Uh oh! A problem with Clonetrooper numbers

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:06 am

As we all know, the number of clonetroopers is a sensitive issue. AOTC gives us 1.2 million clones early on in the war, and a supplemental article has suggested that the GAR peaked at around 3 million clones.

There is, however, something that deserves attention in ROTS that has often been overlooked. The new governors are being deployed with a regiment of clone troops each (not troops in general, but clonetroopers specifically). Problem?

This stretches the limits of the clone army commonly described. If these are GAR regiments as described on Wookieepedia (2304 troops each; this is cited as being from the GAR supplemental), and each of the 100,000 worlds of the Republic have a new governor coming with a regiment of troops, that would be 230 million clonetroopers.

Now, this is the sector governance decree, and perhaps these are short regiments; if each sector governor, overseeing 50 worlds, is guarded by a short regiment of 500 troops, that would only be a million clonetroopers to oversee the Republic - but 500 troops is not, even in Star Wars, enough for military action against CIS forces. At this sort of "minimal" level it still represents a very significant fraction in the Grand Army's forces as described by the EU.

It does seem perfectly reasonable that in the OT era, each planetary governor is protected by a regiment of some kind of troops; that would suggest the overall forces of the Empire to include in the neighborhood of a billion garrison troops.

While the doctrine of garrisoning governors with regimental scale forces may not seem like an iron-fisted approach, it does imply a significant deployment of manpower on local security in the Empire compared with the initial numbers of clones in the Republic.

sonofccn · Post by **sonofccn** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:25 am

A billion is a pretty nice number if I do say so myself. I guess I have a few questions if you don't mind.

1. What is the quote in question, page number?

2.Can they effectivly bring that force to bear with out risking internal collasp? :)

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:36 am

You can find the novelization quote cited on the ST-v-SW.net "ROTS Lesser Canon" page here (p 247). You may recall the scene in the movie where key Senate members are reacting to the decree.

As far as anything goes... since unrest seems rare, most planetary garrisons could possibly be quietly drawn down by a factor of ten for a short period without anyone the wiser.

sonofccn · Post by **sonofccn** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:41 am

Thank you for the page number/link.

2046 · Post by **2046** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 5:34 am

A regiment in the modern parlance can vary from hundreds to thousands of troops, though that's assuming that Lucas used ground-force terms more normally than he did naval terms. That's assuming that the governors in question are the planetary dudes, as opposed to the sector dudes.

AnonymousRedShirtEnsign · Post by **AnonymousRedShirtEnsign** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:33 am

Wasn't Tarkin a governor, and he was on a mobile space station. If he was a governor then it might indicate that governors refers to those who command a sector or more.

Praeothmin · Post by **Praeothmin** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 12:48 pm

Could it be that each governor received a limited amount of Clone troopers, and that the rest of the forces are conscripted forces, trained by the Clone troopers?

SailorSaturn13 · Post by **SailorSaturn13** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:28 pm

They were REGIONAL, but not PLANETARY governors, it's NOT 1 Planet = 1 Governor.

A sector force of 3000 soldiers and a Tie squadron is of course there... For each sector.

I speak directly for my own sector, of course, by I can tell you that many Senators are becoming very nervous indeed. You may not know that the new governors are arriving with full regiments of clone troop

Also the army of republic grew fast.. this is known.

TARKIN: The regional governors now have direct control over
territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this
battle station.

So a governor is not planetary.

Gandalf · Post by **Gandalf** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 5:50 pm

2046 wrote:A regiment in the modern parlance can vary from hundreds to thousands of troops, though that's assuming that Lucas used ground-force terms more normally than he did naval terms. That's assuming that the governors in question are the planetary dudes, as opposed to the sector dudes.

No a regiment is around 1500 troops based on three 500 man battalions. Thousands of troops would be a brigade.

Dragoon · Post by **Dragoon** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:22 pm

A regiment is typically 800 to 1000 combat personell, plus their support and logistic personell.

A battalion can be anything from 500 to 1000.

Gandalf · Post by **Gandalf** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:33 pm

Dragoon wrote:A regiment is typically 800 to 1000 combat personell, plus their support and logistic personell.

No a regiments numbers include support personnel. Infantry battalions include there own specialist support personnel, other battalions exist comprised of logistics and other support personnel for specific functions.

A battalion can be anything from 500 to 1000.

That depends on the country. A NATO battalion is typically 500-650 men. A Russian or Chinese battalion is around a thousand men.

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:45 pm

A regiment, being usually based on a variable number of battalions containing companies of varying size, is a highly flexible unit in terms of numbers involved. It could be 500; it could be 5,000. Your milage may vary wildly according to era, country, branch of service, and condition.