How was the creation of the Clone Army financed?

[Srelex]

Furthermore, given the stigma that would result against droids, I think the Republic citizens would be more comfortable with organics as their soldiers rather than what the evil enemy is using.

[Metahive]

Furthermore, given the stigma that would result against droids, I think the Republic citizens would be more comfortable with organics as their soldiers rather than what the evil enemy is using.

But they're perfectly OK with droid policemen. Soldiers are usually something that stays out of visual range in society, policemen don't.

[Srelex]

Well, for all we know there was a lot of stigma against them, which is why I think we don't see many droid police in Imperial times or in things set later on in the Clone Wars.

[Thanas]

^Tiwaz, that does not mean however that this is going to help you much. This is especially noted in Starfighter combat - at some point they are just that skilled that even if you know how they might fight, it is not going to do you much good.

That on other hand would require on how great pilot you manage to copy to flash into your clones.

Fel should be good enough.

And real danger rests on higher level of operations, spaarti-clones would use identical strategies on wide scale as well. And having a commander who can be easily read is recipe for disaster at war. As Simon said, spaarti would make good grunts but you would need someone less predictable to command them.

Doubtful. Tierce managed to do just fine. This "can be easily read" kinda has the idea of a war being a duel between two leaders, which is not the case.

[Shroom Man 777]

Still, if your officers are trained absolutely identically and have little or nothing to differentiate them, they're going to be homogenous and maybe even the way they think would be similar/identical. That has disadvantages. Imagine if the enemy manages to steal or get its hands on the flash-programming used on these clones, then they'd have a good idea of how these guys fight.

[Thanas]

Still, if your officers are trained absolutely identically and have little or nothing to differentiate them, they're going to be homogenous and maybe even the way they think would be similar/identical. That has disadvantages. Imagine if the enemy manages to steal or get its hands on the flash-programming used on these clones, then they'd have a good idea of how these guys fight.

That assumes there is no variation in the programming, which we know there is. For example, Tierce's clone had different memories as well as different skillsets than the Fel clones.

BTW, the same can be said against the Kamino cloning, which does not even use different imprints like the Spaarti cloning does.

[Darth Fanboy]

Well, for all we know there was a lot of stigma against them, which is why I think we don't see many droid police in Imperial times or in things set later on in the Clone Wars.

The only place I recall seeing droid police was Coruscant, which has a fairly large area of places that would be unsafe for sentient police officers and also an incredibly dense urban area (understatement of the day) to patrol. Droid police make tons of sense in those areas and the citizens of Coruscant during that time are probably ingrained to the idea of droid police.

[Tiwaz]

Fel should be good enough.

And then all you pilots act like Fel. If he has any personal deficiencies, those can be exploited on all of his clones.

If he doesn't, then he is perfect pilot. And very boring backup-Jesus (ie, way too perfect).

Doubtful. Tierce managed to do just fine. This "can be easily read" kinda has the idea of a war being a duel between two leaders, which is not the case.

It is duel in sense that commanders try to outthink each other. Strategy and tactics is level of duelling where weapons used are soldiers and gear.

If your enemy knows what you are going to do, you are halfway to losing the fight.

For RL references, USSR vs Finland and Battle for Atlantic post-Enigma capture. In both cases radio intelligence being able to decipher enemy transmissions made huge difference in success.

That assumes there is no variation in the programming, which we know there is. For example, Tierce's clone had different memories as well as different skillsets than the Fel clones.

Because they used different flash. Was there any differentiation INSIDE the batches flashed with same program?

BTW, the same can be said against the Kamino cloning, which does not even use different imprints like the Spaarti cloning does.

Except Kamino cloning uses 10 years of growth to maturity with rigorous training and exercises. They flash them, but once they are out of cloning cylinder they start to differ because they still are human beings, and thus hardwired to learn from experience.

Kaminoan method uses flashing, as I have understood, as foundation to build on during that decade. Not as final touch before releasing the clone to service.

[Metahive]

And then all you pilots act like Fel. If he has any personal deficiencies, those can be exploited on all of his clones.

If he doesn't, then he is perfect pilot. And very boring backup-Jesus (ie, way too perfect).

Do you think Japan would have had an easier time if somehow all US pilots had been like Jimmy Thach? Do you also think that those pilots would have never noticed that their enemy is exploiting certain strategies?

It is duel in sense that commanders try to outthink each other. Strategy and tactics is level of duelling where weapons used are soldiers and gear.

If your enemy knows what you are going to do, you are halfway to losing the fight.

For RL references, USSR vs Finland and Battle for Atlantic post-Enigma capture. In both cases radio intelligence being able to decipher enemy transmissions made huge difference in success.

Why then didn't the Republic curbstomp the CIS when all its troops were identical droids with the same programming? Also, how can radio intercepting be compared to troops being clones?

You are confusing levels of command here.

[recon20011]

Furthermore, given the stigma that would result against droids, I think the Republic citizens would be more comfortable with organics as their soldiers rather than what the evil enemy is using.

I'd like to add that given the ease with which droids can be manufactured (and be halfway decent soldiers) Palpatine engineers the Clone Wars to pit sentients against droids to create an anti-droid atmosphere amongst the general population, meaning that in the future if any rebellious leaders decide to raise an army of droids they can't because no one will support them because they remember droids with dread from the Clone Wars. He is simply cementing his grip on the reins of power before he is even in power.
Additionally, creating an organic army would allow Palpatine to recruit citizens into the Imperial Army as the clones age, thus providing the unemployed with jobs and keeping what would otherwise be a disgruntled group well-disciplined and quiet.

[Tiwaz]

Do you think Japan would have had an easier time if somehow all US pilots had been like Jimmy Thach? Do you also think that those pilots would have never noticed that their enemy is exploiting certain strategies?

Do you think Japan would have fared worse if every pilot was Jimmy Thach and acted in exactly the same way? (at least originally)

And if every US commander was made from same stock with little to no differentiation, do you think that would not have opened up opportunities to use for smart commanders on Japanese side?

Why then didn't the Republic curbstomp the CIS when all its troops were identical droids with the same programming? Also, how can radio intercepting be compared to troops being clones?

You are confusing levels of command here.

Maybe you should read more carefully what I write. I am making a point that at bottom level you can have all carbon clones. Individual soldiers abilities are relatively irrelevant. That is why I find this whole rubbish about profesisonal/conscript army to be very much stupid. Benefits obtained on grassroot level are too small to make huge impact.

Have you noticed that CIS had no droid generals? (at least any that I know) Command decisions were made either by biologicals or advanced AI. Though some level of independence was added to droids with central control proving to be highly vulnerable.

As I have said. While spaarti-clones could make good footsoldiers, they would have to be led by non-spaarti clones, very experienced spaarti-clones or non-clones. Else they are just too predictable and battle comes question of attrition at which point much more easily and cheaply mass produced droids would take victory.

As it is, they were not curbstomp because they had massive numbers to counter quality issues.

Quantity is quality of it's own. And even spaarti-clones would not be able to counter droids in terms of quantity.

[Metahive]

Do you think Japan would have fared worse if every pilot was Jimmy Thach and acted in exactly the same way? (at least originally)

And if every US commander was made from same stock with little to no differentiation, do you think that would not have opened up opportunities to use for smart commanders on Japanese side?

No seriously, if every american pilot had been Jimmy Thach, every grunt Audy Murphy and every General George S. Patton...how would that have helped the Axis? Please answer that question.

Have you noticed that CIS had no droid generals? (at least any that I know) Command decisions were made either by biologicals or advanced AI. Though some level of independence was added to droids with central control proving to be highly vulnerable.

There's your refutation.

As I have said. While spaarti-clones could make good footsoldiers, they would have to be led by non-spaarti clones, very experienced spaarti-clones or non-clones. Else they are just too predictable and battle comes question of attrition at which point much more easily and cheaply mass produced droids would take victory.

As it is, they were not curbstomp because they had massive numbers to counter quality issues.

Quantity is quality of it's own. And even spaarti-clones would not be able to counter droids in terms of quantity.

I'd ask for some proof regarding predictability first.

[Tiwaz]

No seriously, if every american pilot had been Jimmy Thach, every grunt Audy Murphy and every General George S. Patton...how would that have helped the Axis? Please answer that question.

How is Audy Murphy in any way relevant to war success? He was guy who had balls to pull off one heroic stunt and survive.
Guess what, next time he tried that he could have been cut down like wheat.

Same for Thach.

With Patton you are getting somewhere. If every US general was copy of Patton and his tactics/strategies and Axis knew this... Result would be that in prolonged war it would have meant that US operations would be more accurately predicted and countered.

This has always been the problem when military doctrine becomes entrenched. Fighting the same war over and over again. Then someone gets a revolutionary idea and rips huge holes in established order and others scramble to figure out way to get out of the deadlock.

As example German way of combined arms blitzkrieg which blasted it's way through resistance.

Have you noticed that CIS had no droid generals? (at least any that I know) Command decisions were made either by biologicals or advanced AI. Though some level of independence was added to droids with central control proving to be highly vulnerable.

There's your refutation.[/quote]

First one represents rather rare batch of droids with high AI capabilities. And does not tell us anything about it's abilities to evolve it's tactics.
Second is just intermediary between commanders and bulk droids. Original use was more as relay for central command than actual leader (despite possessing whopping 3 minute operational time after losing contact with CCC).

I'd ask for some proof regarding predictability first.

Flashtraining = writing someones existing memories into clone.

Your clone is clone in mentally and physically. If you have habit of picking red ball instead of blue or green, clone flashed with your mind will have same tendency.

Thus, predictability. It takes time and experience before clone would start to develop distinct set of preferences, habits and methods through experience.

Information found on this in both wookiepedia and starwars.com.

[Metahive]

How is Audy Murphy in any way relevant to war success? He was guy who had balls to pull off one heroic stunt and survive.
Guess what, next time he tried that he could have been cut down like wheat.

Same for Thach.

With Patton you are getting somewhere. If every US general was copy of Patton and his tactics/strategies and Axis knew this... Result would be that in prolonged war it would have meant that US operations would be more accurately predicted and countered.

This has always been the problem when military doctrine becomes entrenched. Fighting the same war over and over again. Then someone gets a revolutionary idea and rips huge holes in established order and others scramble to figure out way to get out of the deadlock.

As example German way of combined arms blitzkrieg which blasted it's way through resistance.

Why do Thach and Murphy matter? Because that's basically the situtation the Clone Army is in. As for the rest, you know what? Your argument can easily be taken to say that no general at all should lead his troops against the same enemy more than a few times for fear of the enemy eventually "adapting" to him. How do you think this is supposed to work? Alexander used the same tactic over and over and yet the Persians crumbled before him every time.
You're mistaking a real life battlefield for a party of Chess. In Chess studying someone's past games can help figuring out patterns to exploit in future games (although grandmasters usually become so by overcoming this liability), battlefields, ancient and modern, however, are too chaotic for that.

Also, that's some really simplified idea of how the whole ordeal of Blitzkrieg went down. Do you know that the Wehrmacht originally assumed Poland to hold out for a year and France for four? It's not liked they planned for it, heck, at the time they didn't even call it Blitzkrieg.
Do you know however what they did plan as Blitzkrieg? The invasion of Russia.

First one represents rather rare batch of droids with high AI capabilities. And does not tell us anything about it's abilities to evolve it's tactics.
Second is just intermediary between commanders and bulk droids. Original use was more as relay for central command than actual leader (despite possessing whopping 3 minute operational time after losing contact with CCC).

First, Tactical Droids are shown with regularity in the new Clone Wars series, some of them as aides and chiefs of staffs but some do lead entire armies on their own and they tend to be quite clever and difficult enemies to overcome, like the one who commanded the firebase on Ryloth. Second, OOM-9 directly commanded the troops in the battle on Naboo, he was the one shown observing the battlefield and giving out orders appropriately. There's no evidence he was just a relay.
Also, the droid army deactivating after the destruction of the Droid Control Ship has no bearing on his command capabilities.

Flashtraining = writing someones existing memories into clone.

Your clone is clone in mentally and physically. If you have habit of picking red ball instead of blue or green, clone flashed with your mind will have same tendency.

Thus, predictability. It takes time and experience before clone would start to develop distinct set of preferences, habits and methods through experience.

Information found on this in both wookiepedia and starwars.com.

And? You still fail to explain how that could be exploited on a battlefield.

[Tiwaz]

Why do Thach and Murphy matter? Because that's basically the situtation the Clone Army is in.

And you have still failed to grasp that it is irrelevant. I have repeatedly stated that spaarti-clones could be good grunts. You just stubbornly try to pretend I have not and keep bringing irrelevant arguments to play.

As for the rest, you know what? Your argument can easily be taken to say that no general at all should lead his troops against the same enemy more than a few times for fear of the enemy eventually "adapting" to him. How do you think this is supposed to work? Alexander used the same tactic over and over and yet the Persians crumbled before him every time.

Which was incompetence of Persians. If leader is so stupid that they cannot figure out that X opponent will do Y every time and figure out a counter for it, they deserve not to lead.

You're mistaking a real life battlefield for a party of Chess. In Chess studying someone's past games can help figuring out patterns to exploit in future games (although grandmasters usually become so by overcoming this liability), battlefields, ancient and modern, however, are too chaotic for that.

Depends on level you look at. On strategic level it gets ever closer to chess. And if you were to be able to read your opponents thinking, you could easily outmaneuver them.

In our real world example this would be difficult, as we do not have material or calculatingpower to do such analysis, but this thread is not about real world situation except as examples.

In Clone wars, having 200 or 2000 clone commanders all respond to similar stimulus the same way would be disastrous. First time would be new for droids, but as patterns would be repeated such advanced computers would catch up with it. Sufficiently large sample material and highly advanced analyzing and computing capabilities have very real potential to reveal exploitable weakness.

Also, that's some really simplified idea of how the whole ordeal of Blitzkrieg went down. Do you know that the Wehrmacht originally assumed Poland to hold out for a year and France for four?

And they outperformed themselves. But what could be reason for it? Fact that everyone else was thinking that they will fight WW1 all over again. French and British were thinking of doing Alexander and doing the same things, but Germans had changed the system.

Do you know however what they did plan as Blitzkrieg? The invasion of Russia.

Which was very successful too. They penetrated deeply into Russian territory, but on hindsight committed strategic level blunders which may have cost that war.

First, Tactical Droids are shown with regularity in the new Clone Wars series, some of them as aides and chiefs of staffs but some do lead entire armies on their own and they tend to be quite clever and difficult enemies to overcome, like the one who commanded the firebase on Ryloth.

Yes, some. Mostly acting as aides. And they are rare. We also see jedi in the series with regularity. Does that mean that jedi are plentiful? No, it just means that they happen to be more often seen in the situations depicted by series.

Second, OOM-9 directly commanded the troops in the battle on Naboo, he was the one shown observing the battlefield and giving out orders appropriately. There's no evidence he was just a relay.

Wookiepedia states their purpose to be to relay orders from CCC to their squad.
Starwars.com states:

The command and security-division droids have some level of autonomy, but all battle droids are ultimately subservient to the commands of the CCC. If a droid loses contact with the control signal, it enters a stand-by hibernating mode.

Also, the droid army deactivating after the destruction of the Droid Control Ship has no bearing on his command capabilities.

Which part of ultimately subservient to commands of the CCC is unclear?

If anyone has access to direct sources where information on Wookiepedia regarding functionality of command droids is disputed I am curious to hear.

And? You still fail to explain how that could be exploited on a battlefield.

Give you a squad, company or army. Observe how you hande stimulus, what is your preferred tactical methods and device counters for it.

Learning process would cost, but once your thinking is cracked, it is much easier to anticipate actions of your clones until their personality diverts sufficiently from yours.

[Metahive]

And you have still failed to grasp that it is irrelevant. I have repeatedly stated that spaarti-clones could be good grunts. You just stubbornly try to pretend I have not and keep bringing irrelevant arguments to play.

Umm what? You were the one stating that having an army of clones down to the grunt level was a liability too.

"And then all you pilots act like Fel. If he has any personal deficiencies, those can be exploited on all of his clones."

Please no backpedaling.

Which was incompetence of Persians. If leader is so stupid that they cannot figure out that X opponent will do Y every time and figure out a counter for it, they deserve not to lead.

I must say you really have an incredibly simplistic idea of that whole warfaring business. See at the battle of Gaugamela Dareios III did try to improve upon his tactics (by choosing a more suitable battlefield for example), but it was to no avail because Alexander still managed to outdo him. You're treating this really like some sort of game.

Depends on level you look at. On strategic level it gets ever closer to chess. And if you were to be able to read your opponents thinking, you could easily outmaneuver them.

That only works if you have an AI with primitive and rigid patterns as your opponent like...in a videogame.

In our real world example this would be difficult, as we do not have material or calculating power to do such analysis, but this thread is not about real world situation except as examples.

As was demonstrated, the CIS does use advanced AIs to command its troops, yet it doesn't score victory after victory due to "adaption" either. So I think it's also of no importance in the fictional world under discussion.

In Clone wars, having 200 or 2000 clone commanders all respond to similar stimulus the same way would be disastrous. First time would be new for droids, but as patterns would be repeated such advanced computers would catch up with it. Sufficiently large sample material and highly advanced analyzing and computing capabilities have very real potential to reveal exploitable weakness.

There's an example of the battledroids downloading a file on Obi Wan for better strategy during the battle of Ryloth. It does them no good.

And they outperformed themselves. But what could be reason for it? Fact that everyone else was thinking that they will fight WW1 all over again. French and British were thinking of doing Alexander and doing the same things, but Germans had changed the system.

No, they just hit a weak spot in the defensive system of the French and exploited it, the hole at Sedan. It was in fact a rather reckless gamble and the utter disorganization among the French after the breakthrough which guaranteed that german victory was not caused by the Germans themselves but by the desolate state the french army had been in for quite some time.

Which was very successful too. They penetrated deeply into Russian territory, but on hindsight committed strategic level blunders which may have cost that war.

Emm, Blitzkrieg means taking on an enemy with superior material capabilities and defeating him before he can bring them to bear. Since the Soviet Union did not crumble after repeated victories like at Kiev, the whole Blitzkrieg plan fell apart and it became a war of attrition which Germany simply couldn't win.

Yes, some. Mostly acting as aides. And they are rare. We also see jedi in the series with regularity. Does that mean that jedi are plentiful? No, it just means that they happen to be more often seen in the situations depicted by series.

Could you please stop changing the subject? It was originally about you denying that droids were in fact deployed as independent army commanders, remember?

Wookiepedia states their purpose to be to relay orders from CCC to their squad.

Wookiepedia isn't canon. What we see in the movies is and there we see no one else but OOM-9 handing out orders on the battlefield. Have you something better like novelizations?

Which part of ultimately subservient to commands of the CCC is unclear?

So what? Patton was just relaying orders because he was ultimately subservient to Eisenhower too?

Give you a squad, company or army. Observe how you hande stimulus, what is your preferred tactical methods and device counters for it.

Learning process would cost, but once your thinking is cracked, it is much easier to anticipate actions of your clones until their personality diverts sufficiently from yours.

Then you just unnecessarily specialize your own troops and the enemy might just catch onto that and change their own tactics making your "adaption" completely worthless, not to speak of any future enemy that might show up. I repeat, we are talking about actors here possessing intelligence way and above in complexity over that of a videogame AI. The Allies knew that german doctrine was based upon "mission tactics", but that alone did not help them in any way because human beings just don't function like easily predictable clockwork.

[Thanas]

Tiwaz,

you seem to have a very simplistic idea of warfare. The idea that an enemy is able to devise a counter to how enemies think and have a database of counter-strategies? There is only one person who ever pulled that off in the SW-galaxy, and that was Thrawn himself. Do you know why western militaries train soldiers to react in the same basic way to a threat? On a basic level, the reaction is the same.



Also, why are you ignoring that it is trivially easy to add variation to clone imprinting?

[recon20011]

Also, why are you ignoring that it is trivially easy to add variation to clone imprinting?

Could adding that variation be what the Kaminoans do best? Just as in every other industry, those organizations involved in cloning as a business are going to want to differentiate their products somehow, perhaps the Kaminoans had a unique twist to the process that they, and they alone, used. Until the Republic took all documents regarding the cloning process as a matter of national security and distributed it to other cloners (i.e. Spaarti). Disregarding patents and trade secrets is often done during wartime. A very good example would be the Jeep during WW2. Look at who designed it and who built it.

Tiwaz does have a point about one thing though, commanders who are students of a certain school of thought regarding tactics and strategy are going to make decisions that lean heavily towards that school of thought. That makes it easier to predict what they will do, but I think he is overestimating the predictions. Predicting what an opponent will do next is not as simple as "he will move X piece to coordinates 3,4 in Time Frame DDMMYY". Its not just based on the commander's school of thought, his past experiences, but also on the terrain, morale of his troops, the goals given to him by his commanding general (or political masters), supply, and other things which can sometimes be discovered with a good intelligence network.
An example would be Patton actually. Patton was a cavalry officer. He was rather influential in the US cavalry's intellectual community for someone as young as he was (a lieutenant colonel) and he was the youngest master of fencing in the US Army, which led to him helping design a cavalry saber that was adopted as standard issue. His style of tank warfare was very much a cavalry-inspired one. Move fast and hit hard. He wasn't one to wait around for orders or reinforcements. The only thing that held him back in Europe was lack of fuel and stern directives from Bradley and Eisenhower. Was there much the Germans could do about his style of attack? Other than try to bog him down in the fortresses around Metz... not much they could do by that point in the war.

[Patroklos]

Still, if your officers are trained absolutely identically and have little or nothing to differentiate them, they're going to be homogenous and maybe even the way they think would be similar/identical. That has disadvantages. Imagine if the enemy manages to steal or get its hands on the flash-programming used on these clones, then they'd have a good idea of how these guys fight.

You are also assuming that the clones are not learning after the initial flashing. Two clones on different campaigns in a universe as varied as SW will provide two very different experiances and lessons.

Thats also assuming whatever professional education these guys get in the years after cloning won't influence them further.

The fact is that after just a few years of intensive use every individual will be a very different person from the one they were cloned to be, just like a year of intense experiance will change any real person.

[Tiwaz]

You are also assuming that the clones are not learning after the initial flashing. Two clones on different campaigns in a universe as varied as SW will provide two very different experiances and lessons.

Thats also assuming whatever professional education these guys get in the years after cloning won't influence them further.

The fact is that after just a few years of intensive use every individual will be a very different person from the one they were cloned to be, just like a year of intense experiance will change any real person.

That is the point I am making here. Kaminoan clones have decade to differ after being pulled out of the tubes.
Spaarti-clones are flashed with pre-existing personality and sent to front, they are identical in every way. Strenghts, weaknesses, thinking. 100% identical.

Yes, they change once they gain experience, but that takes time.

[Tiwaz]

Tiwaz,

you seem to have a very simplistic idea of warfare. The idea that an enemy is able to devise a counter to how enemies think and have a database of counter-strategies? There is only one person who ever pulled that off in the SW-galaxy, and that was Thrawn himself. Do you know why western militaries train soldiers to react in the same basic way to a threat? On a basic level, the reaction is the same.

Thrawn did not fight clones with identical thought process (status of Spaarti-clones straight from tubes).

On basic level it is not relevant if soldiers act identicall to success of the war. It is on tactical and strategical level where having uniform tactics and practices becomes a danger.

And yes, it only becomes true threat if your opponent can devise method to exploit predictable course of action. Alexander mentioned by Hivemind did exploit weaknesses of scythed chariots to render their efficiency. They were used in traditional way, unimaginative and familiar to everyone who knew the chariots.

And knowing this Macedonians used it to their advantage. Example of how easily predictable route of action can result in disaster.

By comparison, Alexander had light infantry following his cavalry as he used them to draw Persian cavalry off position, and then had infantry tie the Persians to free the companions for charge against weakened part of Persians.

Alexander managed to predict actions and reactions of his opponents and exploit them.

Also, if humans were so unpredictable, whole principle of psychology and criminal profiling would go out of the window.

However, they are surprisingly accurate even if they are not magic presented in television.

Also, why are you ignoring that it is trivially easy to add variation to clone imprinting?

Is it trivially easy? For different imprint you need different personality which has been cloned from person X. Yes, it adds variation to different batches but inside the batch there is zero deviation.

I have not said that Spaarti-clones are fatally flawed, but their uniformity is a notable initial weakness.

Anyway, since this issue has diverted badly from OP, I'll answer to Metahive in PM and leave this thread alone.

[Thanas]

Thrawn did not fight clones with identical thought process (status of Spaarti-clones straight from tubes).

Prove that this is the case, especially with imprint changes.

And yes, it only becomes true threat if your opponent can devise method to exploit predictable course of action. Alexander mentioned by Hivemind did exploit weaknesses of scythed chariots to render their efficiency. They were used in traditional way, unimaginative and familiar to everyone who knew the chariots.

And knowing this Macedonians used it to their advantage. Example of how easily predictable route of action can result in disaster.

Are you serious? Do you know anything about persian armies? They did not employ chariots in any meaningful manner anymore.

I have not said that Spaarti-clones are fatally flawed, but their uniformity is a notable initial weakness.

Why? Every clone unit we see fighting in SW has efficiency far above standard crews. Karrde even makes that claim. You are ignoring direct evidence from the books. Why?

Anyway, since this issue has diverted badly from OP, I'll answer to Metahive in PM and leave this thread alone.

No, you will defend your nonsense in here.

[Purple]

The problem with that is that there is no reason to believe that members of a single unit let alone a larger formation will all be made using the same template.

Is there any reason why a single cloning facility could not have say 10 templates with 10% of it's cylinders going to each?
And since they look identical how can you know what flash card was used on what commander?

If there are say 1000 templates and you have no idea what template the opposing general was based on, how exactly does knowing the templates, even all of them help you?

[Metahive]

And yes, it only becomes true threat if your opponent can devise method to exploit predictable course of action. Alexander mentioned by Hivemind did exploit weaknesses of scythed chariots to render their efficiency. They were used in traditional way, unimaginative and familiar to everyone who knew the chariots.

Yeah see but that wasn't what defeated the persian army. EDIT: There's also one thing you ignore. You forget that trying to predict one's enemy's steps is not a one-sided affair. Both sides are in fact at it in battle. So you might train to exploit a certain weakness but the enemy might expect that and lure you into a trap instead. Face it, warfare is more complex than Command and Conquer.

By comparison, Alexander had light infantry following his cavalry as he used them to draw Persian cavalry off position, and then had infantry tie the Persians to free the companions for charge against weakened part of Persians.

It was a reckless gamble, if Dareios had had a bit more nerve the Persians would have rolled the macedonian army up from the flanks which Alexander had to weaken for his plan. The flank did in fact break as you might know.

Alexander managed to predict actions and reactions of his opponents and exploit them.

No, he gambled and got lucky. Having fortuna smiling at you is what made many a commander a great commander. Just consider the Miracle of Haus Brandenburg that pretty much decided whether Frederick II would be known to in history as a great commander or a warmongering fool.

Also, if humans were so unpredictable, whole principle of psychology and criminal profiling would go out of the window.

However, they are surprisingly accurate even if they are not magic presented in television.

False dichotomy, it's not between "predictable as clockwork (or bad AIs)" or "complete random chaos". Humans are to a point predictable, but as the rule says, no battleplan survives the first shot.There are simply way too many variables that need to be accounted for. Stop treating real life like a videogame.
Also, you overstate the current state of psychology and criminal profiling. They are still pretty much in their embryonic phase.


BTW, I agree with Thanas that this ought to be argued in the open.

[Solauren]

On the original topic.

In the various Clone Wars novels, Dooku muses how much of his wealth had gone into the war.
So do the various member-state leaders of the CIS. Especially the Trade Federation + Nute Gunray.

It's entirely possible that Dooku + Sidious, in addition to using Dooku's vast wealth, also used Trade Federation/CIS funds to create + equip the Grand Army.

I mean, just change the cost estimate on the lastest droid purchase from 5 Billlion to 6 billion (or 15 billion, or whatever), and have Nute Gunray sign it.

Look at the 1 billion credits Nute just gave us to pay for the Grand Army with.

This would cover the creation of the Grand Army nicely via CIS funds, be inline with Sith Tactics, and further weaken the various CIS members for eventual 'Imperialization'.

in short; Dooku + Sidious probably imbezzeld the funds from their own allies. Cheeky Bastards.