Star Wars Fleet Size

[Rhadamantus]

Is there any reason why the Galactic Empire doesn't have billions of ISDs?

They could easily make them (1/2 of a DSII per 6 months is about 3 billion ISD masses), and crew them (38,000*5 billion is 190 trillion, which is .2 percent of the Empire's population). Only making 25,000 is insane and suicidal, since that means one world working for a decade can outproduce you and smash your fleet.

Is there any reason besides George Lucas is bad at math?

[bilateralrope]

Why have a military any larger than you need ?

[biostem]

If we look back at how Star Wars is basically WWII in space, and that many of the battles were drawn from combat footage of that era, it's probably due to that...

[NecronLord]

The 25,000 is from an old roleplaying game, and isn't canonical any more.

Really though, there may be any number of bottlenecks on the production of military technology; perhaps creating hyperdrives takes a very long time and there are only so many available, or any number of other examples.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Given that the EMpire was run by a Sith, who have that whole chronic backstabbing thing going, Palpatine may not have wanted a vast fleet in case Vader manages to turn it against him. Sure, if ROTJ had gone differently he'd have had his Death Star but I suspect even that would struggle against millions of ISDs.

So, he builds a fleet big enough to crush any possible resistance, but not so big that his own ace in the hole superweapon would be overwhelmed.

There is also the point that while they could build one Death Star in that time, that doesn't mean they have the epically huge shipyards they would need to produce an equivalent mass of Star Destroyers in the same time, or to train enough crew, or have the logistical support needed to operate that fleet.

[Batman]

I'm with bilateralrope-what would they want billions of ISDs for? They're not at war with anybody because there's nobody for them to be at war with.
I never liked the 25,000 number myself (millions of systems to cover but they can spare 3 of them to cover Tattooine so the damned robots don't leave? How about a troop transport and a couple frigates?) but the fact is they don't need a military that large.

[Elheru Aran]

Star Destroyers are produced by a few military shipyards. It's not like those are all over the galaxy.

The Imperial is produced at Kuat, which while it's a massive shipyard (literally, it's a huge ring surrounding the planet... pretty fricking big), still does a lot of civilian work as well as other military production.

This argument *has* been pursued in the EU by members of the Empire, notably Grand General Cassio Tagge in the new 'Darth Vader' comic-- he would rather build a fleet of Super Star Destroyers than 'waste' the resources on another Death Star.

Additionally, consider political expediencies after the Clone Wars. It's *not* in Palpatine's favour to maintain a godawful huge military, because that would drive home the fact that he basically pulled off a coup, and he's trying to play it up like he was appointed Emperor by the Senate. Cranking out a billion ISD's would have made it too blatant. This is also mentioned in the comics-- he threw a lot of resources into the Death Star on the down-low, and then it all got wasted, so he's cranky about that.

[NeoGoomba]

Billions of ships equals thousands of billions of paychecks on top of construction and maintenance costs. Then think of the requisition costs of their consumables alone. Then add in extra charges from possibly partnering with third parties for kit. The Bill for clothing and feeding those billions of crews all but breaks my feeble mind as it is.

[Simon_Jester]

Is there any reason why the Galactic Empire doesn't have billions of ISDs? ...

Is there any reason besides George Lucas is bad at math?

Because each ISD is capable of burning a world, and finding reliable crews and officers for ISDs is hard even if building them isn't?

They could easily make them (1/2 of a DSII per 6 months is about 3 billion ISD masses), and crew them (38,000*5 billion is 190 trillion, which is .2 percent of the Empire's population).

As noted, the question is how you find reliable crews. ISDs can cause disproportionate amounts of harm in a very small amount of time; this makes it disproportionately difficult to ensure that they are reliable instruments of state authority in an autocracy.

Only making 25,000 is insane and suicidal, since that means one world working for a decade can outproduce you and smash your fleet.

Not if you are paying attention to the activities of the kind of major industrialized world that could do this. Moreover, if they're spending a decade building ships, you can respond by escalating production at the many industrialized worlds you control.

It's like asking why the US didn't buy 5000 F-22s. We could have done so, but 200 or so them was enough to counter any immediately foreseeable threat, and any unforeseen threat that might arise in the future could be countered by other means.

I never liked the 25,000 number myself (millions of systems to cover but they can spare 3 of them to cover Tattooine so the damned robots don't leave? How about a troop transport and a couple frigates?) but the fact is they don't need a military that large.

First, the ISDs covering Tatooine are commanded by Vader personally and may well be part of a strategic reserve force, or part of a dedicated rebel-hunting task force (the predecessor to Death Squadron, the formation Vader led during The Empire Strikes Back). They would not have other routine responsibilities drawing them away, in either case. Even if they did, Vader is exactly the sort of person to say "showing the flag over Randomplanet IV does not concern me, admiral" when he's on the trail of key rebels or sensitive information.

Second, the droids are extremely important and the Empire already knows Leia has top-level connections within the Rebel Alliance. It is distinctly possible that the Rebellion might send some of its heavier naval assets to bail her (or the droids) out of a difficult situation. Therefore, the force they keep over Tatooine has to be strong enough to put up a good fight against the best ships the Rebellion has. It is far form out of the question that they have ships capable of polishing off "a troop transport and a couple frigates" in short order, so leaving a few ISDs to cover the area until the droids are found is a reasonable precaution.

Third, searching Tatooine, even given that it's an incredibly lightly populated planet, would require considerable manpower. Even if they don't physically have troops searching every square kilometer of the surface, they DO need to post stormtroopers to cover any major spaceports, which I suspect requires at least tens of thousands of troops. Mos Eisley may be Tatooine's biggest or most famous spaceport but I doubt it's the only one, after all. A trio of ISDs has the capability to do deploy troops on a substantial scale; any other ship capable of doing so would probably have to be darn near as big (and by extension, rare and important) as an ISD.

[Khaat]

We also learn in ESB that the Empire has many worlds "under its control" that never see Imperial forces, except when the plot brings them there [I'm looking at you, Bespin!]
The bureaucracy of the IoM it has not....

[Elheru Aran]

We also learn in ESB that the Empire has many worlds "under its control" that never see Imperial forces, except when the plot brings them there [I'm looking at you, Bespin!]
The bureaucracy of the IoM it has not....

I'm not sure I'd stand so strongly on that statement. Bespin IIRC was stated to be on the fringes of Imperial control. Quite possibly there are a large number of systems that are either uninhabited or only nominally populated (a city in the clouds does not a planetary-scale population make). These would, for the most part, be unworthy of regular attention from the Empire given that only the rock-hounds, smugglers, or Rebels would be interested in them, and generally there wouldn't be enough of those in one place to be of much concern. It's a simple matter of prioritization.

[Khaat]

Aye, s'why "under its control" was in quotes: nominally, Bespin recognizes the Empire's authority, even though Cloud City would rather never, ever see them.

I've just made a deal to keep the Empire out of here forever.

[The Romulan Republic]

What the Empire needed was not hordes of capital ships. It had no enemies of similar scope who could engage it in an all out conventional war.

It needed hordes of small patrol vessels to cover its vast space and run down rebels and criminals, hordes of transports to move its planetary forces around (unless it relied on locally raised forces to garrison most worlds), and a few massive weapons platforms to crack planetary shields.

In other words, loads of corvettes/frigates (though ISDs might still count as small patrol ships compared to what the Empire was capable of building), loads of Acclamators, and a few scaled-down Death Stars.

[Simon_Jester]

We also learn in ESB that the Empire has many worlds "under its control" that never see Imperial forces, except when the plot brings them there [I'm looking at you, Bespin!]

The bureaucracy of the IoM it has not....

To be fair, there are a lot of worlds under Imperium of Man control that, aside from paying their taxes and worshipping the distant God-Emperor (who nobody's seen in ten thousand years, effectively), have no interaction with the Imperium at large.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bespin pays its taxes fair and square; one of the easiest ways to draw hostile attention from any government is to refuse to pay taxes, after all.

[Lord Revan]

besides it's far more effective to allow systems like Bespin to essentially police themselves as long as it's made sure that if they draw the wrong kind of attention there will be ISDs in orbit and Stormtroopers on the streets.

basically as long as Bespin more or less follows the "party line" and pays their taxes in time there's no real reason to send imperial troops there and make your logistics even more complex. Remember that resources don't appear magically where you want them, someone or something has to make sure that they're shipped to the right location and even a computer can make mistakes and then there's the matter of shipping those resources, resources I'm sure the Rebels would love to get their hands on.

[NecronLord]

What the Empire needed was not hordes of capital ships. It had no enemies of similar scope who could engage it in an all out conventional war.

It needed hordes of small patrol vessels to cover its vast space and run down rebels and criminals, hordes of transports to move its planetary forces around (unless it relied on locally raised forces to garrison most worlds), and a few massive weapons platforms to crack planetary shields.

In other words, loads of corvettes/frigates (though ISDs might still count as small patrol ships compared to what the Empire was capable of building), loads of Acclamators, and a few scaled-down Death Stars.

That's basically why the Imperator is common but the Tector is not. The Tector is an ISD without the hangar capacity and presumably without the troop capacity. The Imperator can deploy dozens of fighters, it can deploy imperial patrol transports, sentinels, AT-STs, rapid troop transports and all sorts of things not required for a serious naval clash but mega-useful for occupation. The Tector can (almost certainly) beat an Imperator in straight up fight, by comparison.

And the Empire has no shortage of Arquitens-class "Imperial Light Cruiser" ships.

And in the old EU they had meant to roll out more torpedo spheres to break shields, but never quite managed to get them into full production, let alone the one per sector they wanted.

[Zor]

The 25,000 is from an old roleplaying game, and isn't canonical any more.

From Disney Canon.


Zor

[Anacronian]

But that is only 25.000 Star Destroyers - The Empire might have many more other large craft.

[The Romulan Republic]

Not just that its only 25,000 Star Destroyers. 25,000 Imperials only. No mention of other classes.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Honestly, the 25,000 number doesn't sound too unreasonable to me - if you recall that when that number first came along, ISD's were supposed to be the Empire's top warship. The OT ICS said it was designed near the end of the Clone Wars as "a top of the line peacekeeping battleship," with things like the Executor being rare exceptions. So having 25,000 first-line capital ships plus their inevitable smaller escorts sounds reasonable, that still gives you, what, 24 or so per sector (assuming the 1,000 sector number is still valid).

[biostem]

Honestly, the 25,000 number doesn't sound too unreasonable to me - if you recall that when that number first came along, ISD's were supposed to be the Empire's top warship. The OT ICS said it was designed near the end of the Clone Wars as "a top of the line peacekeeping battleship," with things like the Executor being rare exceptions. So having 25,000 first-line capital ships plus their inevitable smaller escorts sounds reasonable, that still gives you, what, 24 or so per sector (assuming the 1,000 sector number is still valid).

And taking what we've seen in Rebels, they'll station 1-3 of those smaller wedge-shaped ships in less important systems, (I think most depictions have 2-3 of them).

I think this is the vessel I'm talking about, (I don't recall it being a split-wedge design at the front, though): http://starwarsrebels.wikia.com/wiki/Im ... ht_Cruiser

[NecronLord]

The 25,000 is from an old roleplaying game, and isn't canonical any more.

From Disney Canon.
Snip
Zor

Is that from the android game or something? It amuses me that Disney have made the same mistakes again, and such stuff is canon.

"Peaked at over than 25,000" indeed.

Still; good, that's amusing.

Up there with zombie stormtroopers being canon again.

[biostem]

I also want to chime in that it seems, (at least in the case of the Republic/Galactic Empire), that they retire perfectly fine ships very quickly - I would think that we'd still see the occasional Acclamator/Venator, etc.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yes.

The Acclamator, in particular, fills a niche the Imperator really doesn't, or at least not as well. It is a dedicated troop transport which can land troops directly on hostile worlds.

[Knife]

the only time an Acclamator would have been even remotely useful in the cannon was Hoth. Their absence can easily be explained by just not being assigned to Vader's Armada.