ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)

I'm not quite sure people get how big a number 300 billion is. That's 300,000,000,000, written out in full, and it's the number of battle droids for every one clone trooper. To put it in more recognizable terms, it's 50 Earths made up of all soldiers for every one clone. Or to scale it all up, that's 150 million times the population of Earth vs. about the population of Rome.

For a bit more comparison, picture if every star within 1,000 light years of the Sun had an exact copy of Earth. Or if every star visible in the night sky under perfect conditions had 10,000 Earths, or using the EU's population, 60 Coruscants. Now take all those people and face them off against the inhabitants of Rome.

Yeah, tactics are really going to help there. You'd think the armies of Earth might have realized that a while ago. The major armies of the World Wars each outnumbered the GAR on their own, but clearly they didn't need that many soldiers. If they had only known uber-tactics, they could have just sent out a few guys to do the job equally well.

Or possibly that those authors who have studied primarily real-world battles don't understand the concept of galactic scale. Like I said, math is hard. It's much easier to throw out whatever crap comes off the the top of your head and hope people will take "a wizard did it" - sorry, I meant uber-sweet tactics - as an explanation.

Actually, you don't; all you have is a statement that there is a unit called a "Grand Army" that's 3 million strong. And here's the part that I don't get. You love reinterpreting canon statements to mean things slightly different from what they were intended. And I provided a whole list of retcons up there that can make the Grand Army referred to still be three million strong while making the whole clone army the larger size.

Why? Because that goes against canon too. These "crappy" droids have been shown to inflict massive casualties in many sources. And to suck that bad at 300 billion to one superiority, they'd have to basically be inactive.

And that still didn't address the point I made in the quote. It is specifically stated that Republic forces outnumber the CIS forces deployed to the front in the first year of the war. That's a canon fact.

Ah, the space superiority argument. First, you generally (not always) need infantry to take a planet, and out of all the battles we see, most are ground battles. Second, manufacturing plants were churning out quintillions of droids, and somehow weren't able to have enough ships? And third, ROTS showed us that the CIS had enough forces in a relatively small strike force to hold their own against the home fleet of Coruscant when winning the space battle wasn't even really their goal.

 

Yes, they've all shown in their works a lack of a grasp of scale. Those military sci-fi writers have been outsmarted by unqualified fandom. Teh winnar, thus, is you, hooray.



As I said, it's not a problem of scale; they get that fine too. It's that they're able to understand the capabilties of one capital ship and well trained soldier and apply it with relevance; and don't think that adding zeroes to an arbitrary number of ships or troops makes for better storytelling. As I said, quality is better than quantity. It seriously smacks to me of someone who thinks themselves well qualified on battle matters from building 100 tanks in C&C and rushing an enemy base.

If you think Zahn doesn't get the scale of space battles, then you very clearly and simply haven't read any of his books. If you had, and I dare say you haven't, you'd be recalling the Conquerer trilogy about now, somewhat glumly in fact as it pwned your statement.

E_S

 

I think Karen's problem is that she simply does not want to admit that she was wrong. She's concocted all sorts of "fixes" that have been flimsy at best and downright insulting at worst, and even went through a "numbers don't matter!!!11!one!" phase a little while ago. Fundamentally, though, I think she still refuses to admit that her number makes no sense on the surface, and if it doesn't make sense to anyone but her, then for good storytelling purposes it is reasonable and preferable just to change it to something better. No storyteller should simply assume that the audience is going to buy into whatever they say just because they say it, and really good storytellers listen to feedback and make changes in an effort to improve their situations.

 

i.e. Disbelief is not being suspended...

 

And here you're treating tactics as an unlimited equalizer, that nothing is impossible with sufficiently good tactics. Yes, tactics can overcome numerical advantage. But it's pure fanwankery to act like it's some sort of unlimited superpower that can neutralize any disadvantage. With these numbers the CIS doesn't even need good tactics. They can waste 99.9% of their forces by just throwing them up against clone emplacements and they'll still have 1 quadrillion droids left to do whatever they want, and they still outnumber the clone army by 300 million to one (and that's assuming that clones take no casualties against 999 quadrillion droids because of their SUPAH-AWESOME tactical ability).

Thrawn, the mastermind tactician, didn't have nearly the numerical disadvantage that the GAR supposedly did, and even there it was a close race. Now imagine if Thrawn's opposition had gone up by a factor of a million (and like it or not, quintillions of droids is canon). Can Thrawn just think of better tactics and all will be well?

I keep mentioning "a wizard did it" because that's exactly what this is. No explaining how it works, no considering any limitations, just a vague "oh they used some sort of tactics and that explains everything". You might as well say "because that's how the author wrote it". Or how about "it's MAGIC!".

 

"One Jedi, One Battle"

 

Like I said, tactics can overcome numerical disadvantage. But here's what the argument is that's being used: tactics can overcome SOME numerical disadvantage (like your examples). Therefore, tactics can overcome ANY numerical disadvantage.

None of those are even close to 300 billion to one. As such, those examples no more justify it than the fact that Obi-Wan can jump 50 feet in TPM means he could jump a mile.

Suspension of disbelief can only take you so far. If Han were ejected into vacuum without an air supply and was perfectly fine, no one would say "Why don't you just suspend your disbelief?" It would go beyond the level that the universe has already established, and would be clearly illogical.

We're not talking about Luke in one X-wing destroying the Death Star. We're talking about Luke in one X-wing holding off the entire Empire.

 

Terra Sool was liberated without any clone troopers, and it had a huge droid presence. According to the NEC, Ord Cestus was a typical operation. Thus, it was not terribly uncommon for 5 troopers to be able to liberate a planet.

Furthermore, I think they had vastly more than 3 million clones, thanks to Spaarti cylinders. The GAR article only dealt with Kaminoan clones.

 

Lord Hydro;

Consider the Battle of Trafalgar. A numerically superior French and Spanish force is completely defeated by the English, who lose no ships. Granted, Viscount Nelson was killed, but when you consider the number of French/Spanish ships destroyed or captured, and that the English lost none, that's clearly not numbers, it's tactical ability.

Battle Droids are crap. In every incarnation; as a Minis gamer, I can tell you people only take battle droids to combine fire so other shooters are better. In the RPG, in films, books and games, they suck. Clones, on the other hand, are rigorously trained units, capable on independant thought. They carry more powerful weapons, and wear armour.

They are supported by fighters, by artillery, and by gunships, and of course by Jedi. 3,000,000 grunts isn't improbable if you consider the additional support they have, and that their training and indepdent thinking give them an edge. The Confeds can have as many droids as they want, it's not even a 10:1 ratio.

And yes, again, tactics does matter. It's how Thrawn took a planet with it's planetary shield intact. It's why in wargames the Australian army can often outscore the US army, which by your fairly singular logic should win because it's bigger. If you want to see a situation where numbers matter in a way contrary to your point, the 300 Spartans might be a good start.

E_S

 

Like I said, not always. On the other hand, Mygeeto, Felucia, Geonosis, Merson, Parcellus Minor, Jabiim, New Holstice, Aargonar, Kashyyyk, Cato Neimoidia, Saleucami, Muunilist; I don't think I need to keep on listing the battles with heavy infantry operations. Even Coruscant had infantry action.

The Cestus operation had space support as well that played a decisive role; those ship's crewmen don't come free. Even Haruun Kal, in which Stover was intentionally demonstrating a clone-backed militia strategy, had a lot of clone soldiers dispatched.

McEwok, Ender_Sai, and apparently Traviss don't, though. And anyway, the millions of clone divisions quote shows that the early batches of Kaminoan clones were still too big for Traviss numbers. I don't see what's wrong with just retconning the article's definition of "Grand Army".

And therefore tactics must be able to beat any numerical superiority, no matter how big. Just like how a pair of Jedi can decimate small groups of battle droids, so they can decimate any size group (like they did so well in AOTC). And Luke can destroy the Death Star on his own, so he could destroy any number of Imperial ships. And Obi-Wan can leap 50 feet, so he can leap a mile.

Yes, I remember how poorly they did in the arena on Geonosis. They actually lost a few as they slaughtered the 200 Jedi.

And with the exception of the Jedi, so is the CIS. Lord of War lists the CIS starfighter complement as being in the billions, incidentally.

I never said they didn't. But you're treating them like they're some magic catch-all. It doesn't matter how much you're outnumbered, be it 10 to 1 or 300 billion to 1, tactics can somehow do the trick.

 

Spaarti only comes in after the first year though.

As for said "heavy infantry actions". You dont actually see millions of clone troopers per battle...

Your basing the prowess of all Jedi in one battle, the first battle they have fought in a millenium.

As for tactics, based on a battle they consider a massacre and your logic, The Battle of Geonosis was supposed to be won by the SEPs who not only had numerical superioty but more coming every 1.2 seconds. By what 120,000 clones?

 

A lot of those were vastly important; Mygeeto, Felucia, Geonosis, Cato Neimoidia, Saleucami, and Muunilinst were either key CIS member worlds, and/or held incredibly important resources. Jabiim had a ton of ore, and they might've been able to win without much infantry, if they'd listened to Alpha. We don't know the motivations behind Parcellus Minor and Merson. New Holstice was an important hospital, so it's only logical there'd be some sort of clone garrison. Also, we don't know the size of the battle. Aargonar and Kashyyyk were kind of perplexing, but I guess clones gotta go where their famous High Jedi Generals lead them.

I don't even know why I even argued that. Like you said, there's plenty of other examples of clones in non-vital roles, like when they occupied Aargau, or Dantooine. Those really invalidate the idea that clones were only in critically important battles.

Shatterpoint wasn't a clone-backed militia strategy. It was just Depa and the locals. Mace and the clones only showed up because she turned dark.

I'd be ok with that.

Let's not forget that every Lucrehulk could hold like 66 million battle droids, so whenever they take one out, they kill a ton of droids.

 

I wasn't talking about the prowess of the Jedi, I was talking about the droids. If they sucked as much as some would indicate (that is, enough that it can neutralize a numerical advantage on the order of at least millions), they should have crumpled like tin foil before the Jedi.

No no no no no. How many times do I have to say this? I'm not saying that numbers are everything or tactics are irrelevant. I am saying that that doesn't mean you can answer any numerical disparity, no matter how big, by just saying "tactics".

In this case, according to ITW:AOTC, the CIS had about a 5:1 superiority in infantry. The Republic had key tactical advantages, like the element of surprise, or having their air support already mobilized while the CIS was scrambling to get theirs up (ITW also mentions that the Republic hit the hangars to keep fighters from launching). But 5:1 and 300,000,000,000:1 are a big big big difference. Success in one doesn't mean you can automagically scale it up to the other, no more than my Luke in his X-wing example.

<Zahn>Point.</Zahn> So Depa didn't feel she needed clones yet Mace felt he needed a lot. That doesn't really tell us anything then.

 

They weren't fighting the same mission. Depa was trying to overthrow the government with a more intense variation of the standard militia model (NEC). Mace Windu was trying to take in a rogue jedi and fix the dangerous situation.

 

Hydro; no, you're missing the point and dragging me down with you.

It's not an "and/or" argument.

The point is that 3,000,000 would be enough if used correctly. It's why Thrawn's battle group of five ISDs is sufficient, because Zahn knows what is capable of doing.

You have to understand, that it's not the quantity of a sector patrol fleet or the GAR or whatever, it's how it's used.

An Imperial II Star Destroyer is largely unmatched; it can handle 2 Mon Calamari ships without breaking too much of a sweat. We see ISD Chimeria take out a bunch of assault frigates and fighters in the opening of Heir to the Empire without taking any significant damage herself.

Why?

Because she's beastly powerful and helmed by a man who knows what she can do (that is, also by an author who knows what they can do).

The 3,000,000 GAR number never bothered me as much as people claiming stupid numbers for capital ships, like 25,000 a sector. The obsession with huge numbers I think is a bi-product of the popularity of RTS. Especially since the modernisation of technology, from traditional to Clone/Storm trooper, Venator- to Imperial-class was to make them more efficient - 1 doing the job of many...

E_S

 

Thrawn's battle group is not facing anything close to 300 billion to one odds. Several thousand to one odds, perhaps, and as I keep repeating, I'm not saying that numbers are everything or tactics are nothing. But that doesn't mean that if you expand his opposition by a factor of a million then nothing changes. You're taking the fact that Thrawn can succeed against great opposition and assuming that he (or the GAR) can succeed against any opposition, no matter how big. That's the problem. Every example given is tiny compared with the odds the hypothetical GAR is facing. One does not apply to the other.

And Thrawn wasn't having a super easy time of it; the some thousand to one odds he was facing was a challenge as it was. Can you honestly say that if you expanded his opposition by a factor of a million he could just find some new tactic to compensate? Is he hypothetically omnipotent?

Does quantity not matter at all then? Can we scale it up indefinitely? If the CIS can be blundering idiots and throw 99.9 percent of their forces in an unsubtle, strategyless suicide assault and still have enough to outnumber the GAR by 300 million to one assuming the GAR didn't lose a single man, is that just something that can be ignored? At what point does "tactics" go from legitimate explanation to catch-all deus ex machina?

You're forgetting that this works both ways; the CIS ships have the same technological advantage.

And because the sense of scale we're working on here can't be emphasized enough, here's the canon lower limit of the number of battle droids: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. The problem is, beyond a certain number of zeroes, our brains just aren't wired to work any more. We like manageable numbers that we've dealt with. We know what a hundred people is like, we can picture a million dollars, we can wrap our heads around the idea that there are 6 billion people on Earth, but we have direct experience with all of those. The concept of a debt in the trillions of dollars is more abstract. 10 trillion or more cells in the human body is almost beyond our scope. Over one octillion water molecules in a cup is incomprehensible. Somewhere in the middle there falls the quadrillion to quintillion range these figures work in. I gave the example of multiple Earths to try to give an idea of the scale we're talking about, so I'll post it again: if every star possibly visible in the night sky had ten thousand Earths orbiting it with all their population, and all those people were fighting the population of the city of Rome, that's the numbers we're dealing with.

 

No, I get it, Hydro, I just don't get impressed by big numbers.

Thrawn was always at a disadvantage; if you up the ante, he wouldn't have gone, "Oh, bugger. That's a lot of zeroes. Oh well, off I go to become yet another despot waiting my turn."

He would have tailored his strategy.

You talk about how people fail to grasp the numbers, but in your fangasm of a billion troops or ships, you ultimately forget that wars are fought at key places with finite space. There's a point where troops or ships become so crowded that they're creating a target rich environment for any armed entity.

Moreover, I think from reading TTT, and other EU sources, that a planet in SW is more like a country here, and oftentimes it seems to be taking a capital and creating a corridor of ground/space control is enough to conquer a world.

You ignore, though, things like Thermopylae or the 1991 Gulf War, in which numerically inferior units were able to exact a tactical advantage. Granted, the spartans lost when they were flanked but it really highlights just how much a well trained unit can count for against an inferior foe. Heck, the Iraqi units in 1991 were veterans, having come off a decade long war and they still failed to match US/UN soldiers 1:1.

In a situation whereby, say, 300 clones had to face a million battle droids in anything less than an open field, I'd gamble on the clones. They're better trained, they think independently, and have better equipment and arms. And yes, I'm aware each clone needs to kill about 3,333.33333etc battle droids to win that engagement, but if the Spartans could hold off a million persians in melee...

E_S

 

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.

How well could the sep fleet fight through Rep territory defended by Planetary Defense forces?
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?
How narrow are the choices of planets minus planets that have no strategic value?
How fast can the factory world's output be mobilized without republic interference?
Are Republic conscripts as plentiful as the not well known as Imperial Army Troopers?
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?
How far along did the first converted Sep battleships, detroyers and etc appear?
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.

 

Just felt like pointing out that both of you are equally right, at least, according to reality.

-The allied victory in world war II was due to Hitler's tactical imcompetence, Allied tactical ability..and Allied force of numbers was a critical aspect of their victory.

Now, noone has said that the 3 million clones was the only force the Republic had. Indeed, the Lord of war article [states that conscripts comprised a large portion of the Republic Army, which comes as no suprise; if each of the million or so worlds that comprised the Republic sent just a thousand men to the war, that'd be a billion soldiers just for starters.

Lord of war:

Faced with such numerical opposition, the Republic had little choice but to recruit massive numbers of able-bodied men and women from the civilian population to augment the clone army. Some Republic commanders boosted morale by calling the cyborg general's tactics wasteful, and the general himself either fearful or overconfident. The truth behind these accusations by Republic loyalists was far simpler: they were gravely concerned about a relentless enemy commander in control of a military force that was logistically and symbolically infinite.


Now, force on force there is no question that a clone is superior to a droid as a soldier-Geonosis and other engagements showed that the droids minus biological leadership are, frankly, cannon fodder against trained soldiers. Certainly, a million droids against a thousand clones are more than likely going to win if the battle is on an open field, as it was at Geonosis. But, Geonosis is hardly the norm for clone wars battles. The vast majority happened in cities, wooded or otherwise obstructed terrain, or in space-all of which lean less towards sheer numbers for a victory and more towards fluid thinking. Certainly, in a city fight numbers are a big help, but as I'm actually in the army, let me tell you, numbers are not everything. In my last Joint Readiness Training Center rotation, my company was effectively whittled down to about 15 men attacking a city with about 50 'enemy' in it. Later that night, we were attacked by about 30. We won both engagements, by utilizing all weapons we had available and simply being more aggressive.

Now of course, there are situations where numbers are going to defeat any sort of strategy-mechanized warfare is a prime example of this, especially in North Africa during World War Two; it's definitely arguable that Rommel was a better tactical thinker than Montgomery, but Montgomery's victory is usually stated as being due to massive superiority in numbers of everything from men to airplanes.

Likewise, tactics can offset big enemy advantages. In the 2nd gulf war, the American 7th Corps was technically outnumbered by the Iraqi forces across the border. This didn't stop the 7th from annihilating everything in it's path.

In closing: Tactics aren't everything. Neither are numbers. And both can lead to victory.

 

And yet you fail to see that it's not a matter of being "impressed". It's that regardless of your "tactics = SUPER-MAGIC" attitude, numbers are still important. There are limits in time and space. Even your wanked out super-tactical omnipotent clones can't be in two places at once.

Look, at the numbers we're talking about, you could make every droid a suicide bomber and they'd still come out ahead. You could drop them on enemies' heads and they'd come out ahead.

And there it is again. "Tactical superiority can defeat some numerically greater foes, therefore it can defeat all numerically greater foes." Yeah, and Luke could destroy the Death Star with one X-wing, so he can fight the entire Empire with one X-wing. Or Yoda can kill a few squads of clone troopers, so he could kill every clone trooper.

See, your Thermopylae example is still off by a factor of a million, and while that may not impress you, ****ing out the defenders as nigh-omnipotent doesn't impress the billions of droids that can be positively wasted on a single soldier. By your logic, if 300 Spartans could hold off a million Persians, they could have held off a billion. Or a trillion! Or any number because they're just super-awesome tactical geniuses who can do anything!

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.

None of these exclude conscription (we have quotes that mention it, as you posted), but they do indicate that conscripts can not be entirely what makes up the numbers needed.

Well, someone gets it. Yes, tactics can overcome some pretty amazing numerical disadvantages. But while Ender_Sai wants to act like they're super magical deus ex machinas that can solve any problem, when the numbers get big enough, they reach their limits.

 

It's interesting and commendable that you think yourself able to speak for me, Hydro, despite being completely unqualified to do so being as how you don't know a thing about me. Also interesting yet profoundly disturbing is your obsession with ****ing; but that's best left to Freud.

What I have failed to see in most of the books that favour huge numbers is a grasp by the author of tactics. Denning, for example, substitutes his own shortcomings of which I haven't the time nor bandwidth to catalogue by making everything bigger. People don't win by being smarter, or by routing an enemy; they win by overwhelming the enemy with sheer force.

It's boring.

Having the clone count at 3,000,000 doesn't have to factor in navy, air force or the aforementioned conscripts, but it's hardly the doom-and-gloom scenario you naysayers are making it, simply because it's not swelled by a factor of 10,000. I think it completely underestimates the value of clones, especially the advantage their training and independant thinking gives them over swarms of mindless automatons. It's not that they think of the magical word tactic; it's that they can simply exploit X number of battlefield variables the CIS forces can't. Which is why having 3,000,000 versus a bucketload of droids isn't at all problematic; it assumes that a clone is worth one or two droids when the number would be much, much higher. Simply throwing out the package of a clone for a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio and whinging because the numbers don't seem big enough to you is incredibly short sighted.

E_S

 

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...