Just a fluff question, was there ever in indication giving the size of the Imperial and Rebel fleets in the Star Wars Universe?

I recall reading somewhere that there were about 25,000 star destroyers scattered across the Galaxy. Some books have been really good at giving org charts for both armies (especially back in the day of the Star Wars RPG from West End games). The new book called a Star Wars guide to Warfare was also really good. I would imagine that the Rebel fleet, if it was ever assembled, might be about 200 capital ships but I might have just imagined that number. Does anyone have any numbers from the fluff?

I know that the imperial fleet is going to be obviously bigger, but it probably gets small really fast when you spread it across a Galaxy. The rebels benefit from being an insurgent group to even the score (able to strike where they want, when they want).

The Essential Guide to Warfare said that the Rebel Fleet was the equivalent of seven percent of the Imperial fleet, and was roughly 15 sector groups worth of ships.at its height.

The rebel fleet was as many ships as you can see in ROTJ in the battle above Endor

The imperial fleet in the same sector consisted of "too many" ships

One another number. Corporate Sector bought from Empire something like 900 Victory class Star Destroyers. Empire sold around 2000 VSD total and still had a lot of them by the way.

Rebel fleet was quite small, as you'd expect. Most of what they did have was smaller ships more suited to guerrilla warfare. I know they did have at least several dozen or so Mon Cal cruisers (far more than you see in RotJ) as the backbone, based on the numbers involved in some of the known recorded battles.

The Imperial fleet was so huge it'd be impossible to really quantify it. As well as the tens of thousands of just Imperial-class ships, there would have been hundreds of thousands of corvettes, frigates, cruisers, escort carriers, Battlecruisers, system patrol ships....the list goes on. I can't imagine it being less than a quarter million shops, probably a HELL of a lot more. Remember that the Empire had 69 million member systems. My own gut estimate is about quarter million ships, counting everything from customs/patrol ships all the way to various super-class ones. That makes Imperial-class about 10% of the fleet. While they were the mainstay, don't forget I'm including a lot of non battle-fleet ships...pickets, customs frigates etc.

Amusing number....the Imperial-class ships alone could carry 1.8million TIEs....

Obviously these numbers are based on the EU.

This is interesting regarding this subject; http://www.theforce.net/swtc/warships.html

From the Empire's side, I think it's also useful to know that the lore has changed as it's been developed. In the days of WEG, they were mostly interested in painting the Empire as just impossibly huge. However, in the 2000s (after WEG lost the license) more and more was developed in terms of mapping out the SW galaxy. For example, the Sector Group, which was the basic overarching fleet unit, is tied to the number of sectors that the Empire had divided the (known) galaxy into.

We don't know how many sectors there are, except that supposedly 5000 years before the Battle of Yavin, they decided that 1024 was the magic number. Palpatine apparently decided to change that, but we don't know how many sectors were created or consolidated.

Gauging by the development of the Essential Atlas (post-publication), in which the authors have been trying to map out the sectors, 1024 seems quite high. Of course, we don't know how many sector-divisions there are in the central rings of the galaxy, whereas those of the outer rings have been mapped out.

I think that's caused the scale of the Empire to shift from impossibly huge to possibly huge. Your 25,000 strikes me as a good ballpark (~24 Star Destroyers per Sector Group, multiplied by 1,024 sectors)

OM

From the Empire's side, I think it's also useful to know that the lore has changed as it's been developed. In the days of WEG, they were mostly interested in painting the Empire as just impossibly huge. However, in the 2000s (after WEG lost the license) more and more was developed in terms of mapping out the SW galaxy. For example, the Sector Group, which was the basic overarching fleet unit, is tied to the number of sectors that the Empire had divided the (known) galaxy into.

We don't know how many sectors there are, except that supposedly 5000 years before the Battle of Yavin, they decided that 1024 was the magic number. Palpatine apparently decided to change that, but we don't know how many sectors were created or consolidated.

Gauging by the development of the Essential Atlas (post-publication), in which the authors have been trying to map out the sectors, 1024 seems quite high. Of course, we don't know how many sector-divisions there are in the central rings of the galaxy, whereas those of the outer rings have been mapped out.

I think that's caused the scale of the Empire to shift from impossibly huge to possibly huge. Your 25,000 strikes me as a good ballpark (~24 Star Destroyers per Sector Group, multiplied by 1,024 sectors)

OMG, you wrote exactly what I was going to address. A sector group had 2,400 ships, including 24 star destroyers, times the number of sectors which in this case is 1,024. You read my mind...

The rebel fleet was as many ships as you can see in ROTJ in the battle above Endor

The imperial fleet in the same sector consisted of "too many" ships

You never actually see the entirety of the Rebel fleet in the movies. If you watch the Battle of Endor for example you see more MC80s destroyed then you ever see in any one shot showing the fleet.

You never actually see the entirety of the Rebel fleet in the movies. If you watch the Battle of Endor for example you see more MC80s destroyed then you ever see in any one shot showing the fleet.

As I remember in one book there was numbers of rebel casualties at Endor. 1/5 of all man. And I think the Death Star made most of them. There were destroyed at least 2 MCs. Even by this number rebels had at least 10 MCs far more than we saw at single shot in the movie.

We actually see 3 MC80s go down in the movie I believe. Two Get hit from the Death Star and one is shown blowing in the background of one scene along with the Star Destroyer it was fighting if memory serves.

We actually see 3 MC80s go down in the movie I believe. Two Get hit from the Death Star and one is shown blowing in the background of one scene along with the Star Destroyer it was fighting if memory serves.

I am sure there is a scene when mon cal takes down a star destroyer at point blank range, not sure if it is the oposite.

In the movie you can count at least 7 mon cals after the destruction of 2 by the deathstar. I spent some time pausing and counting them in every scene, sometiems there are few aditional cruisers further in the back that some peopel may not notice.

I saw on a Wiki that the number of Mon Calimari cruisers in the Rebel fleet numbered around 40. Not bad punch, but still tiny compared to 25,000 Star Destroyers that the Empire could field.

The important point was that the Rebels could field what they need at specific spots, whereas the Empire had to spread out trying to defend as much as possible.

Force size isn't as important as force concentration ultimately as a smaller, more mobile and more concentrated force can easily pick a favourable engagement and therefore use their superior concentration to defeat the opponent in detail.

This does come with one important caveat though. The smaller but more concentrated force must be able to replace/repair the damage caused in each engagement. Otherwise force size once again trumps concentration, as it can simply cause a war of attrition.

Luckily for the Rebels, they rarely had to commit heavy forces and did have enough techncal support to repair when they did.

OMG, you wrote exactly what I was going to address. A sector group had 2,400 ships, including 24 star destroyers, times the number of sectors which in this case is 1,024. You read my mind...

Cool.

So, why are you interested in this particular question, that you OP'd with?

OMG, you wrote exactly what I was going to address. A sector group had 2,400 ships, including 24 star destroyers, times the number of sectors which in this case is 1,024. You read my mind...

Cool.

So, why are you interested in this particular question, that you OP'd with?

He wants to know how many expacs he has to buy to own the entire imperial navy

OMG, you wrote exactly what I was going to address. A sector group had 2,400 ships, including 24 star destroyers, times the number of sectors which in this case is 1,024. You read my mind...

Cool.

So, why are you interested in this particular question, that you OP'd with?

He wants to know how many expacs he has to buy to own the entire imperial navy

He's trying to decide if buying enough to form the Imperial navy would be better than forming the Rebel fleet.

Unless he's a Nigerian prince, he's better off owning the Rebel fleet...

OMG, you wrote exactly what I was going to address. A sector group had 2,400 ships, including 24 star destroyers, times the number of sectors which in this case is 1,024. You read my mind...

Cool.

So, why are you interested in this particular question, that you OP'd with?

He wants to know how many expacs he has to buy to own the entire imperial navy

He's trying to decide if buying enough to form the Imperial navy would be better than forming the Rebel fleet.

Unless he's a Nigerian prince, he's better off owning the Rebel fleet...

I'm a Nigerian prince, and I have more than enough money to buy all the stuff on 'The Boat'. However, I'm having a bit of trouble off-shoring it. Could you send me your bank account number, so that I can wire it to you?

OMG, you wrote exactly what I was going to address. A sector group had 2,400 ships, including 24 star destroyers, times the number of sectors which in this case is 1,024. You read my mind...

Cool.

So, why are you interested in this particular question, that you OP'd with?

He wants to know how many expacs he has to buy to own the entire imperial navy

He's trying to decide if buying enough to form the Imperial navy would be better than forming the Rebel fleet.

Unless he's a Nigerian prince, he's better off owning the Rebel fleet...

I'm a Nigerian prince, and I have more than enough money to buy all the stuff on 'The Boat'. However, I'm having a bit of trouble off-shoring it. Could you send me your bank account number, so that I can wire it to you?

Suuuuuuuurrrreeeee... my bank account number is 101-101-101

Make sure you watch out for the Swiss Pirates. they've been really bad this year.

Make sure you watch out for the Swiss Pirates. they've been really bad this year.

Seriously? Have they been let out of the Vatican again?

It must be Pope Francis' doing. FoxNews warned us about him. Piracy and socialism go hand-in-hand, after all.

BUT, back to the OP at hand:

I'm curious what peterstepon's interest in this question is. I've done a lot of thinking about the 'writ-large' scale of the Empire, and its fleet doctrines for roleplaying purposes. Originally, that's why I wanted to get into X-Wing, and when I was getting into X-Wing nearly a year ago, I had actually been hoping for a game like Armada. Also, to maybe have a larger campaign, that wasn't computer-driven like Empire at War, but maybe computer assisted over websites and forums.

Here is a question for you:

Do system police / militia / defender forces count as part of the Imperial navy?

If so, there were likely billions, if not trillions of ships in the Impeial navy ( think about it, you need to have equivalents to the coast guard, customs vessels, Swat teams, national guard, etc,) this is particularly true if you have a restive population to control... And a galaxy if a really big place.

... I don't think anyone has a consistent answer... I don't thin GL had any concept of the scale of galactic war beyond "the good guys" don't have as much stuff. After all , what was it, like 100,000 clone troopers is sufficient to wage a galactic war. The clones even took years to grow. (That was a serious WTF moment for me in the prequels. I was expecting billions or even trillions of clone troopers. Otherwise the droids would win based solely on attrition / numbers alone)

The clone Trooper thing is....complex. I'm working atm so i might add more later, but I will say: remember they weren't actually supposed to win a war. They just had to be seen to be fighting and slowly losing a war, to gain palpatine more power.

The clone Trooper thing is....complex. I'm working atm so i might add more later, but I will say: remember they weren't actually supposed to win a war. They just had to be seen to be fighting and slowly losing a war, to gain palpatine more power.

The only convoluted explanation is a unit is actually x many troops... But this is just a hand wave to coverup for GL's error, and still doesn't account for the numbers gap.

Look at it like this, in World War 1, the monthly casualty Rate during a major offensive was somewhere between 100,000 to 200,000 soldiers... For both sides... And this is a war fought on one area on one world where both sides had similar soldier availability constraints. Could you imagine the casualty rates using star wars weapons across even a handful of worlds, especially when your opponent can manufacture soldiers at a rate of thousands every few minutes (judging by the factory scene on Genosis).

Those clone troopers wouldn't have survived a month during world war 1...

End of rant...

Here is a question for you:

Do system police / militia / defender forces count as part of the Imperial navy?

If so, there were likely billions, if not trillions of ships in the Impeial navy ( think about it, you need to have equivalents to the coast guard, customs vessels, Swat teams, national guard, etc,) this is particularly true if you have a restive population to control... And a galaxy if a really big place.

For my part, I would not count them as part of the Imperial Navy.

My understanding is this: The Empire is more like a federal government, and while it concentrates on having a Blue Water (Black Space?) Navy, it leaves the Green Water (Blue Space?) stuff to the locals - even more so on the Outer Rim, less so in the Core.

But to your point, the Navy could probably legally commandeer local forces at the whim of the Moff or planetary governor. So, in effect, it could have the numbers of ships that you speak of.

Of course, it also depends on your understanding of the scale of the SW Galaxy. I tend to go with a somewhat sparce galaxy of ~10,000 inhabited systems, many of which are not all that inhabited (think Hoth, Dagobah, Tatooine, Bespin). Sure there are the megalopolis worlds like Coruscant and Geonosis, but they're the exception rather than the rule. Also, it takes a fairly long time to travel between systems or across the galaxy, depending on the route you're taking.