The Scale of Star Wars Battles

[Ayden Cater]

@[member="Akio Kahoshi"] @[member="Tegaea Alcori"]

Actually, as one person pointed out, the term used was 200,000 "units". If you take that to be a military unit, rather than a single individual, the numbers just got a lot larger.

Also, the US has about 6,000 fighters and bombers on active duty (that are acknowledged publically). Suddenly a few dozen snubfighters don't seem like much, huh?

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

@[member="Ayden Cater"] I would agree with you, expect that later canon explicitly stated that it was 200,000 individuals, and that there were just 3 million active at one time.

Your way makes more sense, but doesn't seem to be the holy gospel.

 

[Vuplesia]

Yeah, but in 40K they know the whole galaxy and then some, can pull creatures from the void, and turn psychic aptitude into more or less Fore powers on Crack, with machines. They have demons and deities; literal ones.

Anyways, I tend to treat troop and fleet calculation based on real world curves and comparisons. For instance, during WWII roughly 9% of the viable poplation was conscripted in America alone. Did the math or that on the known populations of applcable sentients on my words and got a steady, moderately convincing number; just over 50,000,000. Cut that in thirds, reserved one third non-service and split the remaining two equally based on crews per ship times quantity of that ship + the sum of all other ship's crews. We have a little over a thosand ships from Star Destroyer to humble Corvette, and roughly 12,000,000 sailors for the some 70% of ships that are in rotation. And a helluva lot more marines, about 18,000,000 according to math.

To sum it up, there is a believable threshhold but it admittedly becomes up in the air once you start owning dozens of systems and thousands of worlds. There can be a guessing curve though, based on compiled smaller examples. But hardly accurate to a desirable point.

 

[Captain Larraq]

Yeah, but in 40K they know the whole galaxy and then some, can pull creatures from the void, and turn psychic aptitude into more or less Fore powers on Crack, with machines. They have demons and deities; literal ones.

Anyways, I tend to treat troop and fleet calculation based on real world curves and comparisons. For instance, during WWII roughly 9% of the viable poplation was conscripted in America alone. Did the math or that on the known populations of applcable sentients on my words and got a steady, moderately convincing number; just over 50,000,000. Cut that in thirds, reserved one third non-service and split the remaining two equally based on crews per ship times quantity of that ship + the sum of all other ship's crews. We have a little over a thosand ships from Star Destroyer to humble Corvette, and roughly 12,000,000 sailors for the some 70% of ships that are in rotation. And a helluva lot more marines, about 18,000,000 according to math.

To sum it up, there is a believable threshhold but it admittedly becomes up in the air once you start owning dozens of systems and thousands of worlds. There can be a guessing curve though, based on compiled smaller examples. But hardly accurate to a desirable point.

You are my new favorite person. I thought I was the only one that wasted that much time crunching numbers and doing research for a game.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

40k is the most dystopian of futures where all there is war.

Still, Star Wars is a different animal all together, despite the name there is a lot of peace too.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"]

Star Peace! In the shining light of the far future, there is only peace.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

WTB Drop Site Massacre

 

[Akio Kahoshi]

Star Wars ships have massive crews, and tiny armies attached to them. A Star Destroyer has a crew of about 37,000 then a single legion (division) of troopers. This was considered enough to subjugate the average planet.

When the average planet has a population ranging from millions to billions, ten thousand seems a bit... light for that.

 

[Captain Larraq]

True akio, but when an Imperial II can rain fire and damnation on any pockets of resistance that rise up against the Stormtroopers... You can make do with a single Legion or so. It also explains why warrior cultures were such a pain in the butt for the Empire to subjugate.

 

[Donatos]

40k is the most dystopian of futures where all there is war.

Still, Star Wars is a different animal all together, despite the name there is a lot of peace too.

Yes, I was going to make a Peace Keeper Reference and ironically Captain Laarq above me has Farscape actor as his avatar

Even if the writers for any Star Wars battle seemed odd such an Army of even 3 million clones launching conquest campaigns even on two to three planets of somewhat viable tech/military doesnt quite sound right. But I guess thats just up to the creativity of the writer to explain how that campaign of 3 million troops and a planet of billions ended in the victory for the smaller number. Maybe the battles did not end in total destruction of a planet or even continent, maybe its a quick skirmish from the size of a few squadrons to immense fleets. Then either side would instill political power over the planet while the military was either subdued, distracted etc... Peaceful ends to a conflict.

Idk, I play EMPIRE AT WAR all the time, rebel recipe for me is to send Ben Kenobi, (Han and Chewie count as one unit) and a squadron of air speeders to serve as scouts and raiders. I take down vastly larger forces all the time

 

[Cyrus Tregessar]

Lets not even get in to the logistics side of thing. The amount of resources necessary to keep a single Carrier Strike Group operational for a 6-month deploy is absolutely massive.

Thats for ~10 ships and maybe 10000 people.

Now imagine whats required for a hundred ships (some that are KILOMETERS long) and millions of personnel, across whole parsecs.