Author Topic: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
Thrawn McEwok  13601 posts
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered: May '00
43231_Chiss Ewok
Date Posted: 4/7/06 9:42am Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
A couple of RZ:TZ quotes, both from Ordo's POV:


But, as Kal'buir said privately, you could stick a Weequay officer in front of the clone army and they would still fight well. An army of three million men with very few Jedi officers had to be self-directing.



There were, Ordo knew, at least a million troops now in the field spread over hundreds of worlds: small forces on some, multiple battalions on others. It meant long supply chains, and those were inherently vulnerable. So... why didn't the Separatist terror networks target them offworld? No ability. No suitable vessels or skills. Or... maybe the point was to intimidate the seat of galactic government after all.


Proper replies later! grin

- The Imperial Ewok

 

-----signature-----
A/T = OTP cool
:===8[#]8===:
Kyp/Jaina fans: stand up and be counted!
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
DarthBoba  32897 posts
Registered: Jun '00
8187_Luke Skywalker
Date Posted: 4/7/06 9:59am Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
Well, Ender_Sai has (or at least implied it). McEwok seems to have. And Traviss tends to be using that.

But a few problems with the conscription explanation:
1) We have never seen a single infantry battle fought by anything but clone forces and Jedi.
2) It's called the Clone Wars. Sure, wars get named inaccurate things, but if the clones made up 0.1% or less of the entire Republic force, you'd think people might not think of the war in terms of them.
3) The ITW quote. Clone forces very near the beginning are already bigger than three million.

1. So you're absolutely certain that with a run of 40 or 50 comics, a dozen or so novels, and two seasons of 3 to 10-minute cartoons, we've sen every last aspect of the clone wars? :P

2. THe clones & the Jedi are the elite. THe best there is, and so on and so forth. Of course the war is going to be named for them, as most of the key victories were due to them. NOt to mention that the Republic had never used clones before.

3. The ITW quote is nearly a year old. LoW is newer and thus overrules it.

AS for the actions of three people, two of whom don't have any direct bearing on LFL continuity policy and the third who does, but has been overruled by newer sources, and indeed, was even before she published anything, I don't see how this has anything to do with anything.



 

-----signature-----
Only a Prime can defeat Vader and his Emperor.
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
razzy1319  1862 posts
Registered: Jun '04
24104_Clone Trooper
Date Posted: 4/7/06 10:38am Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
razzy1319 posted:
One thing Ive been arguing for is how little we know of the exact tactics, strategy, and movements.

I could think of a lot of ways to handle the 3 million number, granted a lot of people wont buy it but it would in some level work.

1. How well could the sep fleet fight through Rep territory defended by Planetary Defense forces?
2. More importantly during the first six months how capable was the Sep fleet and sep army to do an offensive or defensive action after the surprising appearance of a rep army?
3. How narrow are the choices of planets minus planets that have no strategic value?
4. How fast can the factory world's output be mobilized without republic interference?
5. Are Republic conscripts as plentiful as the not well known as Imperial Army Troopers?
7. Was the 3 miilion troopers divided into 100 or less division to delay the numeric advantage of the Sep Army or even the mobilization of the Sep Fleet?
8. How far along did the first converted Sep battleships, detroyers and etc appear?
9. Were the core worlds defenses left in the hands of the Planetary Defense forces and their Star dreadnaughts, planetary shields and golan space stations?

Theres a bunch more information that we dont know that might make the 3 million viable.


Reposting this for L_H, answer some of these to quell part of your mind.

 

-----signature-----
In Space No One Can Hear Your Scream, Except For The BattleCry Of A Galactic Marine -Fictional BattleCry
My Kind Weren't Made To Kneel -Fictional Clone Trooper
Worst Admin Ever - http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/User:WhiteBoy/Kuralyov
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
LtNOWIS  2473 posts
Registered: May '05
16494_Clone Assault
Date Posted: 4/7/06 11:11am Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
Lord_Hydronium posted:

But a few problems with the conscription explanation:
1) We have never seen a single infantry battle fought by anything but clone forces and Jedi.
2) It's called the Clone Wars. Sure, wars get named inaccurate things, but if the clones made up 0.1% or less of the entire Republic force, you'd think people might not think of the war in terms of them.
3) The ITW quote. Clone forces very near the beginning are already bigger than three million.



1 and 2) Actually, the Battle of Praesitlyn had a large contingent of non-clone forces. Same with Jabiim. The clones are the tip of the spear, the guys that make the headlines. And we already know that non-clones handle logistics and work on starfighters.
3)Newer canon sources have consistently supported the 3 million number.

 

-----signature-----
A little bit about me: http://tinyurl.com/bnmcck flag
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
Lord_Hydronium  6273 posts
Title: Literature Gardener
Registered: Jun '02
15597_Vergere
Date Posted: 4/7/06 2:10pm Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound) - Date Edited: 4/7/06 2:14pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Lord_Hydronium
dp4m posted:
The Battle of Thermopylae is probably the best example of how 3,000,000 could function as a number, at least until the end of the Clone Wars when Grievous began to get desperate...

Why do I even bother? Does the fact that Thermopylae is a million times smaller than the odds we need here mean nothing? Could the Spartans have realistically held off a trillion Persians?

I asked these questions rhetorically before, but I'd like to ask them again in honesty:

Luke could destroy the Death Star with one X-wing. Does that mean he can fight the entire Empire with one X-wing?

Yoda can kill a few squads of clone troopers. Does that mean he could kill every clone trooper?

Does tactical superiority scale up without limit? Can theoretically infinite numerical superiority be countered with just better tactics?

Thrawn McEwok posted:
But, as Kal'buir said privately, you could stick a Weequay officer in front of the clone army and they would still fight well. An army of three million men with very few Jedi officers had to be self-directing.

There were, Ordo knew, at least a million troops now in the field spread over hundreds of worlds: small forces on some, multiple battalions on others.

Oh, come on, you love linguistic ambiguity and these have it in spades.

For the first: Yes, what Ordo says is perfectly true. An army of three million would have to be self-directing. Of course, he never says the entire clone army is this hyopthetical three million man army.

For the second: "At least"? "Over"? This should be an easy one.

See, three million has never been given as a concrete number for the entire army. There's a lot more ambiguity in the quotes that support it than in the ITW or Shadowfeed quotes. The two are in direct contradiction, but we don't have to ignore the three million; all we have to do is say it's only part of the clone forces, which nothing specifically contradicts.

DarthBoba posted:
1. So you're absolutely certain that with a run of 40 or 50 comics, a dozen or so novels, and two seasons of 3 to 10-minute cartoons, we've sen every last aspect of the clone wars? :P

2. THe clones & the Jedi are the elite. THe best there is, and so on and so forth. Of course the war is going to be named for them, as most of the key victories were due to them. NOt to mention that the Republic had never used clones before.

3. The ITW quote is nearly a year old. LoW is newer and thus overrules it.

1. No, but the other option is that we saw a statistically bizarre sample, in which a tiny handful of battles (I stand corrected, LtNOWIS; I haven't read Jedi Trial) we saw had any significant amount of non-clone infantry, when in actuality over 99.9% of battles weren't fought with them.

2. But why would people 20 years later still think of it in terms of the clones? Nomenclature is a weak argument, I admit, but the fact that for over 20 years it was identified by the clones suggests that they didn't make up some tiny special strike force. Nobody names wars in our world by small units that fought in them, even elite ones; they're named after the nations or groups that formed the bulk of the fighting.

3. Lord of War overrules nothing. All it says is that the clone army was augmented with conscripts. This is true. But that's all it says; the size of the clone army isn't specified.

 

-----signature-----
Great midis have little midis
Swimming round inside 'em
And little midis have lesser midis
And so ad infinitum.
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
dp4m  36462 posts
Registered: Nov '01
13878_Luke Skywalker Dark Empire
Date Posted: 4/7/06 2:22pm Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
The Thermopylae comparison was made to illustrate that, solely at the beginning of the war (AOTC, Shatterpoint, etc.) where the 3 million number was conceived, that many insanely more competant-than-droids troops could probably hold off a force of roughly 180,000,000 Separatists, depending on tactics.

We see the droid army being cranked out on Geonosis, but VERY likely not in numbers that would approach what the Techno-Union and others had probably completed by later in the war. The Separatists still had to strike at strategically important targets from the outside-in in order to make their way Core-ward to actually have any chance of success, whereas all the Republic had to do was to delay those strategic advances long enough to raise more troops.

Why would that be any less valid of an explanation than anything else?

I realize that the answer is very likely that it wasn't just 3 million as an initial total either, but certainly there are ways of making it fit that won't give you fits of apoplexy, no?

 

-----signature-----
"Looks like you're about to get pwned" - Eric Cartman
"Awarding experience points for cleverly and creatively generating an enjoyable experience. How warped is that?" - Darths & Droids
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
Thrawn McEwok  13601 posts
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered: May '00
43231_Chiss Ewok
Date Posted: 4/7/06 2:32pm Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
Lord_Hydronium posted:
Oh, come on, you love linguistic ambiguity and these have it in spades.

For the first: Yes, what Ordo says is perfectly true. An army of three million would have to be self-directing. Of course, he never says the entire clone army is this hyopthetical three million man army.

For the second: "At least"? "Over"? This should be an easy one.

See, three million has never been given as a concrete number for the entire army. There's a lot more ambiguity in the quotes that support it than in the ITW or Shadowfeed quotes. The two are in direct contradiction, but we don't have to ignore the three million; all we have to do is say it's only part of the clone forces, which nothing specifically contradicts.


"Shadowfeed quotes"? If this is anything like your interpretation of ItW... tongue

On one level, I agree with you - it can be tweaked; but it's far easier to do so in terms of Ordo's limited knowledge than to try to twist the character's intended meaning. Gramatically, "an army of three million men" is "the clone army" of the previous sentence, ie the entire clone force of the GAR; and it's a fairly violent retconn to argue that by "at least a million", Ordo is thinking of "tens or hundreds of millions"...

My point is that from Ordo's POV, the Grand Army is three million strong, with a front-line force of around a million, as of 21 BBY. I'm not saying that he's right, but that is his POV. happy

- The Imperial Ewok

 

-----signature-----
A/T = OTP cool
:===8[#]8===:
Kyp/Jaina fans: stand up and be counted!
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
MercenaryAce  2766 posts
Registered: Aug '05
8117_Y-Wing Pilot
Date Posted: 4/7/06 4:32pm Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
Hydro seems to completely ignore the number of militias involved. We haven't seen most of those battles because the seps tend to win them, and others like to write about clones and Jedi. If you assume they didn't play a large part because we haven't seem them, then the Republic's constant talk of defeat doesn't make a lick of sense because the Clones and Jedi win almost every battle they are seen in.

 

-----signature-----
"I am no man...I am a space station!"
Another star wars ships, droids and troops site:
http://armiesofstarwars.com/
It does have info found nowhere
Move all sig, for great justice
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
LtNOWIS  2473 posts
Registered: May '05
16494_Clone Assault
Date Posted: 4/7/06 5:42pm Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
Lord_Hydronium posted:
I stand corrected, LtNOWIS; I haven't read Jedi Trial)


I don't remember it very well. The Republic had a non-clone comm station on the planet, supported by a sizable garrison of non-clones, including some fighters and a bunch of infantry. The garrison gets wiped out by the CIS, so Freedom's Sons and the GAR have to liberate the planet.

 

-----signature-----
A little bit about me: http://tinyurl.com/bnmcck flag
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
Ender_Sai  28400 posts
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered: Feb '01
44324_Kyle Katarn
Date Posted: 4/7/06 9:03pm Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
DarthBoba posted:
2) It's called the Clone Wars. Sure, wars get named inaccurate things,


Well, a war is usually two opposing armies fighting, in modern parlance. Which makes "Gulf War" more like "Gulf Adventure Against an Insane Madman With Delusions of Grandeur". wink

Hydro, you keep bringing the "Luke could take on the whole empire with one X-Wing" thing like it's meaningful; or as if "post hoc ergo propter hoc" has never entered your vocabulary as concept. But, let's use Luke in addition to what dp has said; Luke is worth more than 1 TIE Fighter. Luke's advantages; arguably better starfighter (Shields vs not, Astromech), excellent piloting skills, and the Force. Most TIE Fighters don't have Luke's skill, his equipment, or his connection to the Force. Similarly, Clones have better training, equipment, and can think independantly. So you need a significantly lower number of them to do the same thing as battle droids, which is how a number as "low" as 3,000,000 can work.

As dp and I have alluded to, Thermopylae shows what happens when a vastly better force tackles a larger army. The Spartans lost when they were flanked, and were eventually overwhelmed; but they performed as well as one can expect when facing an army of one million.

It's worth reiterating that in ancient times, the Spartans ranked as simply the absolute best warriors there were. Their training and tactical ability surpassed all the other noteworthy armies of the time, and that's why for them we judge quality and not quantity.

You simply need to accept that bringing 10,000 Battle Droids to a theatre does not warrant deploying 10,000 Clones in response; then the 3,000,000 number doesn't seem astoundingly low.

E_S

 

-----signature-----
In this truth he knew himself to be.
From sinking sands he stepped into light's embrace.
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
Havac  14251 posts
Title: Lit Mod of War
Registered: Sep '05
23735_Obi-Wan Kenobi
Date Posted: 4/7/06 11:14pm Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound) - Date Edited: 4/7/06 11:21pm (2 edits total) Edited By: Havac
Lord_Hydronium posted:
dp4m posted:
The Battle of Thermopylae is probably the best example of how 3,000,000 could function as a number, at least until the end of the Clone Wars when Grievous began to get desperate...

Why do I even bother? Does the fact that Thermopylae is a million times smaller than the odds we need here mean nothing? Could the Spartans have realistically held off a trillion Persians?


Yes . . . because 1 trillion Persians are not all going to be able to fight them at the same time. You're suggesting that a billion droids or whatever your number is can all take on one clone trooper at once. Real life doesn't work that way; at some point the law of diminishing returns takes over.

I can't beat Jackie Chan in a fight. If there were one billion of me, only what, four of me maybe would be able to fight him at a time without just getting in each other's way. Jackie Chan can take four of me, I'm sure. To inject more realism, most of the billion is scattered around the planet doing other things, and Jackie has the ability to run away from me. Now, it's clearly a silly example, but are you seeing that your situation isn't as cut-and-dried as you present it?

 

-----signature-----
"Is there a captain's hat involved in this?"
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
dp4m  36462 posts
Registered: Nov '01
13878_Luke Skywalker Dark Empire
Date Posted: 4/8/06 12:42am Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
Just as a note, STANDARD starfighter military engagements in the GCW were 3:1 against the Rebels.

Now, please, PLEASE try and rationalize that with the ENORMOUS size that we knew the Empire to be and how precious few military resources the Rebels had in comparison. And then figure out if that was a matter of the Rebels picking the engagement zones or good intelligence or both. But there's some room for pause there, no?

 

-----signature-----
"Looks like you're about to get pwned" - Eric Cartman
"Awarding experience points for cleverly and creatively generating an enjoyable experience. How warped is that?" - Darths & Droids
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
QuentinGeorge  4759 posts
Registered: Dec '03
48582_Kaan (60609)
Date Posted: 4/8/06 1:10am Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
Good god, people aren't using Thermopylae as an example, are they? It's irrelevant for a few reasons:

1) Herodotus greatly exaggerated the strength of the Persians. (i.e., there weren't a million of them)
2) The Persians were invading Greece, not the other way around, whereas most of the Clone Wars engagements was the Republic invading CIS space.
3) The CIS can create new battle droids in what seems like (judging from AOTC) hours, whereas the Persians didn't have that capability with their own soldiers.

The absurd lengths to which people are willing to go to defend this figure is admirable, but not logical.

 

-----signature-----
Yar
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
razzy1319  1862 posts
Registered: Jun '04
24104_Clone Trooper
Date Posted: 4/8/06 1:46am Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound) - Date Edited: 4/8/06 1:55am (1 edits total) Edited By: razzy1319
QuentinGeorge posted:
Good god, people aren't using Thermopylae as an example, are they? It's irrelevant for a few reasons:

1) Herodotus greatly exaggerated the strength of the Persians. (i.e., there weren't a million of them)
2) The Persians were invading Greece, not the other way around, whereas most of the Clone Wars engagements was the Republic invading CIS space.
3) The CIS can create new battle droids in what seems like (judging from AOTC) hours, whereas the Persians didn't have that capability with their own soldiers.

The absurd lengths to which people are willing to go to defend this figure is admirable, but not logical.


It isnt wholly about logic.

The whole point of bringing up Thermopylae isnt about 4000 greeks vs 250000 persians, it was about the fact that it was thought to be impossible that such a stand would somehow end up to be a victory whether or not the warriors who sacrifice their lives would be lost and that the persians would come as fast and hard as their futuristic counterparts.

Just a nice little fact, the King's personal choice of troops, The Immortals, had a number of 10000 and if some died would be replaced immediately to give the sense of their "immortality" but to spartans who arent that gullible the immortals represented the fact that they were fighting an force that was as infinite as the droid army.

Was just reading the the clone wars article over at Wookiee and noticed that there were probably just 3-4 major battles during the first year and most of the action during that time was:
1. CIS looking for superweapons
2. Jedi and Special Forces destroying Superweapons
3. A strategic shot at the major Sep Financier
4. If Hypori is indeed the last battle of the first year, then its apt that it might be the biggest of the major battles since Greevy finally shows his gameface.

EDIT: Said it before and will say until everybody knows, By calculations done by those who deem the movies as pure fact, the Droid Foundries of Geonosis should have pumped droids fast enough to geometrically outnumber the 120,000 clones in a matter of hours. Which based on the logic of those against the 3M clones, Geonosis should have been a Rep Loss.

 

-----signature-----
In Space No One Can Hear Your Scream, Except For The BattleCry Of A Galactic Marine -Fictional BattleCry
My Kind Weren't Made To Kneel -Fictional Clone Trooper
Worst Admin Ever - http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/User:WhiteBoy/Kuralyov
Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History
Paladin307  389 posts
Registered: Nov '04
24217_Obi-Wan
Date Posted: 4/8/06 8:33am Subject: RE: ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)
Uhh everyone realizes that the Spartans lost that battle, right? How exactly does that help your argument? A much larger force defeated a much smaller force. The clones actually WIN the war.

 

Locked Topic | Active Topic Notification | Private Message | Post History