So we know there's something like 39 ISD's on screen, and from the rebel hyperspace jump/DSII casualties, there have to be at least:

2 MC80's (since they used that model to get deathstarred and Ackbar lives at the end)

1 liberty

1 or 2 "pearly whites" (unnamed wingless liberty)

2 neb-b's

3 CR90's

what looks to be something like around 50 fighters of mixed alphabetic origin and one heavily modified YT-1300, both with and without radar dish depending on when you look at it.

lots o GR75's.

Anyone know of a complete breakdown?

I know in certain screecaps, there are like 9 neb b's since someone got copy/paste happy but I'm not sure if we should count those.

And no, I don't go by the EU source material for orders of battle

We can infer the rebel forces must have been about equal to the Imperial forces, otherwise they wouldn't have won. (And the Imperial in me says they must have outnumbered the star destroyers 10 to 1 at least )

DUR I was thinking the same thing. I recently re-watched the Endor battle and paused the screen a few times to count the ships. I think your breakdown is pretty accurate.

The only reason to call what was happening a Civil War seems to be because of the crawl in Star Wars. What hyperspaced in to face off with the Death Star was a pitiful guerrilla force. Was that the whole Rebel fleet? Around 3 or so MC80s, few corvettes and some Nebs?

Wasn't the Rebel fleet "amassing" at Sullust? That's all they had? They couldn't even hold a planet with that!

Anyway, I don't think a lot of stuff in Star Wars bears up to scrutiny. It's obvious in hind sight that Lucas didn't really "world build" very well and struggled with many aspects of story telling (still breaks my heart to say it). There was also limitations with effects at the time.

From a pure story standpoint, it would make for a more exciting finish to show how badly the Rebels were outnumbered at a glance while you're watching the movie for the first time. Fun and the thrill of the ride trumps logic. I think Lucas was more about theme and a broad archetypal struggle than a definitive world with strict rules and logic (as you'd find with Tolkien or George RR Martin).

Don't have the numbers off the top of my head but the rebels were outclassed and outnumbered in terms of capital ships. The star destroyers stayed back purposely as the emperor wanted to be flashy and show off his superlaser. The Endor shield was still up, the rebels had been captured on the surface, nothing could possibly go wrong. The star destroyers were there to stop the rebels escaping. Unfortunately for the Imperials the shield went down, an awing rammed the command ship whose bridge shields were down then the Death Star got blown to smithereens along with palpatine and Darth Vader (or so they would have thought). In the space of 10 minutes they'd lost their entire command structure along with their flagship and a battle station the size of a moon. The Imperials fled despite still having a massive advantage in terms of firepower but having just seen things go from awesome to utterly screwed they panicked and retreated.

I also noticed that you never get a good wide view of the Rebel fleet like you did with the Imperials. They aren't done hyperspacing in when they cut to the falcon's cockpit, a lot of the views are fairly close up, and there seem to be ships suddenly in the fight that hadn't been there before (such as those two namely liberty types that didn't get blown up). I choose to believe the Rebel fleet was a bit more substantial than what we actually can see and count.

So we know there's something like 39 ISD's on screen, and from the rebel hyperspace jump/DSII casualties, there have to be at least:

2 MC80's (since they used that model to get deathstarred and Ackbar lives at the end)

1 liberty

1 or 2 "pearly whites" (unnamed wingless liberty)

2 neb-b's

3 CR90's

what looks to be something like around 50 fighters of mixed alphabetic origin and one heavily modified YT-1300, both with and without radar dish depending on when you look at it.

lots o GR75's.

Anyone know of a complete breakdown?

I know in certain screecaps, there are like 9 neb b's since someone got copy/paste happy but I'm not sure if we should count those.

And no, I don't go by the EU source material for orders of battle

During the battle in some scenes you can count over 10 mon cal cruisers in single frame

I also noticed that you never get a good wide view of the Rebel fleet like you did with the Imperials. They aren't done hyperspacing in when they cut to the falcon's cockpit, a lot of the views are fairly close up, and there seem to be ships suddenly in the fight that hadn't been there before (such as those two namely liberty types that didn't get blown up). I choose to believe the Rebel fleet was a bit more substantial than what we actually can see and count.

I like to also assume that while we're watching teddy bears show how useless stormtrooper armor actually is, more ships hyper'd in ("to give Han more time" (?) )

Yes, I think there's something like at least 10 mon cal's and 10 neb-b's if you do the screen freeze at the right time, but mostly they're indistinct blobs.

I am somewhat surprised at how few fighters there are... maybe the admiralty were reeling from the gen con special

The Rebel fleet has to be somewhat significant, or they wouldn't have noticed a fleet massing outside of Sullust.

Rebel fleet numbered 12% of the Imperial navy, thats still a huuge fleet.

• Prep to jump scene: 2 MC80s (different builds, wingless)

• "Evasive action" scene: 5 wingless and 1 winged MC80, as far as what's clearly identifiable.

• "fighters, coming in...": 4 MC80s

• "Embattled Correlian Corvette Scene": 5 MC80s for sure (best shot of the "other" frigate too)

• 1 MC 80 in the background when the Awing dies over the Liberty's wing.

• (Anyone's guess how many you can see out the Executor's window when they "only need to keep them from escaping")

• *1 Liberty dies*

• *1 MC80 dies* (1 MC80 in the background, clearly)

• At least 2 and a liberty as they fly up the nose of the first ISD (before they kill the token minority pilots...)

• 2 MC80s outside Ackbar's window when he gives the "concentrate fire" command (3 total, therefore...)

• 3 MC80s for "Intensify Forward Firepower!!!"

• Then there are 2 or 3 that seem to be past it by the time it starts going down. (IMO, these aren't the same ones. The ones seen out of the bridge weren't moving that fast. If the shots are in real time, they couldn't be that far past it yet.)

• I don't know what blurry ships we're seeing in the background as the Executor crashes.

• Engines against the moon as Wedge exits the shaft. I see 2 that are clear. But is this the whole fleet? When did they get between the DSII and the moon?

• Looks like 6 sets of MC80 Engines as the Falcon shoots out, our last view of the battle.

So, at least 6 MC30s survive. I didn't see wings on any of them, so there must have been at least 2 Liberties, plus 1 MC80 casualty. That's 9 Mon Cals at the minimum. How many destructions did we miss? Presumably a lot. If they wouldn't last long against the Star Destroyers, some must be presumed destroyed by ship-to-ship fire. Maybe we saw all of the DSII shots, but maybe not.

A fairer fight than the OP suggests, at least.

I took a screenshot.

I also noticed that you never get a good wide view of the Rebel fleet like you did with the Imperials. They aren't done hyperspacing in when they cut to the falcon's cockpit, a lot of the views are fairly close up, and there seem to be ships suddenly in the fight that hadn't been there before (such as those two namely liberty types that didn't get blown up). I choose to believe the Rebel fleet was a bit more substantial than what we actually can see and count.

I like to also assume that while we're watching teddy bears show how useless stormtrooper armor actually is, more ships hyper'd in ("to give Han more time" (?) )

Yes, I think there's something like at least 10 mon cal's and 10 neb-b's if you do the screen freeze at the right time, but mostly they're indistinct blobs.

I am somewhat surprised at how few fighters there are... maybe the admiralty were reeling from the gen con special

Not a chance. This was the Rebellion's death-or-glory charge. They left nothing behind, to warp in as reinforcements.

Given the scale of the galaxy, I'd say hundreds of ships and thousands of fighters on either side. By the battle of endor many systems were in open rebellion or providing significant support to the rebellion.

Enjoy the film for the films sake, but accept if it was "realistic" there would have to be far more involved than explicitly shown.

I'm completely fine with the 'on screen' representation being more or less right: you know, the rebels with a few dozen capital ships, two or three score assorted smaller vessels, and 4 fighter groups of rebel fighters (likely with some reserves. Why launch all your fighters at once and create a massive-Midway scale lull that an opponent can take advantage of? you know, unless it was meant to be pre-emptive and then sure, why not, fling caution to the wind!).

The Imperials can thus have their 'massive' fleet of 40 capital ships presenting a real threat, and the whole thing feels about right for something like the battle of Jutland or other sort of relatively equatable engagement that we know of (Tsushima might actually be a closeish approximation). You know, just in space. With lasers.

The whole 'thousands of systems, and multi hundred quadrillion trillion gigawattillion citizillion' EU galaxy described has always felt sort of like a degradation of the feats achieved by skewing the scale to 'one up' the other sci-fi franchises out there. So many numbers feels somehow less relevant by being hard to grasp as anything but a statistic.

Anyway, I suppose it depends on how one wishes to view the Star Wars universe, but I rather agree with the general consensus here.

We can't see those R2.

The weakness of the Rebel fleet illustrates precisely why the Imperial fleet was so hot to corner them in an engagement. The Rebels didn't want to be engaged, because if they were engaged, that was it. No more fleet.

Endor was pretty much their big gambit to end the war by killing the Emperor. Obviously the war didn't end, else there wouldn't be a resistance against this First Order.

We can infer the rebel forces must have been about equal to the Imperial forces, otherwise they wouldn't have won. (And the Imperial in me says they must have outnumbered the star destroyers 10 to 1 at least )

The Star Destroyers mostly didn't fight back.

Had the Emperor simply tried to win the fight the rebel fleet would have been crushed before the shield generator got taken out. Instead, the Emperor was dramatic, and basically wanted to dismantle the rebel fleet with only the Death Star.

The Executor alone probably could have won, or nearly won the battle.

It's also worth noting that the role of Government vs Rebel plays a part.

The Empire literaly can't send more than a small part of it's fleet to Endor, even to protect the Emperor. It has planets to garrison, pirates to chase, convoys to escort. Ignoring that, even, if they pull enough of their forces off other things, then A) the rebels might smell a trab, and B) the rebels might decide to attack some other jucy targhet that has been uncovered, either instead of, or in addition to. Despite what I said earlier about death-or-glory, I would split off one MC-80 and a few escorts and fighter wing if, for example, the empire uncovered the Kuat yards. After all, DS2 and the Emperor are important, nay, critical targets, but the war isn't gonna end that day.

The rebels, OTOH, can bring together literly every single capitol ship they posesses for this strike. It's the kind of thing that they MUST accomplish, or else call it quits and go home. All other priorities can be set aside, since their actual responsibilities are practicaly non existant.

All those GR-75s in these Battle of Endor shots.... would be great if FFG could shoe horn them into Armada effectively.

There is a good list of ships on the wiki page.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Endor

Looks like at least 9 MC80s although of varying types.

10 Neb B's

7 Corvettes.

1 SSD

2 Battlecruisers.

33 ISD's.

3 TSD's

only 1 Victor.

Good and credible answers on all sides! Of course, the main reason I ask is I'm waiting to see which group of players can put together the first (mostly) complete Battle of Endor in Armada scale! Anyone have a spare black floored-gymnasium?

Given the scale of the galaxy, I'd say hundreds of ships and thousands of fighters on either side. By the battle of endor many systems were in open rebellion or providing significant support to the rebellion.

Enjoy the film for the films sake, but accept if it was "realistic" there would have to be far more involved than explicitly shown.

This fits with both Legends and the new canon. In the Return of the Jedi novelization it states that the rebel fleet stretches further then the eye could see and during the battle refers to dozens of rebel cruisers going nose to nose with the Star Destroyers.

In the Essential Guide to Warfare it rates the rebel fleet as having 17.5 percent the number of ships of the Imperial fleet, also rated as about 15 Imperial sector groups, and since one Imperial sector group is 24 Star Destroyers and 1,600 warships that puts the rebel fleet at around 24,000 warships and 360 Star Destroyer equivalents

And in an excerpt from the new canon Battlefront novel the rebellion launches an offensive in the aftermath of Yavin using "Thousands of starships and dozens of battlegroups."

Looking at those screenshots there are tons of Transports, but a lot more Mon Cal cruisers than I thought! Keep in mind that we also only saw a handful of Rebel fighters on screen: Red and Gold Squadron just happened to be lead by the best pilots of the fleet while the dozens if not hundreds of other fighters duked it out with the friendly Imperial classes and Executor.

An author with a Lucasfilm license can say whatever she/he wants- if I don't see it pew pew pew in the movie it didn't happen

Also, now that I think about it, Ackbar was probably trying to game the activation system! That's what those GR-75's are for!

However, someone should have told him that in the Ackbar meta he needed more cr90's instead of neb-b's. It's more points efficient