Droid Numbers on Geonosis

I was looking at the Wookieepedia article on the battle of Geonosis and it stated that there was '3.96 billion' battle droids stored aboard the Lucrehulk core ships. My first thought was: "this is impossible. Someone's been making this up' when I looked at the Complete Worlds of Star Wars and it stated that there were 60 core ships. And given that in the complete cross-sections for AOTC says that it had capacity for 66 million droids, I multiplied 60 by 66,000,000 and it indeed gave a figure of 3.96 billion. Even if the core ships weren't loaded to full capacity, there would have at least been 900,000,000 or 1 billion droids stored on them at Geonosis. And I highly doubt that every single one of them got shot down as some seem to think, as they can take a lot of beating and anyway from my perspective most of them seemed to get away. Given that there were hundreds of CIS droid factories--at the start of the war, at any rate--the at-first ludicrous sounding droid figures of quintillions start to sound actually quite reasonable now. And core ships weren't the only transports at Geonosis--there were hundreds of Techno Union rocketships, Commerce Guild transports, etc. I know battle droids weren't necesserily the only things that could have been stored away at them, but still, it's possible. Given that industrial facilities in the SW universe are infinitely more advanced than ours, and Geonosian factories especially so, the Geonosian droid factory/factories, given a large supply of raw materials, would be capable of churning out a battle droid unit every minute, or perhaps even every second. And, to maximise production rates, I'm speculating that they had multiple droid production belts. So, thinking like it this way, I can now well believe that there was 3 billion droids stored on Geonosis (only 1 million was deployed--presumably Dooku ordered this, so that the CIS didn't destroy the clone army from the start of the war, and he also denies Gunray's request to deploy more droids)
What do you guys think? (PS I'm sorry if someone else has already posted a similar topic but I don't come here too often and I'm somewhat of a newcomer, so if a similar thread has already been posted then sorry).

 

It all depends how fast you can construct droids, and how full the core ships actually were.

The internal volume of a Core Ship is about 175 million cubic metres; assuming two droids per cubic metre, then you could fit 66 million into rather less than a fifth of the hull volume... and we do know that they do contain vast internal bays...

However, that's simply a theoretical maximum capacity - it doesn't actually tell us anything about the numbers they're really carrying.

For example, Hero of Cartao says that for combat, a core ship carries three C-9979s, and we know that each of these carries 11 MTTs and twenty-eight PACs, each with 112 troopers and two crew, plus 114 AATs, each with a crew of four. If we assumed that the core ships at Geonosis were equipped at this level, for combat rather than transport, they'd have only 4,902 troops each, of which 4,363 were infantry, making a total of less than 300,000...

Of course, it's rather likely that each core ship was carrying a sizeable force of droids locked-down for transport, but even if we assumed that each was carrying about a million droids, enough for four fully-loaded battleships, then they'd still be carrying only 60 million in total...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

'Only'? 60 million is twenty times the size of the clone army, and after all the sources stating it numbered 1.2/3 million, it's still quite a lot compared the GAR. And I think a million is still too low--five million is more probable, making a total of 300 million.

This merely increases the total capacity of a core ship if you throw in the C-9979s, making a total of well over 4 billion.

 

You misunderstand me: three C-9979s is the total deployable droid force carried by a core ship for combat...

And the GAR isn't the Republic's only military force - it's just their major strikeforce, alongside troops from sector governments and individual member worlds, who due to their local recruitment-patterns and loyalties are largely defensive in deployment, at least at the outset of the war...

-TMcE

 

Well, the C-9979 bit contradicts many other more reliable sources, including the AOTC ICS, which is told in an encylopedic form, unlike that novel. The core ship CS clearly depicts legions of droids being loaded aboard a core ship, and anyway the C-9979s are disassembled to be put inside, which means that there would be well more then a maxiumum of 3. And if the GAR was supplemented by recruits, well either they didn't use them too much or the EU keeps forgetting about them. Besides, only clones or highly trained soldiers can take on droids--look how easily the Naboo security forces (who presumably recieve the same sort of training as the recruits, as Palpatine wouldn't want the galaxy to become too good at fighting for his Imperial takeover), the Wookiees, and other things were taken.

 

You're still misunderstanding me.

I don't deny that 66 million might be the theoretical maximum number of battledroids storeable aboard a TFBB as cargo - but they're said in Hero of Cartao to carry just three C-9979s for combat deployment - around 5,000 droids; that's the maximum they can actually deploy into battle, and as such, it provides a sort of balance to the far, far greater numbers they could pack in as bulk cargo...

And neither of those numbers actually tells us how many were aboard the ships at Geonosis...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

At least 1 every 6 seconds as seen in AotC from one line out of hundreds or thousands.

At least ¾ full if not completely full. There were core ships coming and going before the battle.

The ICS:AotC says 66 million cubic meters cargo capacity. Are you talking about the cargo bays.

True, it does not include the 3,000 droid crew, 200,000 maintenance droids, and lets not forget the 60,000 passenger states rooms. If you just put 20 droids per room they can hold 1.2 million. So it could actually hold more if they want it to.

So the 60 core ships had at least 294,120 combat ready droids. How many droid fighters.
If a TF ring has 50 c-9979 and 1,500 droid fighters. If it keeps the ratio that would mean a core ship carried 120 droid fighters.

If they were only half full so 33 million droids each 1.98 billion.
We have no idea how many core ships landed, loaded and left before the battle. So Genisous could have produced hundreds of billions before being captured. What ever did happen to the 100 billion population of Genisous anyway.