ODDS in Insider 87 (Controversial Issues Abound)

Against anyone really. Mostly I was debating the ridiculous number argument of the USAF above (since it was a silly notion to think we have that many soldiers), but also I'm a pragmatist when it comes to US politics and if there were any possible way that it could be argued for MORE soldiers, weapons, etc. that we would absolutely need to defend the US with then we'd have them.

Congress is a crafty (read: porkbarrelled) lot.

Basically, I was listing the canon figures for the US Military! Huzzah!

 

i guess so. but we are talking about defending a planet as big as Coruscant. for Clone Troopers to be on every Spaceport, landing and such, you would need about, at least several billion, of a few hundred million, at the least.

 

America is under no threat of foreign invasion. It is not involved in a large scale, total war against a strong enemy, and it is a democratic nation that doesn't draft and isn't nearly as mobilized for war as it could be. The US was able to invade ONE nation, Iraq, and the occupying forces are regarded as undermanned. The military is overstretched, and it probably can't undertake any other big missions while it's still devoting troops to Iraq.

A better analogy to the Clone Wars is WW2. And in that war, even a small nation like Britain was able to raise over 10 million troops.

 

Recall that I only posted that to rebut the "US also has 3 million troops and that's not enough to defend itself" postulation which is a) false and b) silly.

Further, US troops invaded another two sovereign nations (Afghanistan and Iraq) at nearly the same time and won both battles within a few weeks time. Say what you will about post-war ops (and I can say quite a lot and very little of it positive), but the US used 175,000 troops to take Iraq and, while hard numbers are sketchy at best for Afghanistan, it seems like 50,000 is the number most associated with the total deployment. So, approximately 10% of the USAF was used to completely take, occupy and rebuild two other sovereign nations.

As a counterpoint, 350,000 to 425,000 Iraqi ground troops were available (50,000 of them being Republican Guard), which put the US at a 2:1 or 2.5:1 disadvantage. Considering that the United States lost 140 troops during the entirety of the major theater combat (or, less than 1/10th of 1% of troops in the major theater), is it maybe -- just MAYBE -- possible to think that there is something to vastly superior training and technology overcoming significant odds?

(all numbers used herein are compiled from http://icasualties.org/oif/ [Casualties/Fatalities] or http://www.globalsecurity.org/ [Troop Strengths])

 

Sorry StarKiller, I had more I just had to leave in a hurry and couldn't finish.

 

No, I think its talking about special forces. Like RC and ARC that bring it up to 3 million.

Yes, 3 million is way to low to defend the USA. Heck just China would bring the USA military to the brink and have to go Nuclear.

I think its implying that the Army does all that to. With Clones being ships crews. Which makes the pathetic number even smaller.

 

So out of 300 million the US can field a 2.2 million volunteer army and during WWII fielded 12 million. So going with the 300 million = 2.2 million solders. Assuming that every planet has the population of Naboo of 600 million or 4.4 million clone solders(low ball). 1.2 million member worlds = 5,371,200,000,000 volunteer solders. Wow, 3 million clone solders can really defend the Republic. This is not counting the 50 million territory systems. Now using the low numbers of citizen land owners population count of Coreuscant 1 trillion would mean it would have 7,460,000,000 on it. 3 million is not enough to garrison Coreuscant. But anyway AotC says 1Unit=6 clones lower limit or 7.2 million in the first month the 3 million number is dead.

 

at least somebody agrees.

 

So out of 300 million the US can field a 2.2 million volunteer army and during WWII fielded 12 million. So going with the 300 million = 2.2 million solders. Assuming that every planet has the population of Naboo of 600 million or 4.4 million clone solders(low ball). 1.2 million member worlds = 5,371,200,000,000 volunteer solders. Wow, 3 million clone solders can really defend the Republic. This is not counting the 50 million territory systems. Now using the low numbers of citizen land owners population count of Coreuscant 1 trillion would mean it would have 7,460,000,000 on it. 3 million is not enough to garrison Coreuscant. But anyway AotC says 1Unit=6 clones lower limit or 7.2 million in the first month the 3 million number is dead.

 

A anti nuclear missile interceptor that what the US needs. But anyway. So are you saying the US military can face and defeat the whole world. Yeah, right. Were having a hard time policing and rebuilding Iraq. With a population of 26 million and there pretty sheep like.

Here?s a question do you think the US can defeat Europe in an open war with out using Nukes. I?m really curious about your answer.

 

Yes, with a massive technologic advantage, local allied forces in Afghanistan and a collation of about 40 nations sending troops. So no, with help the US invaded to nations.

Your forgetting that other US forces are already deployed like in Europe. 175,000+ allied forces were deployed to take Iraq. 175,000 seems to be the limit of available troops that are normally free. They also rotate troops so about 525,000 served in Iraq. Plus now they got growing in numbers local forces to augment the US forces also. (I would disagree with you on Iraq?s static since killing Zarcaly it has broken the terrorist back. But since this is about SW I will drop it).

To bad in the Clone Wars both sides had technology equality. So Iraq is a bad example. WWII would be a better example with both sides about even in Tech with maybe some Cold War elements added in.

 

Its ok. Take your time. I usually just copy a post I want to reply to and work on it as I get time. That way I also have spell check.

 

Yep, the nano 3 million has nothing to support it and is now only being defended by 2 people. So far the Nano-inates have been reduced to hand waving evidence and plane just ignoring it because they don?t like it.

 

Author bashing/baiting.

 

Seriously, I'm 100 % sure that the silliness of the three million number will be shown again in the upcoming CG Clone Wars series.

Baiting term.

 

2:1 is hardly 'signifigant' odds, especially when compared to the truley vast disparity in numbers the 3 million brings up. Moreover, there was a huge technological gap between the Coalition and Iraqi forces: poor copies of monkey model T-72 versus M1A2 Abrams can only end one way, ignoring in itself the Coalition air supremacy and their vastly superior training. We never see anything in the films that demonstrate that the Republic possesses such an advantage, nor that Clones are vastly better soldiers than Droids.

 

We never see anything in the films that demonstrate that the Republic possesses such an advantage, nor that Clones are vastly better soldiers than Droids.

Indeed. The AotC Novelization goes so far as to say that your CT-####### standard trooper is at a parity with a B-1 Battle Droid and that they are sub-par when stacked up next to a B-2. 200 to one indeed.

 

ooh, what if Karen Traviss becomes a writer for the show? then we could have small brushfire battles, with just 100 clone Troopers, and 50 Battle Droids. what Action and fun that would be!

 

That would terrible! Everyone knows that successful science fiction stories always concentrates on large faceless hordes battling it out, maybe with a few shots of general-filled rooms where they talk about strategy. Yeah, that's excitement!

 

Knowing you, you're probably being sarcastic.

Look, SW is an epic. Epics mean BIG events. Just look at the battles we see in the movies, which sure as hell do not support this nano brushfire war idea. You can have a huge battles and have interesting characters involved in them. Huge scale and good characters and stories are not mutually exclusive. Lord of the Rings did it, and so does SW. SW is NOT about small teams of ridiculous Rambo-clones (as if this kind of fanboy exxagerration makes for a good story ) owning incompetent enemies in tiny skirmishes.

 

but think of the good Karen Traviss would bring to the show!

 

Actually, I'm probably just gonna leave this to all you guys. I'm new, and I'd probably just end up repeating what's already been said fifty pages back.

 

Oops, you forgot cynical.

Gosh, I have no idea why certain authors don't want to come back here...

 

I believe that the mods has already decreed that authors motives and personalities should be left out of this discussion

 

Got nothing to answer my points with?