numbered close to a billion soldiers.

...

Howveer, the Nova Guard's asking price is high, ensurin that the group receives only offers that are usited to a military force of its remarkable size and experience.

During the Empire's reign, Nova Guard soldiers were little more than cannon fodder. Imperial Commanders threw them against entrenched hostiles in the hope that their annihilation would provide insight into the enemy's composition and tactics. After millions of honourable deaths, the Nova Guard began adopting scouting and ambushing tactics.

...

Nova Guard regiments operated alongside the New Republic military to provide muscle and knowledge of Imperial Tactics. The Vuuzhan Vong invasion prompted yet another flip, as the Nova Guard switched sides and led Yuuzhan Vong vanguards against soft spots in the defenses of Cona, Manaan, and Zeltros."

Ailon nova guard, mercenary troops from a single planet, cna potentially produce a billion troops iwthin the timefrmae of the Empire. Not likely that this is something that just every planet could do, but its worth noting the Nova guard were *never* prominent forces that did the bulk of warfare during REpublic Or Empire eras (and they fought all the way up to the NJO)

Truthfully though I've stopped caring about fixing a *particular* number of clones to the GAR or overall. At best you can only do is roughly guess, and that number will invariably change over time - its impossible to control casualties or the influx of replacements to guarnatee you arrive exactly AT a given number (And why the fuck would the Republic say "sorry, we already have 3 million troops, you'll have to find employment elsewhere.) -they're fighting a frigging war, and every war I know of involving the taking and holding of territory against a roughly equal opponent you generally want as many troops as you can get.

So I'm happy to allow for conscription and the addition of additional nonclone forces (I like the idea of nonclones better than clone wank anyhow), I'm happy with allowing the possibility of, say, an initial or early deployment of 3 million clones, but that will change invariably with time and circumstance, so obsessing over that figure is silly. At worst, you somehow sasume the offensive military arm of the Republic udring the war was a mere 3 million ground troops, and for some reason the NAvy and others outnumbered them quite massively (huge numbers of shocktroopers an dother garrison forces, large numbers of clone marines onboard ships, etc.)

[Coyote]

I can see if the "3 million" clones were th efirst batch to spearhead the assault on Geonosis, where they needed a fuckload of guys right now, but after that, the numbers can only grow larger.

And it is baffling to think that during all this not one regular, young fit guy stepped up and said "I'll do my part, where do I sign?" Maybe of those clones that spearheded the assault on Geonosis, the survivors got rotated back to become Drill Sergeants to pass on their uploaded and actual battle knowledge into the raw recruits that started filling in the ranks.

However, in the front line units, clones continued to be used disproportionately and among the Jedi, so they are encountered almost esclusively in the Clone Wars series, leaving the impression that the entire army is still nothing but Clones. But in a sort of espirit de corps/unit tradition move, the clone units only took clone replacements.

[Connor MacLeod]

I can see if the "3 million" clones were th efirst batch to spearhead the assault on Geonosis, where they needed a fuckload of guys right now, but after that, the numbers can only grow larger.

Well, I could see them having a sort of bottleneck militarily speaking from the start, I mean you got to build an army, navy, etc. almost from scratch. There's likely to be a bottleneck in transport capability for troops. AT least for the navy you can rely on long range and speed of hyperdrive. If you have the nonclone defense forces protecting invididual worlds they can go on the offensive.

Eventually though, as you say, the army would have to expand as requirements and the nature of the war changed. I figure we started out with 1.2 Million at or around the end of AOTC. The next batch of troops came out sometime shortly after lets say (boosting to 3 million) and then shortly after that they shortened the deployment times (8 or 9 years instead of ten) At this point you could argue there are hundreds of millions, or billions of clones, and start playing the "milliosn of divisions card" thereafter (Kamino has altered its methods - shortening training or acceleraitng developtment.) From that point onwards the use of other facilities and other processes (EG the Spaarti method) can also be employed to greatly expand clone numbers to something mor plausible. And all the time the offensive against hte Separatists has grown until we have started the Outer Rim Sieges.

And it is baffling to think that during all this not one regular, young fit guy stepped up and said "I'll do my part, where do I sign?" Maybe of those clones that spearheded the assault on Geonosis, the survivors got rotated back to become Drill Sergeants to pass on their uploaded and actual battle knowledge into the raw recruits that started filling in the ranks.

A number of sources actually do mention conscription, and I suspect that did play a substantial role (The Imperial army outgrew from those forces remember.)

I also suspect it would be hard to rely on conscription or "local" military forces simply due to problems of standardization and infrastructure - clones (or just human troops) are easy to provide for, but what if you have thousands of different species participating? That is one advantage of the clones, anyhow.

An amusing tidbit I discovered afte rsome reseacrh from the novel "Order 66"

link to the quote

if the GAR were made up of average humans, you simply would not have a functioning army now. Clone troopers are optimized humans, and only two percent of the population could be as tough, resilient and aggressive as these men are

I'm pretty sure 2% of the human population would outnumber 3 million clones rather significantly.

In the link there's more there, and I find it hard to believe that nonclone forces could not be trained or conditioned to endure years of warfare. I could be wrong, but I'll le tthe military members of the board clarify that.

However, in the front line units, clones continued to be used disproportionately and among the Jedi, so they are encountered almost esclusively in the Clone Wars series, leaving the impression that the entire army is still nothing but Clones. But in a sort of espirit de corps/unit tradition move, the clone units only took clone replacements.

Most of the time we tend to see them used offensively in large numbers (muunilist) and when they are defensive its usually to supplement the already existing defense forces (Mon Calamari, Praestilyn, Kashyyyk, etc.) The thing is we don't really know how many simulatneous battles they engaged in, etc. Some people evne argue that Acclamators were deployed with nonclone troops (EX: Muunilist) and so on and so forth, etc. All we really can say is that they started out small and got bigger at the end (so much so that Palpy was dispatching whole Clone regiments as system/sector level backups to the would-be moffs.)

I'm kinda figuring that in the first year or so there was limited offensive action on the part of the Republic (at least on the ground) due to crew bottlenecks (until Kamino changed its procedues, and other facilities got in on the game and other methods were developed.) Once those were gotten past, then they started taking the battle to the Separatists in earnest. That would be roughly consistent with what we saw - most minor conflicts, esp defensive ones, got a handful of assault ships deployed whereas bigger conflicts like Muunlist might have doznes or hundreds.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

No fixed numbers of clones stated or to be stated would also seem to be LFL's stance on the matter, which many of the Trekkie minimalists at least seem to be blatantly ignoring. One I've met has even succumbed to try and claim that taking LFL's stated "no fixed number of clones could or would be set" as meaning the entire canon hierarchy by licensing flies out of the window. Because LFL has decided to overrule Licensing, in one little detail