Relative size of the Old Republic, Empire and NR starfleet

[Iosef Cross]

We don't have canon evidence of the exact size of the starfleets of the Republic (say, at the start of the clone wars or at it's end), Empire (ANH) or New Republic (various points), but considering the sources in existence, how they would compare?

I would guess that the republic fleet at the end of the clone wars was maybe larger than the Imperial fleet 25 years later, and that the NR fleet was the smallest of the 3 (considering that they had a less consolidated position in the galaxy than either the Old Republic or the Empire, while the Old Republic was fully mobilized for war at the end of the clone wars while the Empire keep a smaller fleet for it's internal security).

And the 25,000 stardestroyers figure is still used for the Empire at the time of ANH? It looks like too low, considering the size of the Empire, the high relative importance of stardestroyers for the imperial fleet and the size of the death stars. I would say that 25 million stardestroyers would be much more realistic.

[Srelex]

We know that the CIS was able to devote millions of warships to the Outer Rim alone, according to the ICS, so the Republic must have been able to field similar numbers. The 25,000 ISDs number has been called into question, but it seems that the Imperial Navy, with all the classes of ships taken it, also numbers in the millions. NR, I don't know.

[darthscott]

I concur, I would think that combination of the Republic Fleets with the individual Planetary Navies during the Clone Wars would give you millions of capital ships of all sizes.

I would also think the Empire would probably yield a fleet just as large if not larger. I have always hoped that the 25,000 Star Destroyer number was the number of Imperial-class Star Destroyers alone. Then again the Star Wars universe is not known for having any realistic or just plain common sense numbers for almost anything. They did at least mention that the Imperial Navy had trillions of personnel in the latest Rebellion Era Campaign Guide.

I would assume the New Republic fleet would be far smaller than both by a good order of magnitude. I thought one of the older reference books gave the size New Republic fleet as a percentage of the Imperial Fleet, but my memory could be deceiving me.

[Iosef Cross]

The 25,000 ISD number is unrealistic based from the evidence of the movies, since in the movies Emperor (or Imperial) Star Destroyers appear to be the most common type of Imperial major naval vessel that is encountered in patrols and the Empire apparently has a few for every couple of systems, since they have millions of systems, they should have millions of stardestroyers.

They did at least mention that the Imperial Navy had trillions of personnel in the latest Rebellion Era Campaign Guide.

That would be consistent with a navy of millions or tens of millions of SD sized starships, about 1 million to 100,000 personnel for every SD mass equivalent in the fleet. In WW2, navies had about 1,000 personnel for every few thousand tons of major warships.

[Srelex]

Remember, the 25,000 figure, as minamalist as it is, only refers to the Imperial-class--there's frigates, other ISDs, and so on.

[Crazedwraith]

The 25,000 ISD number is unrealistic based from the evidence of the movies, since in the movies Emperor (or Imperial) Star Destroyers appear to be the most common type of Imperial major naval vessel that is encountered in patrols and the Empire apparently has a few for every couple of systems, since they have millions of systems, they should have millions of stardestroyers.

That's highly debatable. Han Solo refers to 'the local Bulk Cruisers' which sound like they do most of the work not the ISDs.

Plus what ISD to we see in the films? A couple near the Death Star. A couple in orbit over Tatooine, presumably under Vader's command; watching over his stormtrooper detachment planet side.

In the other two films we just see the ISD's of Death Squadron and Palpy's personal fleet. They're hardly every where.

[The Romulan Republic]

One point regarding Old Republic vs New Republic fleet sizes:

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=141925

The above thread notes that during the Clone Wars, Republic ships tend to operate in groups of three, whereas Imperial ships (correct me if I'm wrong) tended to operate in larger squadrons. Could this suggest a smaller Republic fleet?

Then, of course, there's the possibility that even if the Old Republic had more ships, the Imperial fleet was larger due to fielding bigger ships. An Imperator is bigger than a Venator, and an Executor or Eclipse or Sovereign is bigger than anything the Old Republic had.

[VT-16]

Most sources from the last ten years are quite clear on this, there's over 25,000 Imperial-class Star Destroyers. That's one class.

Because the structure of the Imperial Navy is a bit muddled, you have to factor in individual planetary/system navies, as well as Moffs' private defense fleets, on top of the standard sector fleet deployments and the reserve forces kept in the Core. The latter of which kept about half of the ISDs and a total amount of ships making up 1/10 of the entire Navy, going by some books.

So you have basically a big leeway with what counts as Imperial ships. All home fleets were made part of the Republic Navy and then the Imperial Navy, so you've got anything from Tapani-made warships, to Corporate Sector Authority fleets, to Rendili/Kuat/Corellia/Humbarine/Naboo defense forces etc. all technically counting as part of the Imperial Navy. If not enforced equally fierce by the central government, that's the consequence of Palpatine's politics and would go some way to making the Imperial-class seem like a drop in the ocean.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

That's highly debatable. Han Solo refers to 'the local Bulk Cruisers' which sound like they do most of the work not the ISDs.

Plus what ISD to we see in the films? A couple near the Death Star. A couple in orbit over Tatooine, presumably under Vader's command; watching over his stormtrooper detachment planet side.

In the other two films we just see the ISD's of Death Squadron and Palpy's personal fleet. They're hardly every where.

It is implied in some fluff that the mere sight of a Star Destroyer will cow most planets (considering their firepower and overall capabilities, that's not surprising). Also bearing in mind the speed of these ships, it should be possible for a single Star Destroyer to 'show the flag' over a significant area.

The figure of 25,000 is not unreasonable if one bears in mind that Star Destroyers represent the upper echelon of the Imperial Navy, and will be vastly outnumbered by smaller ships. If we follow the US navy's example, with 10 carriers in a 600 ship navy, then we have 25,000 ISDs in a 1,500,000 ship navy. If we factor in the 25,000 figure referring only to the Imperial I class (there are other classes, which may represent proportions of smaller ships), and VT-16's point about different fleets, then the actual number could be much larger.

EDIT - Changed 'there may be other classes' to 'there are other classes'

[The Romulan Republic]

The problem with that is that ISDs are nowhere near the biggest and most powerful ships in the Imperial fleet.

[Srelex]

The problem with that is that ISDs are nowhere near the biggest and most powerful ships in the Imperial fleet.

But, unless I'm mistaken, they can be considered the upper echelon of regular line ships, if you know what I mean? SSDs aren't exactly commonplace.

[recon20011]

I don't know if anyone could say that a battleship (think the USS Iowa in Desert Storm) is necessarily more powerful overall than a carrier. Obviously its reach is limited. But in a ground support role its big guns would be devastating. That 600 ship navy had 10 carriers and only 1 or 2 battleships. Of course the battleships were for specialized roles (ground support). I want to say the Iowa could be roughly the equivalent of a ship who's sole purpose is line-of-battle combat and ground fire support operations. Of course, instead of looking for surface units that are more powerful than carriers in the USN, you could view the carriers as the largest vessels in the Imperial Navy and compare the Imperial-class Star Destroyers as Amphibious Assault ships like the USS Boxer. They carry aircraft, helicopters, landing craft, and troops.
Just a couple ideas.

[The Romulan Republic]

you could view the carriers as the largest vessels in the Imperial Navy and compare the Imperial-class Star Destroyers as Amphibious Assault ships like the USS Boxer. They carry aircraft, helicopters, landing craft, and troops.
Just a couple ideas.

Wouldn't the closest equivalent of an Amphibious Assault ship be an Acclamator?

Anyway, as for their being few ships larger than an ISD, I'll have to disagree with that.

A list of Imperial ships can be found on this site, including quite a few apparently larger than the Imperator class, though the information on a lot of them is quite sketchy:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/warships.html

There is also, of course, Han's notorious line in Return of the Jedi:

"there are a lot of command ships."

[Connor MacLeod]

SW doesnt need huge fleets because there is no possible opponent who could threaten the Republic or Empire. Quite the opposite. They have a vested interest (galactic economy, peace and prosperity, greed, what have you) for keeping conflicts highly localized if at all possible. This means limiting ship numbers, ship ranges/speeds, ship firepower/durability, ship sizes, and all sorts of potentially nasty shit.

Having the potential to build alot more warships (or the money, or the possible crews) doesnt neccearily mean they HAVE to do so, nor does having a small fleet neccesarily contradict the ability to build a bigger (or more powerful) one if it chose to do so.

[Serafina]

Connor has a good point:

Both the Republic (for most of it's history) and the Empire had no external threats.
Their military was most likely constructed solely for the purpose of internal peacekeeping - kinda like a better armed police force in a modern state.

You obviously don't need millions of ships to do so, especially given the responce times. Having more ships than your potential internal opponents is enough.

The Republic was further crippled by it's political system.
We see criminal worlds outside the republic (like Tatooine) - but perhaps these were outside the republic because they had no benefit from being a member of the republic. Concluding that the Republic was beneficial to most members makes a lot of sense - leaving propably had dire consequences if you didn't want to be a remote outback.

The Empire would obviously be a less compelling place to stay - which explains the Tarkin doctrine - "you leave, we kill you".
25.000 fast, resilient and well-armed starships with a good complement of fighters and troops would be enough to be able to bring overwhelming force against most dissidents. You might need more firepower to crack planetary shields (hence the Death Star), but you have already isolated your opponent and he can not threaten you - which is sufficient to keep controll of the local systems.

[darthscott]

Good points, but large fleets could also exist due to interplanetary rivalries like for example the 17 wars between Coruscant and Alsakan. With the Republic seeming to be a weak and loose alliance most of the time, and considering the influence of the nobility and major corporations of the SW galaxy, I am guessing that those were not the only wars between two sovereign worlds in 25,000 years.

The only other reasons I could think of for a large fleet in Republic/Imperial times would be to police galactic trade routes, control distant colonies, or just to have a large force on hand in case any external threat did actually emerged form the Unknown Regions or from beyond the Galaxy.

[VT-16]

Good points, but large fleets could also exist due to interplanetary rivalries like for example the 17 wars between Coruscant and Alsakan. With the Republic seeming to be a weak and loose alliance most of the time, and considering the influence of the nobility and major corporations of the SW galaxy, I am guessing that those were not the only wars between two sovereign worlds in 25,000 years.

In fact, Chairman Cho says as much to his Senator in the CW episode Trespass.

"I have led our people since before you were born. I've seen a hundred planets rise and fall through force of arms. If it's not the Separatists out there, then it is an aggressive and malevolent enemy nonetheless, and I will not let whoever it is jeopardize the security of the people of Pantora."

[Serafina]

Well, my point is that the Republic as a whole did not have to go to war (with the corresponding military buildup) for a long time, since there was never an enemy threatening the Republic as a whole.
Until the Clone Wars - and at that point, they propaby did not redirect their whole industry to war purposes simply because it had never been done for thousands of years now. This requires special knowledge that was most likely simply lost.

To summarize:
They had no total war in a long time, thus they lost the knowledge how to go to total war.
Which explains the relatively small fleet sizes (compared to the potential fleet sizes) even in times of war or under the GE.

[recon20011]

you could view the carriers as the largest vessels in the Imperial Navy and compare the Imperial-class Star Destroyers as Amphibious Assault ships like the USS Boxer. They carry aircraft, helicopters, landing craft, and troops.
Just a couple ideas.

Wouldn't the closest equivalent of an Amphibious Assault ship be an Acclamator?

I was comparing ISDs to Amphibious Assault ships because they are multirole vessels with a troop-landing capability, unlike a carrier. I do agree that the Acclamator is a better example, but everything I've read seems to indicate that under the empire the Acclamator was falling out of favor as a military vessel, perhaps eclipsed by other classes, although I've yet to discover another class of vessel that can rival the Acclamator.

They had no total war in a long time, thus they lost the knowledge how to go to total war.
Which explains the relatively small fleet sizes (compared to the potential fleet sizes) even in times of war or under the GE.

The knowledge of total war is usually there, its the will and capability to do so that are generally lacking. In some historical epochs warfare had rules that were, for the most part, followed. In the Star Wars Galaxy, the capability and knowledge of total war are there, as exemplified by Base Delta Zero.

[atg]

Both the Republic (for most of it's history) and the Empire had no external threats.
Their military was most likely constructed solely for the purpose of internal peacekeeping - kinda like a better armed police force in a modern state.

Outbound Flight indicates that Palpatine was aware the Yuuzhan Vong were coming and it is mentioned that he aimed to build a fleet and army to defeat them.

[Serafina]

The knowledge of total war is usually there, its the will and capability to do so that are generally lacking. In some historical epochs warfare had rules that were, for the most part, followed. In the Star Wars Galaxy, the capability and knowledge of total war are there, as exemplified by Base Delta Zero.

Note my narrow definiton of "total war" as "total mobilization of the economy for the purpose of warfare" - like the USA or USSR did in WWII.

This evidently never happened in Star Wars for a very, very long time - not since the Old Republic era.
Otherwise, we would see shipnumbers orders of magnitude higher.
The most sensible explanation is that they needed to mobilize the whole galactic economy - and that during times where it would have made sense (Clone Wars, YV-war), they just didn't know how to mobilize all assests for the purpose of war.
After all, it's not EASY to go to total war - you need to know which factories you have where, you need to know a lot about your available transportation assets, what war materials your factories can put out, how to combine those, what amount of materials you need for this and that and so on. It's hard to know that when the military-industrial complex has been privatized for centuries.
Such knowledge can of course be regained, and i think it's sensible to assume that Palpatine was working on just that.

The only other explanation why we never see such fleet numbers is that they CANT produce that many ships because the ships are either too expensive (thus their economy was already at the limit) or that they really don't have that much industry.
Both make significantly less sense than my explanation that there was simply no need for such amount of ships.

[bz249]

Note my narrow definiton of "total war" as "total mobilization of the economy for the purpose of warfare" - like the USA or USSR did in WWII.

This evidently never happened in Star Wars for a very, very long time - not since the Old Republic era.
Otherwise, we would see shipnumbers orders of magnitude higher.
The most sensible explanation is that they needed to mobilize the whole galactic economy - and that during times where it would have made sense (Clone Wars, YV-war), they just didn't know how to mobilize all assests for the purpose of war.
After all, it's not EASY to go to total war - you need to know which factories you have where, you need to know a lot about your available transportation assets, what war materials your factories can put out, how to combine those, what amount of materials you need for this and that and so on. It's hard to know that when the military-industrial complex has been privatized for centuries.
Such knowledge can of course be regained, and i think it's sensible to assume that Palpatine was working on just that.

The only other explanation why we never see such fleet numbers is that they CANT produce that many ships because the ships are either too expensive (thus their economy was already at the limit) or that they really don't have that much industry.
Both make significantly less sense than my explanation that there was simply no need for such amount of ships.

And it´s not just the economic aspects, but there are military points also. The Republic/Imperial Army and Navy was a relatively small professional branch which have to be expanded to a large conscription based force in case of total mobilization. However effectively managing a squadron of 100 warships is way different than managing a squadron of 6 ships (or a fleet of 100 squadrons vs 6 squadrons) or if they keep the same structure they end up with 4-6 new admiral levels over Grand Admiral with former ship captains promoted to fleet admirals. This is not an easy transition.

[Patroklos]

Connor has a good point:

Both the Republic (for most of it's history) and the Empire had no external threats.
Their military was most likely constructed solely for the purpose of internal peacekeeping - kinda like a better armed police force in a modern state.

You obviously don't need millions of ships to do so, especially given the responce times. Having more ships than your potential internal opponents is enough.

This line of thought leads to the opposite conclusion than the one you reached. If you are building an internal peace keeping force then you will want many more ships because you have to provide a presense, walk the beat so to speak, everywhere at once. This does, however, mean you don't need very large or powerful vessels which may mean ISDs are in the upper end of the scale relative to the fleet as a whole.

[bz249]

Connor has a good point:

Both the Republic (for most of it's history) and the Empire had no external threats.
Their military was most likely constructed solely for the purpose of internal peacekeeping - kinda like a better armed police force in a modern state.

You obviously don't need millions of ships to do so, especially given the responce times. Having more ships than your potential internal opponents is enough.

This line of thought leads to the opposite conclusion than the one you reached. If you are building an internal peace keeping force then you will want many more ships because you have to provide a presense, walk the beat so to speak, everywhere at once. This does, however, mean you don't need very large or powerful vessels which may mean ISDs are in the upper end of the scale relative to the fleet as a whole.

Not neccasarily, the Empire, although much more centralized than the Old Republic is still a rather loose confederation of semi-independent states (both the OT and the EU hints that lot of functions of a modern state is materialized at lower level, for example the Empire does not have the "monopoly on violence", the very fundamental requirement of state in the modern sense). Thus the Empire should and could not garrison every system (Alderaan is a demilitarized zone, while Kuat or Corellia has its security force) and the main operation of the fleet is to show the flag and some gunboat diplomacy style missions for which large and powerful ships with huge deterrent factor fit best. Although an ISD is way over everything a standard planetstate could throw into combat so they fulfil that requirement.

[PainRack]

That's highly debatable. Han Solo refers to 'the local Bulk Cruisers' which sound like they do most of the work not the ISDs.

Note that when Han said that, he also later refers to the ISD as Imperial Cruisers.

To put it simply, Han statement is simply too colloquial, especially given the fact that he's trying to bullshit a farmboy and a geriatric into paying off his debt to Jabba.