Clone Numbers Part 2,871.4

[Mith]

As alluded to in the title, this is a continuation of the attempt of getting accurage Clone War numbers. I believe that one source has already claimed that there were three million clones, but now there is some evidence that might suggest high numbers, from the new Clone Wars series itself.

From the episode Rookies, we learn that Fives is designated as CT - 27 - 5555 and in another episode, Rex is known as CC - 7567. This is in the first year (presumably) of the Clone Wars. Assuming that the first batch (of which Rex is part of) was the first 200,000 we actually get a rather interesting look at the results. It would indicate that there are around 5.4 million clones at around that time.

As posted on SB.com, I presume that Rex's indication of them rushing clones into service before basic training was completed boosted their overall production rate. It would only take about an 8 year old clone to equal a sixteen year old man (although they all look to be about in their 30s...).

But that leaves us with a problem. After the initial surge in production, does the amount drop off or do they continue at the rate of production? Assuming that production continues at the same rate and the loss is 2.4 million a year for clones, that's about 9 million by the end of the Clone Wars.

Now we get to ship numbers. We know there's about 10,000 Jedi in the galaxy. Surely not all of them can be dedicated to fleet operations; some have special missions, some stay at home, some teach, and other things. But surely, we can presume that the Jedi opperate the majority of the fleet. Assuming that the GR's army is an average of three million for the first year, we can work off that.

Outposts/Guard Duty/Other
We've seen that some Clones are clearly regulated to guard duty, escort, or sticking to bases. The numbers are never very high, but we see that there is a great deal of them. However, I doubt the numbers go above 500,000 clones.

Venators
Venators appear to be the main stream of the Republic fleet, along with the Acclamators. We don't know the total crew number of the Venators, but they can't be too high. We see that their gunships typically carry only about 8 clones, plus a pilot and a gunner for a total of ten. Sometimes we see a general or a commander accompanying them, but that's it. We've also seen about three to five of these gunships launched from a fleet, usually about three if memory serves. That's about 30-50 clones right there. Now, assuming that they have double those total forces, it would give us 100 clones per ship and 300 per clone fleet. But how to divide that up? Assuming a million clones have been dedicated to this force, it would give us 10,000 Venators, each under the command of one Jedi General. That gives us a total of about 3,333 Venators

Acclamators
Acclamators typically carry about 1,000 clones (I counted about eight hundred of them in the scene we see in AotC, with the presumption that it ranges up to a total of 1,000 on average). This gives us a total of 1,500 ships divided into 500 fleets.

Thus, our total is:

Number of Fleets

Year 1

3,333 Venator Fleets
500 Acclamator Fleets

Year 2
6,666 Venator Fleets
1,000 Acclamator Fleets

Year 3
9,999 Venator Fleets
1,500 Acclamator Fleets

Ship Numbers & Personal

Year 1

10,000 Venators with 1,000,000 clones total (100 per ship)
1,500 Acclamators with 1,500,000 clones total (1,000 per ship)
Total: 11,500 ships

Year 2
20,000 Venators with 2,000,000 clones total (100 per ship)
3,000 Acclamators with 3,000,000 clones total (1,000 per ship)
Total: 23,000 ships

Year 3
30,000 Venators with 3,000,000 clones total (100 per ship)
4,500 Acclamators with 4,500,000 clones total (1,000 per ship)
Total: 34,500 ships


Starbases/Escort/Guarding/Other

Year 1

500,000 clones

Year 2

1,000,000 clones

Year 3
1,500,000 clones

At the end of the war, the Republic has about 34,000 starships, which a rather large number, but still behind what others estimate. Now, after the war, the Empire probably wouldn't be vastly boosting the numbers, due to the lack of an enemy. If we want to, we might say their numbers doubled with the Empire, leading to about 70,000 starships. and about a total of 18 million stormtroopers, with probably an additional 9 million Imperial officers, not including engineers.

[ILikeDeathNote]

You've left out the observation that clones are seen manning virtually all positions on starships as well. This alone puts the three million figure into doubt.

[Mith]

You've left out the observation that clones are seen manning virtually all positions on starships as well. This alone puts the three million figure into doubt.

I already took that into account.

Yes, they do other things, but when we see the Gunships land, it's often only two or three of them and they only have about eight in each, with one including Ashoka and Anakin (sometimes Kenobi). Therefore, they only apparently seem to send out about 24 clones from each ship, plus say another six to pilot and fire the weapons on the gunship. That's a total of 30 men they're putting on the line. It also leaves at least about 20 or so for weapons and perhaps 5 for command issues, bringing us up to 55, allowing us another 12 clones for say, fighter escort (that's 67) and that still leaves us with another 23 clones to guard the ship.

And hell, we saw that the clones couldn't even easily crush the droids that came in through those hull penetrating ships from Cloak of Shadow. Even assuming a dozen from each, that's only about 36 droids. That shouldn't be a problem for a ship that has hundreds of clones. A crew of a hundred, with say only 75 of them dedicated to combat? More reasonable.

[l33telboi]

The 3 million clones figure is no longer restricted to what Karen Traviss wrote, so if all you're looking for is conformation on this then the Clone Wars SE:RPG already does that. It gives us the entire military structure along with how many soldiers in total there is in the GAR.

The figures make no real sense, but they seem to be canon according to Lucas Licencing.

[Mr. Oragahn]

45 from SBC argues that there's evidence from AOTC that an unit = a group of several clones, from 6 to 144, as Windu is given command of 5 elite units... ?

[l33telboi]

45 from SBC argues that there's evidence from AOTC that an unit = a group of several clones, from 6 to 144, as Windu is given command of 5 elite units... ?

I have no idea what he's basing that on. But given that he somehow thinks the AotC novelization says a unit is something other then a "clone warrior", I wouldn't put much faith in the rest of that sentence.

[ILikeDeathNote]

There's also the unresolved issue of how many Stormtroopers are clones during the OT, or if most of the ranks were recruited as many EU sources suggest.

The latter has rather unfortunate implications, if you think about it. But then again so does the former.

[2046]

From the episode Rookies, we learn that Fives is designated as CT - 27 - 5555 and in another episode, Rex is known as CC - 7567. This is in the first year (presumably) of the Clone Wars. Assuming that the first batch (of which Rex is part of) was the first 200,000 we actually get a rather interesting look at the results. It would indicate that there are around 5.4 million clones at around that time.

Please assume I am a drooling retard (which is, of course, true) and retype that paragraph.

I make that request because I have no idea how you got from point A to point B, much less to what appears to be P.

Assuming that production continues at the same rate and the loss is 2.4 million a year for clones,

When did we ever get a suggestion of clone production rate?

All we know is that as of AotC, 200,000 were ready, 1,000,000 more were "well on the way", and their aging is accelerated by about a factor of two, meaning a batch takes ten years.

But you can't get anywhere significant with those disparate facts. For instance, "well on the way" could imply a million per year or half of that or even a third of that or ten times that, or it could imply nothing other than the idea that they have a million total that they're still working on.

We have no idea, unless I'm missing something.

We know there's about 10,000 Jedi in the galaxy.

Correct.

Venators appear to be the main stream of the Republic fleet, along with the Acclamators. We don't know the total crew number of the Venators, but they can't be too high.

I would be very interested to know the crew count. However, I do not see how counting people seen on gunships gives us anything more than a lower limit. Certainly we cannot then estimate the number of Venators from that, especially with clone numbers we do not actually know, and especially not with that year-by-year breakdown given in the OP. That's just wild speculation.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Well, even without diving into EU sources, we know many stations, bases, outposts and most warships are largely crewed by clones, up to 99.9999
%.

We've seen an outpost ran by a small contingent of clones. The base was absolute huge, but as you can notice, there were not that many spare clones to put in, which fits with the 60,000 clones on the medical station.

10,000 Jedi, only a few are Masters, and the cases of Knights being allowed to control squads seems pretty slim aside from Anakin.

Looking at how many clones Mace Windu led on the battlefield could be interesting, but it's very sketchy, since it was a huge mess with many other Jedi Masters involved.

We may take the example of Utapau. I don't recall seeing another Jedi involved, although he could have been supervising the battle aboard a ship.

[2046]

So I was looking at SB and saw your thread there, so now I know more about where the numbers came from.

Basically you take the 27 out of Fives' serial number, assume 27 batches of clones therefrom, and then assume per AotC that a batch of clones equals 200,000, thus coming up with 5.4 million.

That's not even self-consistent. If 27 is a batch, wouldn't a batch be limited to 10,000 (e.g. 27-xxxx). Better yet, if there are 27 batches, then what the hell does CT mean?

I just don't see that as a worthwhile measure of anything, with the possible exception of providing an upper limit on clone numbers.

[Mith]

So I was looking at SB and saw your thread there, so now I know more about where the numbers came from.

Then I presume that you don't need me to clarify your above post?

Basically you take the 27 out of Fives' serial number, assume 27 batches of clones therefrom, and then assume per AotC that a batch of clones equals 200,000, thus coming up with 5.4 million.

Yes, it is a rather ambitious number.

That's not even self-consistent. If 27 is a batch, wouldn't a batch be limited to 10,000 (e.g. 27-xxxx). Better yet, if there are 27 batches, then what the hell does CT mean?

You make a good point, I actually should have just limited at best to a more conservative number. I presume that CT means Clone Trooper.

Taking this into account, that would give us around 270,000 clones, which would actually match up with the three million quota.

I should have actually caught that, I was probably thinking too much about the highest number possible.

I just don't see that as a worthwhile measure of anything, with the possible exception of providing an upper limit on clone numbers.

That was the intention.

[Mr. Oragahn]

The SBC thread has actually derailed into a debate about how many governors were placed to oversee all the planet of the Republic during the CW, due to two totally inconclusive quotes.

I offered a good number of rationalizations to tie all of them up, but Lord Vespasian's not happy with them since it lowers the numbers astronomically, so he'd rather cherry pick data and ignore whole pans of the complete set of references.


One thing that could be done is to guess how many clones there were in orbit of Coruscant during the battle, just after the end of the war.

[Jedi Master Spock]

The SBC thread has actually derailed into a debate about how many governors were placed to oversee all the planet of the Republic during the CW, due to two totally inconclusive quotes.

I recall we talked about that here in relationship to clone numbers. It's definitely a linked problem, since the ROTS novelization, IIRC, talks about clonetroopers going out with the new governors.

That's the biggest movie-level problem with the low clone figures, and it does remain something of a problem regardless of what else you do, especially since the Jedi had been basically running the whole visible military apparatus until the purge, and there are only so many Jedi.

[Roondar]

My 2 cents about the clone-trooper numbers is as follows:

I tend to think that the Empire has a lower number of troops and ships as some might think.

To me the mere fact the built the Deathstar to try and terrorize their holdings enough to not run like hell from what Palpatine made out their once lovely republic speaks very strongly in the direction of a relatively small navy overall and corresponding number of troops.

If they had plenty of troops and ships the Deathstar would not really have been needed to control planets at all - a massive fleet threathening to bomb you into the stone age is also quite effective.

Note that this does count on the reasons behind building the Deathstar where rational ones and not 'lets build a superlaser, wheeee!'

[Praeothmin]

Well, Roondar, that actually figures well with a small sized SW Galaxy.
All we see in the movies are always small-scale battles that have a huge impact on the Empire or the Republic.

Small fleets, small number of soldiers in conflicts, 1 huge station in order to instill fear in systems where an ISD won't suffice, etc...