By DaatBoy

In Canon, a Systems Army is comprised of two Battle Armies. In Legends, a Systems Army is comprised of two Sector Armies.

The Grand Army of The Republic having the sum total of 3,200,000 Clone Troopers to wage across the span of the entirety of the Star Wars Galaxy always seemed vastly understrength for me.

Using just ONE Nation’s army in the real world for comparison - The total number of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht during its existence from 1935 to 1945 is believed to have approached 18.2 million (SIX times that number of The Grand Army). This accounts for, when war intensified, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe personnel were increasingly transferred to the Army, and "voluntary" enlistments in the SS were stepped up as well.

Minimalism is often a problem in sci-fi as it is hard to imagine warfare on a galactic scale. 3 million is small for a galactic scale army less so for Star wars when you can get to most places in a few hours in most cases. Still I would imagine you would need numbers in the billions at a minimum

I mean the 3million number doesn't even make any sense based on their own unit designations. By the first image, there can only be 80 Corps in the entire GAR, yet in the second image you have the 327th Star Corps and the 91st Mobile Recon Corps. I just headcanon any mention of "million" as "billion" instead, makes it marginally less daft.

I love how the Jedi Generals are simultaneously commanding both battalions and Corps, while a captain will serve as the CO of a battalion in some instances, and a commander of a Legion in others. One of the biggest failings of TCW show was they had no idea what they were talking about when it came to military terms, and used ranks and unit types interchangeably.

8 minutes ago, Alpha17 said:

I love how the Jedi Generals are simultaneously commanding both battalions and Corps, while a captain will serve as the CO of a battalion in some instances, and a commander of a Legion in others. One of the biggest failings of TCW show was they had no idea what they were talking about when it came to military terms, and used ranks and unit types interchangeably.

Or the rank and unit types have no bearing on how we use those terms today in America.

44 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Or the rank and unit types have no bearing on how we use those terms today in America.

Eh, that's a lame response, and doesn't really address the other contradictions/discrepancies. Especially when at the same time the show was being made, canon rank systems were published and available. I could care less if they based the rank structure on the American, British, Soviet, or German systems, but they should have actually made a system and not just said whatever term they felt like at a given moment.

Just now, Alpha17 said:

Eh, that's a lame response, and doesn't really address the other contradictions/discrepancies

Fine here’s my actual response which is less tactful:

Looking for anything approaching consistency and reason in the prequels is hopeless. George always had a tendency to do odd revisions midstream. With the prequels there was no one to put any brakes on that.

The whole era is one giant contradiction driven by the most recent creative impulse. The weird rankings are a small part of this.

2 hours ago, chr335 said:

Minimalism is often a problem in sci-fi as it is hard to imagine warfare on a galactic scale. 3 million is small for a galactic scale army less so for Star wars when you can get to most places in a few hours in most cases. Still I would imagine you would need numbers in the billions at a minimum

Fair, but also Star Wars is not sci fi, it’s Space Opera. I would be happy to have four to five times the numbers listed. Showing resources were still stretched thin and not unlimited.

1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

Looking for anything approaching consistency and reason in the prequels is hopeless. George always had a tendency to do odd revisions midstream. With the prequels there was no one to put any brakes on that.

Well before the prequels, he defiantly was seen as infallible when it came to his creation.

1 hour ago, Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun said:

Well before the prequels, he defiantly was seen as infallible when it came to his creation.

Sort of. It always had detractors. They dinged it for annoying details which weren't seen as a big deal by the fans. But which came to the forefront of the franchise in later years. For example a lot of people really rolled their eyes at Death Star II saying all the movies were the same. I don't think that was a fair assessment, but Death Star II followed by Starkiller Base followed by "miniaturized Death Star technology", is getting pretty repetitive. Not that Lucas wrote the sequels, so that's a potentially dangerous side track.

More importantly, back then, George Lucas hadn't yet contradicted his own statements about the prequels, made in interviews. He said they were 20 years before the OT and showed Luke as a child, not 30 years and featuring Anakin as a child. He said there were ideas for a sequel trilogy, then after the prequels he backpedaled on that. Taken on the whole with what we now know of his nature, it seems clear that he made serious retcons to the OT at his writing desk from 1977 to 1983. For example, it strains credulity to believe that when he started shooting on ANH, he'd decided that Leia was Luke's sister. One is also hard pressed to reconcile the two different emperor faces in ESB and ROTJ, with his statements that he always had everything planned out the way it was as of the end of ROTS. There were many other OT retcons that were basically a result of the intersection of special effects tech for good and bad, and artistic whims. Like Jabba becoming a non-humanoid sometime between 1976 and 1983.

His tendency to change horses midstream wasn't readily as noticeable, basically, which is why he wasn't dinged on it before.

Detractors also used to complain about Mark Hamil's acting a lot too, but that was directed at specific lines in ANH, which Lucas directed. The other two OT films had other directors, and Lucas' inability to direct human actors really shone through with Anakin in AOTC and ROTS. So the prequels get attacked for bad acting a lot. Personally I think the use of practical effects and better acting will give the sequels a better shelf life than prequels, regardless of what one fan or another thinks of the stories.

So, understandable flaws (nothing's perfect), which had been ignored by fans and criticized by non-fans, grew to dominate the franchise to its detriment. But once a machine this big is rolling, profitability is pretty much ensured.

"How many clones in my grand army?"

"Um, we don't really know, Chancellor. See, they are clones and they all look alike. We tried counting but then they started moving around and we think we were counting some of them twice so we rea..."

ZZZAAAPPPPP!!!

"Um, Three million, sire. Three million."

"Excellent!"

4 hours ago, Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun said:

Fair, but also Star Wars is not sci fi, it’s Space Opera. I would be happy to have four to five times the numbers listed. Showing resources were still stretched thin and unlimited

Meh space opera is science fiction that doesn't rely in hard science concepts

2 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

Sort of. It always had detractors. They dinged it for annoying details which weren't seen as a big deal by the fans. But which came to the forefront of the franchise in later years. For example a lot of people really rolled their eyes at Death Star II saying all the movies were the same. I don't think that was a fair assessment, but Death Star II followed by Starkiller Base followed by "miniaturized Death Star technology", is getting pretty repetitive. Not that Lucas wrote the sequels, so that's a potentially dangerous side track.

More importantly, back then, George Lucas hadn't yet contradicted his own statements about the prequels, made in interviews. He said they were 20 years before the OT and showed Luke as a child, not 30 years and featuring Anakin as a child. He said there were ideas for a sequel trilogy, then after the prequels he backpedaled on that. Taken on the whole with what we now know of his nature, it seems clear that he made serious retcons to the OT at his writing desk from 1977 to 1983. For example, it strains credulity to believe that when he started shooting on ANH, he'd decided that Leia was Luke's sister. One is also hard pressed to reconcile the two different emperor faces in ESB and ROTJ, with his statements that he always had everything planned out the way it was as of the end of ROTS. There were many other OT retcons that were basically a result of the intersection of special effects tech for good and bad, and artistic whims. Like Jabba becoming a non-humanoid sometime between 1976 and 1983.

His tendency to change horses midstream wasn't readily as noticeable, basically, which is why he wasn't dinged on it before.

Detractors also used to complain about Mark Hamil's acting a lot too, but that was directed at specific lines in ANH, which Lucas directed. The other two OT films had other directors, and Lucas' inability to direct human actors really shone through with Anakin in AOTC and ROTS. So the prequels get attacked for bad acting a lot. Personally I think the use of practical effects and better acting will give the sequels a better shelf life than prequels, regardless of what one fan or another thinks of the stories.

So, understandable flaws (nothing's perfect), which had been ignored by fans and criticized by non-fans, grew to dominate the franchise to its detriment. But once a machine this big is rolling, profitability is pretty much ensured.

Agree Lucas is best in a writing and producing role. I also agree that special effects and acting wise the sequals will hold up better long term even if the stories are a bit weaker

Numbers is something that's always bothered me about star wars, because it's often so incredibly off. Just take the number of fighters that attack the Death Star in ANH. Wookieepedia puts it about 30. A single star destroyer carries 72 TIE fighters, so imagine how many the death star probably has. Even if we were assuming x-wings could take on tie fighters at say a 2-1 ratio, the death start could have deployed enough TIEs to make it 20:1 easily. Same numbers issue with the clone wars, as you mentioned there's just no way a 3 million man army could wage a galactic scale war, especially when the numbers of droids I've always seen is much, much higher than clones. Poor military numbers is a constant in the vast majority of movies though, so it's not something we can really get to bothered about, just how it is.

1 hour ago, Asvaldir said:

Numbers is something that's always bothered me about star wars, because it's often so incredibly off. Just take the number of fighters that attack the Death Star in ANH. Wookieepedia puts it about 30. A single star destroyer carries 72 TIE fighters, so imagine how many the death star probably has. Even if we were assuming x-wings could take on tie fighters at say a 2-1 ratio, the death start could have deployed enough TIEs to make it 20:1 easily. Same numbers issue with the clone wars, as you mentioned there's just no way a 3 million man army could wage a galactic scale war, especially when the numbers of droids I've always seen is much, much higher than clones. Poor military numbers is a constant in the vast majority of movies though, so it's not something we can really get to bothered about, just how it is.

These things bothered me too. But not until after several viewings. Which means the movie “worked”. Any movie looks ridiculous if you rewatch it too often. Like how saying the same word over and over starts to sound like nonsense.

3 hours ago, Asvaldir said:

Numbers is something that's always bothered me about star wars, because it's often so incredibly off. Just take the number of fighters that attack the Death Star in ANH. Wookieepedia puts it about 30. A single star destroyer carries 72 TIE fighters, so imagine how many the death star probably has. Even if we were assuming x-wings could take on tie fighters at say a 2-1 ratio, the death start could have deployed enough TIEs to make it 20:1 easily. Same numbers issue with the clone wars, as you mentioned there's just no way a 3 million man army could wage a galactic scale war, especially when the numbers of droids I've always seen is much, much higher than clones. Poor military numbers is a constant in the vast majority of movies though, so it's not something we can really get to bothered about, just how it is.

That is explained that only fighters directly under the control of Vader were launched. Tarkin didn't take the attack seriously.

57 minutes ago, chr335 said:

That is explained that only fighters directly under the control of Vader were launched. Tarkin didn't take the attack seriously.

True. True.

3 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

These things bothered me too. But not until after several viewings. Which means the movie “worked”. Any movie looks ridiculous if you rewatch it too often. Like how saying the same word over and over starts to sound like nonsense.

Fair point, though I was probably 9-10 the first time I watched star wars and not thinking about the exact military imbalance.

56 minutes ago, chr335 said:

That is explained that only fighters directly under the control of Vader were launched. Tarkin didn't take the attack seriously.

Yeah I don't buy that as a good reason, even someone who didn't think the fighters were a real threat to the station would want to take the rebels out.

1 minute ago, Asvaldir said:

Yeah I don't buy that as a good reason, even someone who didn't think the fighters were a real threat to the station would want to take the rebels out.

It is maybe if he just had that much faith in the laser batteries. It’s not like they were ignoring the rebels.

5 hours ago, Asvaldir said:

Numbers is something that's always bothered me about star wars, because it's often so incredibly off. Just take the number of fighters that attack the Death Star in ANH. Wookieepedia puts it about 30. A single star destroyer carries 72 TIE fighters, so imagine how many the death star probably has. Even if we were assuming x-wings could take on tie fighters at say a 2-1 ratio, the death start could have deployed enough TIEs to make it 20:1 easily. Same numbers issue with the clone wars, as you mentioned there's just no way a 3 million man army could wage a galactic scale war, especially when the numbers of droids I've always seen is much, much higher than clones. Poor military numbers is a constant in the vast majority of movies though, so it's not something we can really get to bothered about, just how it is.

The original Death Star had 100 TIE Wings, 600 Sqaudrons, giving the Battle Station 7,200 TIEs it could deploy for its defense screen/assault/conventional campaigns.

Grand Moff Tarkin and his Command Staff felt that the station’s defenses and Vader’s personal squadron were more than adequate to deal with the Rebel frail attempts.

Rogue One novelation, The Death Star Technical Companion (1993) and novel/comic adaptations of A New Hope alludes to the Grand Moff’s attitude of letting Vader deal lesser tactical concerns as he dealt with the ‘bigger picture.’

1 hour ago, Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun said:

The original Death Star had 100 TIE Wings, 600 Sqaudrons, giving the Battle Station 7,200 TIEs it could deploy for its defense screen/assault/conventional campaigns.

Grand Moff Tarkin and his Command Staff felt that the station’s defenses and Vader’s personal squadron were more than adequate to deal with the Rebel frail attempts.

Rogue One novelation, The Death Star Technical Companion (1993) and novel/comic adaptations of A New Hope alludes to the Grand Moff’s attitude of letting Vader deal lesser tactical concerns as he dealt with the ‘bigger picture.’

Yeah...frankly that's just crazy, a person with a rather successful career like Tarkin would have sent out say 1% of those TIEs, and it would have been enough. Regardless this isn't GoT we're talking about, the good guys have to win so I've long since made my peace with military numbers being off.

Yeah, that really is quite low, although it seems to be a more realistic number if you ask what Kamino can actually produce. The idea that little Kamino is capable of just building an army for galactic scale is a bit ridiculous. But I always had the feeling that the Clone Wars were only actually fought at a small number of hotspot systems simultaneously at any given time. We see a lot of smaller operations in TCW (like some officer showing up with a few droid transport ships, claiming jurisdiction), whilst the main theaters could have been on only a couple of tens of planets.

This is why I don't try to dig too deep into this stuff for Star Wars anymore.

23 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

Fine here’s my actual response which is less tactful:

Looking for anything approaching consistency and reason in the prequels is hopeless. George always had a tendency to do odd revisions midstream. With the prequels there was no one to put any brakes on that.

The whole era is one giant contradiction driven by the most recent creative impulse. The weird rankings are a small part of this.

Except for this particular inconsistency, Lucas isn't really to blame. Besides the fact that prequels aren't nearly as bad as you paint them out to be, this issue falls more on Dave Filoni, as the showrunner of TCW. If anything, Ep. III does a decent job of keeping things at least somewhat organized and the commands made a bit more sense, with Anakin leading the 501st Legion and Obi-Wan leading a corps as a higher ranking Jedi General. What we see and hear fits fine with the T/O&E provided at the time in other sources. It's not until TCW that things go off the rails. Besides the verbal cues and references to various unit sizes and commands that TCW gets wrong, the Ep. II rank system is completely abandoned like it never existed, and even the Clone's primary rifle in both films is suddenly relatively rare and replaced by a carbine. (which, sadly, FFG is following for their Clone Wars units)