Something that always confused me was the massive crew complement of the ISDs in Star Wars, especially relative to other line ships of the same class. Wookiepedia lists the crew size of an ISD-II (length 1.6 KM) as 37,085. This seems ridiculous when compared with a MC80 Home-One style Mon Calamari cruiser (1.4 KM) that has a crew complement of 5,402. I believe the MC80s also field far more fighters than ISD-IIs, 100 vs 72.

These crew values are both sourced as coming from 'Starships of the Galaxy', so presumably the same author(s) penned these numbers.

Is there any in-universe reason for this huge difference?

For bonus points: This seems even more incredible when you consider that Mon Calamari cruisers were retrofitted luxury passenger cruisers and the ISDs are purpose-built warships. Further, source books with cross-sections show that the 'engine-room' (power plant?) takes up a massive portion of the internal space of an ISD.

In some of the west end games 'backstory' and the 'galaxy guides'. Some ships have more automated systems.. hence more crew while larger more modern ships have droid controlled systems (only biological crew strenght is listed) which may explain any oddities.

If a huge ship has less crew than you'd expect, its probably high tech and heavily automated.

Likewise is a smaller ship has more crew than you'd expect it may be really old and need the simplest things doing by a crewman.

Its like Lambdas... in the 'lore' one person *can* fly one but it really needs a crew of four and excels with five as everyone does one thing (piloting, gunnery, navigation, power usage, coms)

Wookiepedia lists the crew size of an ISD-II (length 1.6 KM) as 37,085. This seems ridiculous when compared with a MC80 Home-One style Mon Calamari cruiser (1.4 KM) that has a crew complement of 5,402.

Rather than considering length, it would be more useful to consider their capacity. Like you said, the engine takes up a chunk of room on an ISD, but just visually from the films (don't have cross-sections in front of me), I would gather that an ISD has much greater capacity than an MC80, and therefore more room & need for crew.

Like Gadge said, if you start talking about automating processes on a newer vessel, that significantly changes your figures. Think Katana fleet cutting the crew of a Dreadnaught to an eighth of its original complement.

I fail to see how a cruiser that was specifically designed to house passengers has a lower capacity than the ISD. Let's not forget that (due to the prequel trilogy) the ISD is a relatively new design by 0 BBY. Why would a passenger liner being retrofitted by a ragtag band of rebels have superior automation technology than an Imperial warship?

Because Mon Cals. They were geniuses of ship design. They had to design ships to function with a limited number of personnel. The Empire doesn't have a personnel problem. They literally have almost unlimited manpower, so instead of worrying about manpower and engineering automated systems, they could concentrate on firepower and other things. I also think those numbers are at max capacity for the capital ship. I'm sure an ISD could operate successfully with a much smaller crew. Also by mass an ISD is quite a bit larger than a MC80.

Also how are your passengers 'housed'

If the mon cal ship is a converted liner/cruiser then you're likely to have spacious crew cabins taking up more room.

a dedicated warship will have compact tight bunk rooms. Submarines save space by 'hot bedding' and having crew share a bed, one guy works while the other sleeps then they swap.

Even by star wars universe standards the Imperial II has a massive crew. Its designed without much automation because the empire has all the manpower it needs.

Yes the Mon Cals are technically re-purposed liners but I put it to you that most of the passenger space would be replaced with armor, shields and weaponry, to say nothing of hangar space. I'm also pretty sure that even though they were "liners" they were designed with combat in mind.

Is the ISD-II crew compliment including it's Garrison Troops?

32,000 sounds like a reasonable amount of ground forces to suppress civil unrest for a single planet. The Empire needs resources they can't run around Deathstarring every system. Some objectives are Capture and Hold.

I have reliable inside sources that say the people in charge of loading the crew look at them through the wrong end of a magnifying glass. This makes the crew appear smaller and therefore saves space.

Just for reference, the Battlestar Galactica is 1.4 km long with 5000 crew and 80 Viper fighters and runs with zero automation or networked computers. I know these are completely different universes, but since there is no official source that describes the deck plans or command structures of Star Wars ships I can only imagine it'd be similar to BSG.

When you look at the cross-section of an ISD I just don't see where 37k people would fit!

Which is ironic, because I think that cross-section book is the source of the 37,000 crew number. The super structure is pretty large though. Its got to be at least a couple 100 meters to the top. I guess you can assume that where they could fit crew quarters they fit them. The reactor area is massive. You could fit a couple of CR-90s in it with room to spare.

To put some real world perspective

HMS Victory, 1st Rater 100 Gun ship of the line, at 57m had a crew of approx 1,000

USS Missouri, Battleship at 270m, had acrew of 2,700

Nimitz Class Aircraft Carriers, at 330m, have a crew of 6,000

Raw scaling up of the Nimitz crew ratio to the LENGTH of an ISD puts the crew at 29,000. Thats not taking into account the many more DECKS that an ISD has, so the figure of 37,000 is not out of question.

Neither is the conservitive figure of 5000 to run a Mon Cal ship, if you do not count the Air Wing and support staff.

Is the ISD-II crew compliment including it's Garrison Troops?

32,000 sounds like a reasonable amount of ground forces to suppress civil unrest for a single planet. The Empire needs resources they can't run around Deathstarring every system. Some objectives are Capture and Hold.

No, the 37,085 does not include the stormtrooper legion of 9,700.

In many ways, the number of crew is a little contrived. Someone just ballparked it, and that happened long before the cross-sections book came out.

Still, I've been working on figuring out what all these people do as part of an RPG-related project. It's not easy, but it's worthwhile to think about a number of notions:

• The crew runs in shifts, so each job has to have a number of people equal to the number of shifts that they're running. I'm presuming three shifts.
• A large part of the crew is there to take care of (order around, clean up after, and police) the other members of the crew. It's not all about running the ship.
• An ISD is not just about itself. It is also a naval command center for other (smaller) elements of the fleet. Administration takes people.
• This is the Empire. People come cheap. Also, the more people you give military jobs, the easier it is to control them. Think: North Korea.
• No (or few) droids. With the great conflict that created the Imperial Navy was the Clone War, in which the Republic Navy faced a military staffed largely by droids. That legacy probably makes the Imperial Navy allergic to reliance on droid labor.
• There are actually a LOT of functions about running a ship that can deploy a wing of TIE fighters, a large number of shuttles, and landing craft to put 9700 stormtroopers and their ground-fighting war machines on the surface of the planet. Then there are all the gun crews. Remember how on the Death Star there were a lot of people manning those guns? An ISD has a lot of guns. Multiply each gun by 3-4 people, and then multiply those by the number of shifts the the ship is running.
• Stuff breaks. You need people to fix all that stuff. (or, at least try to fix it before you toss it out the airlock and requisition a replacement.)

Add those things up and pretty soon you're looking at real numbers.

When you look at the cross-section of an ISD I just don't see where 37k people would fit!

It's worthwhile to keep the scale in mind. I have a friend who is scaling it out for me right now, and we don't think it's going to be all that much of a problem. Most if the crew can probably fit quite comfortably in the neck and the lower superstructure.

A Nimitz class aircraft carrier needs over 2000 crew just to operate its carrier air wing, plus the 3 and a half thousand crew to man the ship itself. A star destroyer would probably need even more aircrew because its operating a strike wing and a fairly substantial transport wing. You also need support staff for those 9000 stormtroopers operating aboard the ship (unless that number includes the stormtroopers own support staff). In the US military there are two men in support roles for every one man on the front lines, now in Star Wars there's a lot more automation and droids for menial tasks but still you need a lot of cooks, armorers, clerks and various other people to keep them in fighting shape. You'll also need Military police to make sure they don't break stuff, soldiers are soldiers. (Please no imperial fanboys trying to tell me that stormtroopers are too well disciplined for that, grunts are grunts no matter what universe you're in). Also there's probably a sizable Imperial Security Service contingent on board to maintain "morale" and "prevent subversion and defeatist attitudes".

A Nimitz class aircraft carrier needs over 2000 crew just to operate its carrier air wing, plus the 3 and a half thousand crew to man the ship itself. A star destroyer would probably need even more aircrew because its operating a strike wing and a fairly substantial transport wing. You also need support staff for those 9000 stormtroopers operating aboard the ship (unless that number includes the stormtroopers own support staff). In the US military there are two men in support roles for every one man on the front lines, now in Star Wars there's a lot more automation and droids for menial tasks but still you need a lot of cooks, armorers, clerks and various other people to keep them in fighting shape. You'll also need Military police to make sure they don't break stuff, soldiers are soldiers. (Please no imperial fanboys trying to tell me that stormtroopers are too well disciplined for that, grunts are grunts no matter what universe you're in). Also there's probably a sizable Imperial Security Service contingent on board to maintain "morale" and "prevent subversion and defeatist attitudes".

You're correct, a good number of those 37,000 would be there as support for the stormtroopers, because the legion itself lacks that support staff.

But I am an Imperial fanboy.

But I am an Imperial fanboy.

Well we can't have that

Nah its alright man, just didn't want anyone trying to claim stormtroopers didn't need MPs, all soldiers get rowdy at times, especially when cooped up on a ship.

Nah its alright man, just didn't want anyone trying to claim stormtroopers didn't need MPs, all soldiers get rowdy at times, especially when cooped up on a ship.

They probably need more MPs/monitors than RW soldiers do. Stormtroopers have to be maintained in a state of indoctrination, and that probably requires more rather than less.

By the way, if you are more interested in this topic, you can check out the discussion forum of a project that is trying to deckplan an ISD. I've been working on the figuring out the crew complement and the layout of the hangars. In terms of the crew complement, I've got around 40% of the crew accounted for, with the stormtroopers, and mostly the TIE Wing, and the administrative department accounted for (the latter, I mostly abstracted by scaling from US warships), but I still have a lot of departments to go. You can see my organizational breakdown (in progress), on pg. 29 of that thread.

SirEmilCrane ,

Could you tell me more about this 2:1 ratio of support to front line troops? What sort of support functions do you imagine would have to exist?

Mechanics, cooks, ordnance personnel, armorers, admin, medical, etc.

There are a ton of REMFs (look up the acronym) that support any kind of front line combat unit. In the artillery, we had an entire company just to support 3 gun batterys.

SirEmilCrane ,

Could you tell me more about this 2:1 ratio of support to front line troops? What sort of support functions do you imagine would have to exist?

Jo Jo kind of explained it already. Basically combat soldiers need a lot of logistical support, cooks, medical staff, armorers, mechanics. people to process their pay (very important), janitors etc.

The 2:1 figure comes form the Second World War, for every american soldiers on the front lines there were two behind the lines. In the German army it was reversed, 1:2, look how well that worked out for them.

On a warship its different, everyone has a combat and non-combat roll (that's what battlestations is, everyone stops whatever they were doing and goes to their battle station). Remember warships spend most of their time cruising around doing nothing as far as combat goes. And they do it 24/7 as well. Soldiers sleep, warships do not. Most sailors would spend most of their time doing something mundane, then in combat switch roles. Officers, some gunners and most bridge crew are an exception to this of course, as they oversee the actual running of the ship. Ditto for engineering.

EDIT: It also occurs to me that with such a massive crew (its equivalent to a mid sized town) you'd need lots of civilian like jobs. Military legal professionals for disputes and court marshals, barbers to keep grooming standards, servants and wait staff for senior officers, a fully staffed hospital, the list is endless really.

On a warship its different, everyone has a combat and non-combat roll (that's what battlestations is, everyone stops whatever they were doing and goes to their battle station). Remember warships spend most of their time cruising around doing nothing as far as combat goes. And they do it 24/7 as well. Soldiers sleep, warships do not. Most sailors would spend most of their time doing something mundane, then in combat switch roles. Officers, some gunners and most bridge crew are an exception to this of course, as they oversee the actual running of the ship. Ditto for engineering.

Yes, I follow you with all that. I'd like some ideas for more specifics - ie. the stuff I may not have thought of yet.

Also, what you mention about battlestations means that I need to think a little less redundancy into the listing. However, I still have a couple of ten-thousand jobs to fill in.

Speaking from experience as a current navy officer,

The way you man a ship is identify the positions you need to run the ship at defence watches (that is, not full action stations, but at a constant state of readiness to employ all weaponry and defences within minutes, maintained 24hrs a day) you then split them in to 2 categories, day hand or watchkeeper. Each day hand job (Usually admin and maintenance) need 1 body. Watchkeeper jobs need 2 as a minimum.

You man to achieve capability, not derive capability from available manning.

Mikael, couple things for your consideration:

The crew runs in shifts, so each job has to have a number of people equal to the number of shifts that they're running. I'm presuming three shifts.

An ISD has a lot of guns. Multiply each gun by 3-4 people, and then multiply those by the number of shifts the the ship is running.

Classic sailing ships, you only had two: the Port and Starboard watches. They would switch off every four hours (4, 8, and 12 o'clock). One ran the rigging, while the other got some rest, ate, and did minor maintenance.

On the guns, SirEmil hit it:

On a warship its different, everyone has a combat and non-combat roll (that's what battlestations is, everyone stops whatever they were doing and goes to their battle station). ... Most sailors would spend most of their time doing something mundane, then in combat switch roles. Officers, some gunners and most bridge crew are an exception to this of course, as they oversee the actual running of the ship. Ditto for engineering.

Only thing I'd add to that is engineering would get the added job of damage control, but, then, so does almost everybody else in the area of the hit.

Of course, that's in *our* universe. I think the thing to consider for your purposes is Imperial Doctrine (something I am completely unfamiliar with): do they require that their batteries be manned at all times? If so, that would require extra crew, otherwise, give the cooks the AA guns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Miller#Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

Speaking from experience as a current navy officer,

The way you man a ship is identify the positions you need to run the ship at defence watches (that is, not full action stations, but at a constant state of readiness to employ all weaponry and defences within minutes, maintained 24hrs a day) you then split them in to 2 categories, day hand or watchkeeper. Each day hand job (Usually admin and maintenance) need 1 body. Watchkeeper jobs need 2 as a minimum.

You man to achieve capability, not derive capability from available manning.

Nice, I did my dissertation in Naval history but I don't have anywhere near the experience in the daily running of a ship you do so if I say anything wrong feel free to correct me.

In a way Star Destroyers are like 19th Century armored cruisers. The Armored Cruisers of the great powers were designed to cruise (funny that) very far from established bases, to the far reaches of a colonial empire. Out there their mission was to raid enemy commerce, defend friendly commerce, and police far flung territories in "show the flag" missions. To do this the ships had to be capable of deploying a sizable marine compliment to go ashore and fight local rebels. To that end armored cruisers had crews as big or even bigger than pre-dreadnought battleships. For an example of these naval brigades on action see the siege of Ladysmith in the Boer War.

An example

Powerful Class Cruiser (1898)- 895 men

Canopus Class Battleship (1897)- 682 men

The Powerfuls are a bit of an outlier, being basically as big as a battleship, but with less guns, less armor and more men aboard. In a star wars context the Empire has an even bigger empire to police than the 19th century european nations (even considering relative speed of travel and communications). Something like a star destroyer makes perfect sense. its got enough firepower, men and spacecraft to wage a small war on its own. A system rebels or doesn't pay its taxes and boom, a star destroyer shows up in system and lands a force of storm troopers on the planet. You can pacify a planet without reducing ti to rubble, though the ship is capable of doing just that if need be. However, like the c 19th armored cruisers they are incredibly expensive to operate and require a lot of manpower to keep in operation, and once the rebellion gets ships that can match a star destroyer in battle but do it for 1/7th of the crew then their weaknesses show.

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

Funk Fu master ,
I'm glad you revealed yourself. Now if I have questions that Google can't answer, I can hit you up over the PM.

You man to achieve capability, not derive capability from available manning.

There's no doubt that this is the way our navy works. I wonder if the same is true of the Chinese navy, though the Chinese navy is in the position of being a green-water navy with a foreign power being (seen as) an overbearing hegemon. With the Empire, there is no overbearing hegemon, and it's navy (or, at least, the star destroyer) is a blue-water navy (black space navy?).

So, I wonder if it's the way the chinese navy of cheap stereotype would be?

SirEmil , I like the parallel with 19th Century navies. What was your dissertation argument?

Classic sailing ships, you only had two: the Port and Starboard watches. They would switch off every four hours (4, 8, and 12 o'clock). One ran the rigging, while the other got some rest, ate, and did minor maintenance.

Actually, for a while I was thinking of running four shifts rather than three.

A conundrum is this: with that many people (37000 is a lot!), I'm forced to be like one of those managers that has to invent busywork just to keep people occupied. Going from 3 to two shifts means that I have to figure out 1.5x as many jobs for people to do.

Of course, that's in *our* universe. I think the thing to consider for your purposes is Imperial Doctrine (something I am completely unfamiliar with):...

This is my fudge factor. Do any question, I can dodge by saying "because: Empire".

But, while it is the fudge factor, I am trying to take the totalitarian society of the Empire seriously. It's helpful, because I do see the Empire as completely dismissive of the idea of being economical with human capital. They're trying to keep people busy and occupied in mostly mindless jobs. Violà, the Star Destroyer! It's probably the greatest hog of human redundancy short of the Executor -class.

@Mikael- My dissertation was on New Zealand drifting away from Britain and towards the United States, due to the rise of Japan. I talked a lot about naval expansion and the role it played in this shift. It wasn't very good tbh, but it was good enough to get my degree.

In some ways the Imperial Navy is like the Victorian Royal navy, except star wars lacks the massive technological changes we saw in the c19th. The commitments and strategic position are similar. A large empire, connected by sea (space) routes rather than land routes, it requires a large navy that can police far flung regions and act autonomously. Thus the Imperial Navy enjoys primacy among the branches of the Imperial military. I would almost say that the large crews of the Star Destroyers are a strategic necessity rather than some way to occupy people. The Imperial navy is very selective about who it employs, the academies are fairly rigorous. The large crew exists because the star destroyer is a mobile military base, it brings a division of troops, an entire fighter wing, armor support for said troops, logistical support for them all and the firepower of a capital ship. The weakness is that all of this is kind of useless in just a straight capital ship fight, except the fighters and firepower, but there's a lot of space in your hull taken up with stuff you don't need in a space fight. That's why armored cruisers were phased out of the Royal Navy.

Sorry to spam the thread with my musings, the more this gets discussed the more I get thinking about it.