Saga The big Star Wars Myth # 2 – Imperial strength and starfleet size?

I see Han as describing "local bulk cruisers" as Imperial ships - just slower, smaller ones.

With the Corellian Imperial law enforcement, having bigger, faster ships.


We've known from the ANH novel that Han (and many of the other Tattooine pilots) are Corellians at least.

 

To start, I don't know if 25,000 star destroyers, or 25,000 Imperial-class star destroyers, or 25,000 Imperial I-class star destroyers is the right number. But I think it's a realistic (if almost incomprehensible) number given the size of the Empire - and the way in which it operates.

I think a psychoanalysis of Emperor Palpatine would most effectively answer this question. Why WOULDN'T a megalomaniac with the power and resources of an entire galaxy at his disposal whose sole purpose in life is to bend the will of the galactic polulace to his own dark side needs NOT create a Death Star when his Navy already has seemingly total control of the galaxy?

A Death Star is also a more elegant solution. A fleet of 100 capital ships requires a lot of coordination. A single space battle station is more effective and seemingly invulnerable.

According to my calculations the Death Star (DSI at 160 km - that's what they're saying now right?) contained the volume of 21,038,185 Imperial I-class star destroyers. So .. your presumption is that the Emperor felt that his say 200 star destroyers weren't getting the job done, and he came to the conclusion that something 21 million times more massive would be better? It seems like a big jump.

Clearly the Empire had the resources available to construct a massive fleet of conventional capital ships. I think this would have been deployed in conjunction with the Death Star.

Because of the size of the Empire. Although communication and course changes while in hyperspace and the speed of hyperspace in the NEU is making this less of an argument. Certainty it was true in Legends.

I've always taken that statement to reflect the design/construction of the ships in question.

The local bulk cruisers are built in backwater shipyards and are simple (easy to construct) yet effective designs that are generally smaller and have less weapons/shields/armor, slower engines, and less endurance than the big corellian ships built in the Empire's main shipyards which are the main ships of the line within the Imperial fleet (you're Imperial-class star destroyers and such). I'm assuming Corellian Engineering Corporation would have been one of the primary Imperial shipyards at the time, and during the reign of the Empire would have been churning out the main capital ship designs of the Empire. And since Han is Corellian himself, that's what he relates to.

 

Lt. Hija thinks that the movies support a somewhat bigger Devastator-type Star Destroyer - 2.242m.

A 2242m, it would be just over 2.75 the volume of a 1600m Devastator.

Which means a 160 km DSI would have the volume of 7,646,477 "Devastator-class Star Destroyers". Still a very big figure.

Yup - they're both "Imperial starships", but one type is somewhat less advanced then the other.

 

Exactly.

 

The question is - was Han saying:

"I've outrun Imperial starships, not the local bulk cruisers mind you."

with the emphasis on "Imperial" and an implication that the local bulk cruisers are not being considered Imperial Starships

or was he saying:

"I've outrun Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers, mind you..."

with the emphasis on "Not" and an implication that he's countering a "Do you mean Imperial bulk cruisers" question before it happens.

 

What doesn't make sense to me about the large fleet model is how do you explain how the rebellion was a serious military threat to the Empire? We have Imperial officials such as Tagge and Motti explicitly describing the rebellion as a serious military threat to the Starfleet. Not just that it might inspire defections, but that it has the potential at least to defeat the Imperial Starfleet in open battle. The Emperor in ESB worries that Luke could destroy him. However mentally unstable or paranoid he may be, this simply doesn't sound like a man who has an iron grip on the galaxy in the form of twenty thousand capital ships.

About the volume comparison between Star Destroyers and Death Stars, keep in mind that volume != mass. Most of that volume would be probably be empty space taken up by the reactor and weapon chamber. And for all we know, mass may be less a significant factor in Starship construction in the Star Wars universe than the more sensitive components like reactors, hyperdrives, and the like. We sort of already get this impression with the super star destroyers which are ridiculously large compared to regular destroyers but don't appear to scale up proportionally in combat ability, judging by its lackluster performance in ROTJ. In other words, if the cost of construction were roughly proportional to volume, you would be hard pressed to explain why the Empire makes SSD's either. My explanation is that for whatever reasons, size in the Star Wars universe is 1) not very linearly related to cost of manufacture and 2) not linearly related to combat ability.

 

True - if it was the combat equivalent of 100 to 300x ISD (depending on volume estimates) then wouldn't Luke & company have concluded "It's a trap" without having had to see the rest of the Star Destroyer fleet.

From Aftermath: Empire's End - (the Ravager is clearly an Executor-type based on its engine wreckage in TFA)

p339:
"The other component is that damnable dreadnought. It has ten times the weapons loadout of a single Star Destroyer - its shadow is deeper and wider than the dark of space beyond it."


Though the "higher power Executor" theory could resolve it as "Each weapon is 10x as powerful, so the whole thing is 100x as powerful."

 

Basically I interpret this exchange as the following:

1) The Rebel Alliance is seen as a terrorist/insurrection group - not a peer enemy - which is not to say that fighting this kind of enemy is easy. I would suggest the Imperial military is set-up to fight a peer war, and the Rebel Alliance has them scambling to adapt.
3) The Rebel Alliance is well equipped in that they're equipped with military craft at this point and not freighters packed with explosives.
2) The Rebel Alliance is dangerous to the Imperial starfleet because they have demonstrated the ability to defeat Imperial naval ships in combat operations as we have seen in Rebels and Rogue One.

You're entitled to your own beliefs. The DSI was two billion percent larger than an Imperial-class star destroyer. No matter how you try and fit that into what we see in the movies (or how much you water-down that number), it seems a stretch that the Empire would go from a fleet of a few hundred star destroyers to the DSI do to the required increases in materials, manufacturing, supply, manning, ect.

 

One of the main weaknesses of the Empire is its sheer size that even with 25,000 ISDs it still isn't able to adequately defend every planet which is necessary in order to not lose face.

 

One thing I always wonder, is in the Imperial Naval Operations Center on Coruscant, when the duty officer says "Admiral, the insert ship name here has encountered rebel forces at insert system here" odds are that the Admiral will have never heard of the ships' name, not know what class of ship it is, not know who the commanding officer is, not recognize the name of the solar system, and not know where within the galaxy the system is located. The scope of the GFFA is hard to put into perspective.

 

I think 25,000 ISDs is way too large a number. I agree with the op that the Imperial Navy wasn't larger than 1,000 or 2,000 ISDs. Though the films are intentionally murky about exact figures on anything. It seems both the Republic and Empire mainly cared about the core worlds and largely left outer rim worlds on their own like Tatootine. In fact, the sandtroopers we see in ANH are only on Tatooine looking for the droids, they are not normally stationed there, hence why Han is surprised by two SDs chasing him. TESB also backs this up as the Rebels could not defend their base from few SDs and 1 SSD, they had to run. Also at Bespin where Lando states the Empire doesn't really even notice their mining operation.

In ROTJ I agree than Han's line about command ships indicates there is more than one SSD. However, we don't know if SSDs were around before or after ANH. But even just 5 or more SSDs could be considered alot. As for the battle in ROTS, we never get to see the entire battle or fleets like with battle of Endor from afar. So it is hard to figure the size of each fleet. Plus the CIS operated on quantity over quality, ie more but weaker ships vs the Republic's fewer, but stronger ships. In that battle, VSDs were beating the crap out of CIS ships, especially their frigates and destroyers. Also I believe the Empire would continue to use cloning to maintain a large army of loyal enforcers to keep the peons inline, and to limit the number of veterans to turn on them. This would also allow the Empire to maintain a central strong army and keep local forces weak and at their mercy.

 

I agree that it's hard to square the death star size with the small fleet model. But with respect, I think you're misrepresenting the Rebel/Imperial conflict by framing it as a terrorist/insurgency asymmetric war. In the OT, yes, the rebels are outnumbered and outgunned, but nevertheless they do engage in open battles with the Imperials in all three movies when necessary. In the movies themselves, you get the idea that the power differential is something akin to say the Americans versus the British in the Revolutionary War or the Vietnamese versus the US in the Vietnam War (where the North Vietnamese still had some access to jet fighters for example) rather than something like the US versus ISIL today. If the power differential were that lopsided, the Rebels would be no more than a very small thorn in the Empire's side, not the existential threat that they are portrayed as in the movies.

General Tagge: "Until this battlestation is operational we are vulnerable."
Emperor Palpatine: "He could destroy us."

Again, not the way leaders would be talking about an insignificant guerilla group. I don't think Tagge's quote should be glossed over. He says "we are vulnerable" not "we might lose a handful of ships out of 25,000." The recent Rebel victory clearly has him spooked. And rightfully so: by the ROTJ the Rebels are able to win a sustained, pitched battle against the Imperial starfleet even though it was a trap. No small feat.

 

Vulnerable to the type of quick strike and insurgent attacks we have been dealing with for the past five years...and once the Death Star is operational, fear of it's power (ie. fear of blowing up any planet associated with the Rebel Alliance) will eliminate said threat.

I see your point I really do. The size of the GFFA just prevents me from agreeing. I'm not trying to convince you you are wrong or I am right, but it's good discussion. To each their own!

I don't put any stock in this because it's force user talking about a force user, different kettle of fish.

 

About the question of why the Empire might choose to make the big leap from a <1000 capital ship fleet to the death star, another possible rationale that occurs to me is that such a leap could be due primarily to politics rather than military considerations. Here's what I mean: we know that the Senate has been a problem for the Empire for some time: the officer talking to Vader at the beginning of ANH is seriously concerned that the Senate will learn of their illegal action against Princess Leia's consular ship. Perhaps any attempt to massively expand the Imperial fleet would have provoked serious backlash from the more moderate elements in the Senate who would rightly perceive such a move as an immediate threat against their sovereignty. Yes, Palpatine has amassed plenty of extra-constitutional powers for himself, but too clumsy or blatant a power grab could risk bringing it all down around him a la Julius Caesar. Even twenty years after his initial declaration of the formation of the Empire, the Emperor's hold on power is apparently still somewhat tenuous: remember General Tagge's incredulous response when he hears of the dissolution of the Senate: "Impossible! how will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?" Judging by these statements and the loose-knit structure of the Republic, the inhabitants of the GFFA are actually quite resistant to the idea of a single strong central government, instead valuing local sovereignty.

If the build-up of the Imperial Starfleet to the degree necessary to efficiently subjugate the galaxy is politically non-viable, then as I see it the Emperor has two options: 1) Build an additional fleet in secret; or 2) Build the Death Star in secret. In this case it becomes easier to understand why he would go with the Death Star; while more expensive and difficult to build, it would perform its task far more effectively than a second fleet ever could, and building a secret fleet would also necessitate building entirely new secret shipyards of the same scale as the ones on Corellia, which while doable would be a lot of trouble to undertake for a sub-optimal solution. Add in the manpower requirements of a second fleet and the greater likelihood of information leaking out ahead of time, and the choice of the death star makes a lot of sense.

 

Imperial government structure:
Governor (in charge of planet)
Moff (in charge of about 4 star systems or larger sectors in charge of planetary security forces renamed sector fleets)
Grand Moff (in charge of flexible over-sectors)
Senators (there to complain about how much they hate the Empire but have no real power)
Emperor (is trying to keep the populace at large from knowing how evil he is)

edit DS took 18 years to build, the problems at the end of its construction wouldn't have been known at the start of it.

 

All I'm saying, is if senators had NO real power than Palpatine wouldn't have bothered tolerating their complaining for twenty odd years. I'm sure he wasn't very fond of them: after all, the very moment the death star is ready, he abandons all pretense and abolishes it completely.

 

It will never cease to amaze me how much artillery fans will bring into a discussion in an attempt to justify a conjectural invention of an EU author, rather than to look for alternate explanations to rationalize the explicit statement of an established (hero) character.

Iron_lord wrote

@Lt. Hija thinks that the movies support a somewhat bigger Devastator-type Star Destroyer - 2.242m.

And before everybody likes to think I lost my marbles, here is the reason why:



Interestingly, another measurement (i.e. the moment the bay walls cast a shadow on the Tantive IV) resulted in a lower figure than 2,400 meters. Since ILM chief model maker Lorne Peterson adopted the conning tower for the VFX model of the Executor from a "smaller" Star Destroyer with a length of "11,000 feet", but since the large VFX model of the SSD's conning tower in ROJ was 'only' 357 meters wide, I concluded that the final conning tower of an SSD was adopted from a Star Destroyer 2,242 meters long, which would ultimately be compatible with a Devastator-class Star Destroyer to explain the VFX composition (above) as seen in ANH.

Here is the corresponding thread: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...riginal-trilogy.50044307/page-3#post-54213077

 

I'll have to read Tarkin again to find out how much power they had.

One interesting trend I've been noticing is that the people that only really pay attention to the movies side with the small Star Fleet, and those who are into the EU side with the larger Fleet.

I say that the size of the Star Fleet depends on location.

Actually we've mostly been discussing the number of Star Destroyers in the fleet. Is everyone familiar with the Anaxes War College ship classification system?
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Anaxes_War_College_System
Wile SDs are main ships of the line, they are only medium sized warships and include ship classes like the Victory and Venerator. Are we agreed that whatever the number of SDs, the Star Fleet has possibly millions of starships of the categories below SD?

 

deleted

 

What is the title of the publication that first in time asserts the number, "25,000"?

 

The first EU novel to use the phrase was Specter of the Past (November 1997):

"Two hundred Star Destroyers remaining from a Fleet that had once included over twenty-five thousand of them."

Prior to that, West End Games had established that a "Sector Group" (all the Imperial warships in a sector) typically consisted of 2400 warships, of which 24 were Star Destroyers: Imperial Sourcebook (October 1989) I think early West End Games material may also have established the idea that there were over 1000 sectors - and that 1/3 (or was it 1/10?) of the Imperial Fleet was kept as a reserve, in addition to the Sector Groups.

Result - well over 25,000 Star Destroyers, based on the average figure.

 

For how much difficulty we've had agreeing on capital ship numbers, I imagine the range of plausible numbers for smaller ships could be even wider (if you're going purely off the movies especially, which don't give us a very good idea of what a normal ratio is between big and small ships). Millions of smaller ships for a >1000 SD fleet seems entirely reasonable to me (and for a 25K SD fleet it seems like it could easily rank in the tens of millions). For a small fleet (100-500 SD's) my own feeling is it could be a bit lower, in the hundreds of thousands range.

About the role of senators in the empire and how much power they have, assuming you take RO as canon, Bail Organa going to Alderaan to rally his people and "tell them there will be no peace" or something to that effect is probably an example of why Palpatine may have felt he had to tread lightly in the earlier days of the Empire. Even if Senators no longer had much real say in the day-to-day running of the Empire, they still would have possessed the public standing and influence in their home regions to set in motion the beginnings of a revolution, particularly if a large group of them acted at once and declared the Imperial government illegitimate. Too blatant a power grab by Palpatine could risk precipitating these sorts of mass revolts. And once that happened, who is to say whether the army would remain loyal to him or take the easier option and turn on him instead.

 

I'm not certain that is the case, unless someone is okay with retroactively altering Leia's statements into an empty threat and making Vader's lieutenant lool like a wimp:

LEIA
Lord Vader, I should have known. Only you could be so bold. The Imperial Senate will not sit still for this, when they hear you've attacked a diplomatic...

COMMANDER
Holding her is dangerous. If word of this gets out, it could generate sympathy for the Rebellion in the senate.

 

Power comes to you from other people who give you their power when they don't realize that they have it. What I mean when I say that the senators have no power is that they have no influence in shaping Imperial policy, control over the Star Fleet, any input on secret projects, authority over the Moffs, and stuff of that nature. But since Senators are elected by the populations of their respective planets the senators would be able to sway the people to pro or anti Imperial bias. That is where the real danger lay.

The size of the Star Fleet is primarily dependent of a few factors:
size of the galaxy, number of Imperial member worlds, number of industrialized worlds, and starship production yards.

I think it would be a good idea to form a consensus on these points before we can come to terms with the films and the EU.
note: we will have to turn to the EU and reasonable assumptions since no mention of these points are made in the films.

edit: Lt. Hija could you make a picture of the Devastator SD (2,400m), Imperator I SD (1,600m), and the 995m one side by side top, bottom, and front for scale purposes? Resizing the same image for the different sizes should do.