PT Is the number of Clones too low?

A thing that didn't looked to me right for a long time. In Darth Plagueis novel, I think that Hego financed a million clone units. I read on other sources that there were three million clone units, while in the Clone Wars TV Show, Palpatine makes an order for another 5 million unites but most likely they were never created because that it should took 10 years to make a clone of Jango.

So, in a galaxy that had millions of habitable planets, and quadrillions of intelligent inhabitant, is an army of about 10 millions too low? I know about the Ruusan reformations and the demilitarization of the Republic, but still the number is very low. With a process of simple recruiting the Republic could have managed having billions of soldiers (Coruscant the biggest planet had a trillion of people). An army of some millions looks pathetic to me, is about the same as the army of North Korea (including reserve troops).

 

I always thought 1 unit meant more than 1 clone. I thought 1 unit was equal to say 1 battalion (300 to 1,200 soldiers),1 legion (3,000 to 6,000 soldiers), or 1 division (10,000 to 30,000 soldiers). Do the films ever clarify if 1 unit means a single clone or if it refers to a type of military unit?

 

Films don't, but apparently Lucas did. They don't need billions of clones, they just need enough to deal with the separatists' droids.

 

I don't bother trying to quantify mook armies. The clones and droids are both infinite.

 

The newest EU on the subject effectively makes the GAR infinite in size; the "3 million" from the old Grand Army information is only infantrymen now. the other 211 (kudos to whoever gets the reference) are...as big as they need to be

 

The old number was 3.2 million, which obviously is far to low. After the release of the Essential Guide to Warfare, the three million are only Sifo-Dyas initial order. Yoda took 200,000 clones to Geonosis, one million followed just after the battle (those can be seen departing from Coruscant) and very soon after two million more. During the next three years, more clones got ready for war, I assume hundreds of millions.

 

You may not forget that they were clones of Jango Fett. They all new how to deal with crisis situations and they were highly skilled in the use of their equipment,
especially their blaster.

 

No, they were all clones of a time-traveling Galen Marek.

 

I always assumed it was an army of Palpatine clones who flow-walked back to the PT era and won the Clone Wars faster.

 

When Obi-Wan was on Kamino, he was told that "X number of units were ready with a million more well on the way" and without a solid reference point to go off of, the definition of a "unit" is all speculation. In the Labyrinth of Evil and ROTS novels they say how strung out the clones are over hundreds of battlefields so common sense speaking, 1+ million individual clones would not be nearly enough but given that 1 unit = a battalion of clones, that equals a little less than 1 billion clones. Not necessarily enough but closer. And also, if they enlisted civilians, and used private militias for planetary defenses (like they did on Praesitlyn), the Grand Army of the Republic would be sizable enough to take on the droids of the Separatists.

 

Lucas said nearly ten years ago when asked on the subject that 1 unit=1 clone.

 

Okay, with that being said: yes. The initial army size is way too small for the size of the force they were going up against. But then again, a clone is worth 10 droids, give or take. In the modern Army, there must a 3:1 ratio to engage (theoretically speaking). So if they held the same principles, then they should have just barricaded themselves on Corescant and called it good.

 

Which means that Lucas and Maths are not best friends.

 

Which is too bad as "Maths" is 1) not a person and 2) has no bearing on official continuity.

 

Do you have a source for this interview? I'm just curious.

I would say if there are only 3 million clones (max of reliable sources) that seems pretty low to me.

 

I always took 'one unit' as meaning one squad. The clone squads were trained with each others so they became a family. Because they were produced as squads, one unit logically would mean one squad.

 

I swear i have seen this debate before.

I always go by Wookiepedia's estimations....

 

Well, they could have used recruitment at the start of the war, but of course it would have negated the need for a GAR in the first place..

Anyway, I take the 3 million to mean 2 things:

1. Obviously, that 1 Unit=1 Clone is a lie. With the way we see clones getting shot, and blown up in the movies, comics, and cartoons, The GAR wouldn't last more than a few months at best. I take it to mean that 1 unit=576 Clones ( A battalion's worth. This is just speculation). If we take the 1,200,000 as Battalions, then we would have over 691,200,000 Clones, which is a little bit better in terms of a Clone Wars conflict.

2. If the 1 Unit=1 Clone, they must have had WAY more clones than the 1,200,000 at first...

 

And yeah. George is lying to his authors, that's obviously the logical conclusion.

 

It just doesn't make sense for the army of a Galactic Republic to number only 3 million. The active personnel of the United States Army number approximately 561,984. With Reserve and National Guard personnel that number swells to 1,129,283 total. That's just the army of one country on our planet. There are more than a million planets in the Republic. Just goes to show Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale.

 

To be fair, that's just clones, there're also local system defense forces and non-clone personnel on the ships. 3 millions was ok initially since it was a secret but production should have increased significantly with the start of the war.

 

According to ANH, the imperial starfleet doesn't seem to be more than 1000 ships strong vs. almost 7000 in the US Navy at the end of WWII

 

That is false. No such number ever appears in ANH.

Edit: Wait, now I remember the line you're talking about. I don't think it means that, but it was said.

Didn't Han say "half the fleet?", so that wouldn't that be two thousand? Not that I'd put much stock in what one character said off the top of his head in a moment of stress.

Various reference materials describe the Imperial Navy as more than a million strong, with an average of 1624 combat vessels per sector and more than a thousand sectors.