Saga Size of the Imperial Navy

Always been curious and love geeky technical details like this.

In the films we only see a few hundred ships at most! And that would not be enough to sustain a galactic empire covering most a galaxy.

On the only Nu cannon number we have is 25,000 star destroyers. Same as the old EU.

So I am filling in some old gaps from the old EU especially since at lot of old EU stuff like ship classes and organisation is being recannonised.
Based on the old EU numbers that in a sector fleet you have 1600 warships for every 24 imperial star destroyers plus 800 support ships and there is 25,000 star destroyers in the fleet. Me in my infinite geekiness have calculated that the fleet might stand at 1700000 warships minus support ships. That being 67 other ships for every ISD. Beyond that the numbers bellow are just guess work IE pulled out of my are.

I think the majority would be tiny patrol vessels smaller than a corvette. And only say a small number 500-1000 being ships bigger than a ISD.

Large numbers but the Empire would of encompassd billions of systems. Most uninhabited but likely hundreds of thousand or maybe a few million of them being habitited plus the uninhabited systems can' be dismissed outright as they would be hiding spots for smugglers and pirates so 1700000 although seems a ot would be stretched precariously thin.

I would say:
500,00000 would be patrol vessel like the IPV-1 Plus gunboats of various sort.

Corvette would make up 250,000
These would be for system and station defence, VIP transport, depatches, special force deployment, policing and anti piracy. Intialy these where likley correlian corvette designs but later raider corvette started to replace them. I would say Gonzanti class ships fit it here.

Frigate: 100,000
I don't these really fit in with imperial doctrine so where rarer.
These where used for convoy escort, long range patrols and specialised roles.
Examples the nebula series and lancer frigates. Plus some remaining acclimators.

Light cruisers 250,000
Designed to support the larger star destryers and proved support plus convoy transport.
Examples Arquitens and later carracks.

Heavy cruisers 250,0000.
Used for star destroyers support in more dangerous missions. Independent missions not needing bigger ships.
Examples being deadnaught cruisers and later vindicators. The immobilizer intradictor would fit in here as a specialised heavy cruiser.

Escort carrier 250,000
Basically used as fighter carriers. Examples being the quasar and ton falk class.
.
Other star destroyers: 50,000
Basicall small non ISD. Examples, victory class and surving clone wars venators.
Used to conduct standard star destroyer missions in less hostile areas.

Imperial star destroyers: 25,000
Used on the most important missions and used to intimidate planet' plus show the flag. These would be the Empire primary flag ships equippd for all missions.

Bigger star destroyers.
Secutor carriers : 500
Aggressors :50
Bellators: 100
Vengence: 20
Accuser: 6
Executor: 12
Mandator 1,2 and 3 design's 100
Other: 50

Basically vanity projects and the navy trying to push the limits in technology and engineering.
Of of these would be used defending key worlds, fortresses and patroling the key hyperoutes.


This is just my head cannon but what do you think?

 

Let' be fair renewing techncal discussions like this and having threads likes this is a nice change and distraction from the typical arguments going on.

 

Soooooo, what do you think?

Thanks for posting the link as I found Jason frys article which was pretty informative and aligned quite a bit with my therory especially on the larger ships.

Linky here for those intresrested

J

 

I've always felt like 25,000 Destroyers seemed a lot. Like imagine the time and resources it would involve to build that many. But then again, the Death Star is not much different-and we're talking a military force for a whole galaxy, rather than just one planet-the scale on which we would naturally imagine...Still...

 

I worked it out a few years back calculating the volume of the death star verse star destroyers and 1 death star = Far more than 25,000 star destroyers.

With the Empire owning thousands if not millions of habitited worlds and billions of uninhabited I don' think raw resource would be much of a issue. Only industrial capacity and labour. But if you take systems like Kuat and Correlia that have most there orbital space industrialed it' not hard to imagine they could pump out a thousand star destroyers a year plus hundreds of subsidiry shipyards scattered about.

You then have the state of the galaxy itself.

You have endemic problem of piracy and smuggling that seems everywhere and hiding everything. You have rebellions and insurgents poppng up on hundreds if not thousands of planet'. You then have other star nations. The main one is Hutt space, which is large in itself and although it' only a lose connection of planet's and in a loose alliance with the Empire, Palpatine would be stupid to trust it so likely had a sizable fleet patroling the boarders. In the EU you had the hapes cluster too plus tens of thousands of independennt single systems on the outer rim, wild space and borders of unknown space the Empire wanted to bring to heel.


That's a lot to do even for a navy of 1.7 million. When it' not patroling boarders and putting out bush fires it's chasing pirates and doing some police work. Plus the new thrawn book indicates the Imperial Navy wasn't just used for military's stuff but also had more friendly city's like rending aid and search resuce plus a limited exploration role.

 

I've always always talked in this thread and have held the same opinion
That the empire had around 400-500 ISD's (based on my previous calculation off of their being 20 Moffs in Canon) at it's height and 1000's if not millions of support ships to back this up and act as their primary force of policing in the various sectors. ISD's were not called in until some serious stuff was going on.

 

Thing is with the resources the empire likely had they could easily build and staff more than 500 ISD's.

 

I don't disagree... I wouldn't be surprised if the empire had less than or around 1000 ISD's at it's maximum. But, it was technically a peacetime government, even if you have the economic resources, even a fascist government won't increase military spending that much in peace time, after you've won a war (the clone wars). The empire was not at war till The Battle of Scariff (technically and even then I call it a small rebellion).
It doesn't make sense to me in such a large fleet of 25,000 ISD's, why in the galactic civil war the empire would only send 7-25 ISD's to hunt or fight the rebellion (that's not an overconfidence thing).

 

A key plot point of the OT is that the Empire doesn't have enough ships/resources to hold the galaxy in the long term without a Death Star-like weapon. A number like 25,000 ISD's would mean that for the Rebellion to have succeeded, it must also be scaled up proportionally, with a minimum of something like 5,000 to 10,000 capital ships in total to plausibly have a chance of accomplishing what the movies showed they did. That's so far off from what we see on screen, that I just can't get behind it. And it makes everything feel completely depersonalized when you get into those kinds of numbers.

About the size of the death star - when you're building in outer space, volume and raw materials are not necessarily going to be major constraints, so much as the specialized components and rare materials you might need for things like reactors, engines, weapon systems, and the like. I would imagine that the vast majority of the death star is hollow, empty space (this would also explain why they seem to be so fragile when suffering a reactor failure). The manpower requirements for a single death star are also probably vastly lower than for a large fleet of ISD's.

 

Huh, but then how does the empire in canon and in legends have to make up for the sure loss of manpower, by pushing a lot of new recruits from the academies to experienced front line positions, after the Death Star was destroyed. I mean it makes sense for the join chiefs, but not all the other branches.

 

I wasn't aware that was a plot point in EU/Legends, but I think you can still reconcile that by surmising that the Empire probably put a lot of their best/most loyal people on the Death Star, and that losing them all at once must have been quite a blow, even if the death star was less manpower heavy than a massive fleet of Star Destroyers would be. I'm sure the Death Star was pretty decently populated, just not necessarily as much as its size might seem to suggest (and certainly less than 25,000 ISD's).

 

@Torib Thank you, there seems to be so few small empire supporters on here XD.

 

See I have trouble buying that argument.

A galaxy is a ridiculously huge place and I have listed all the duty's the imperial navy has. Even with twice as many star destroyers they would still be spread thin. A fleet of near 2 million would be spread out dangerously. Concentrating your forces as the empire would be near impossible as if you withdraw those ships from anyway its going to have negative effects.
Lets look at it this way:
Your a sector governor. You have 24 star destroyers 2000 tiny patrol craft and 2000 Frigates, cruisers and corvettes.
Seems a big fleet right?

You have:
10 major systems that cant be lost at any cost.3 of your major systems are in out right revolt. 6 are unhappy and could go that way.
100 less important systems but contribute significantly to your sector. 20 are in revolt and 30 going that way.
10000 colony systems that only have small populations. 600 of them are not paying taxes and possibly harboring pirates and rebels.
2 million uninhabited star systems. Rebels, rebels and smugglers would be hiding here.

In your sector you have a major hyper route you need to protect.

You also boarder hutt space and need to keep your eye on them.

You have to stop the revolts, stop piracy, conduct policing and anti smuggling, conduct search and rescue..........

So that big fleet is going to be overwhelmed.

And you have nearly 1000 sectors in your empire..........
Plus your conquering systems in the outer rim and destroying separatist hold outs.

Rebels? Even if they had only 1000 ships they are at a advantage as they have the freedom to concentrate there forces or scatter at will. They can also pick when and how they engage in fleet battles as they have none of the above responsibility.

I don't think the empire could ever be considered at peace.

It conducting conquest missions in the outer rim/ unknown regions and at the start destroying separatist hold outs.

 

In the new canon, Rebelling against the empire was a much more rarer thing than you think. Whenever I hear about a rebelling cell or resistance element in a sector or system it's always 1 (for example Mimban in Solo, all resources were allocated to suppress that rebellion). These rebels weren't unified and when they were it's when the empire starts to crumble and part of the reason the empire falls in 1 year.

There are not 1,000 sectors in imperial territory. There are at least 20 in canon, each governed by their very own Moff.

All Separatist Holdouts were suppressed by 14 bby... a good 5 years into the empire...

The empire also in canon made a peace agreement with the Hutts. After our good friend, Lord Vader paid Jabba a visit. I don't think they're daring to touch the empire after that.

In much of my opinion in much of Imperial Space. You would never dare see a star destroyer. At most a Light Cruiser or Frigate policing a space lane or protecting an imperial convoy. As to take a reference to the book "A New Dawn" it was a rare site to see an ISD. But when there was one so close and guarding a hyperspace lane and when there was ships kept their distance and everyone was walking on their toenails.

And in regards to imperial expansion into the outer rim and or the unknown regions. In my own head canon that is not at all have any involvement by the Sector Groups (Sector Fleets) who remained much more inexperienced and really only have a policing job. It is left to the various expansion or numbered fleets such as Thrawn's 7th Fleet or Vader's Death Squadron, who have nothing to do with governing conquered territory just expanding.

 

I don't think the sector fleets would be doing the expansions. I was just pointing out that's where some she would be allocated on top of the sector fleets.

As to sectors. Not all sectors had a moff.in nu cannon Some where rulled by sector governors. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sector
In old EU the Empire was organised into around 1000 sectors.
As most the galaxy locations and organisation from the old EU is being recannonisd every day I am making the assumption this is true as well.

As for the Hutts.....yeah they might be at peace. But would you trust a Hutt?
And if your the hutts would you trust the empire?
Peace does not mean being stupid standing your military down from watching.......unless your Mon mothma and the new republic

As for convoys and policing? No you don't see star destroyers doing things like that. That would be a job for the million or so support ships.


To the point about the rebellion not being organised? Even disorganised uprisings are going to be a problem. Yeah you might stamp it out quickly
But another one would likely rise up just as quickly.
So you got you star destroyers running back and forth putting out bush fires.

 

I always thought of a governor as ruling over a system< a moff over a sector< and a grand moff ruling an oversector

 

That's what I thought. But nu cannon changed it to sector governer ruling a sector. I dont know who idea it was to limit moffs to 20 in nu cannon and replace them with sector governor but it makes less sense.

 

the Star Destroyers might be more for deterrence than combat, so I can see them numbering 25,000 or less. They don't seem to send more than one at a time unless there's a substantial rebel presence or a key asset. I doubt they have one per star system.
The bulk of the navy which actually polices the galaxy are likely Frigates and Cruisers (Arquitens/Gozantis) I can see those numbering in the millions.

 

Pretty much this. I doubt most people in the Star Wars galaxy have even seen a Star Destroyer first hand.

 

LUKE
Destroyed? How?

BEN
The Empire.

HAN
But their entire starfleet [25,000 Star Destroyers?] couldn’t have destroyed the whole planet. It would take a 1,000 ships with more fire power than…

 

G

I don't take that quote as a hard figure.

If anything he was referring to a 1000 super stardestoyers type ships and even then it's "more firepower".

I don't think Han was giving a detailed intelligence briefing on the size of the navy.

And 1000 ships to control a empire that's spans half a galaxy? No way.

 

It comes straight from the film and a character whose profession requires him to know a thing or two about the Imperial Starfleet.

Nothing indicates that George Lucas wanted to make Solo look incompetent, so it follows that the Imperial Starfleet is mostly some kind of police force that relies on loyal Imperial member worlds to contribute their ships and crews in case it's war.

And of course, the Empire is concerned about the rebellion, because it doesn't want its member worlds to have their ships jump to the ever growing Alliance.