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

This thread has been directly inspired by an ongoing discussion in the TFA section whether events in the time period between ROTJ and TFA qualify as an analogy of Europe between WW I and WW II, in particular whether the OT Galactic Empire was an analogy of the German Empire that fought in WW I, was disarmed and humiliated which paved the way for Hitler and Nazi Germany (First Order in TFA).

IMHO, this analogy is erroneous because the cause for both real wars was a conflict of nations but not a civil war as portrayed both in the Prequel Trilogy (secession war) and the Original Trilogy (revolutionary war).

I’d claim further that the Senate of the Old Republic (and the Imperial Senate as its successor) was rather an intergalactic parliament than an Earth organization like the League of Nations (1920-1946) or the United Nations.

Simply put: Both Old Republic, Galactic Empire and New Republic had characteristics of one big nation, yet the goals of this “nation” or body were not always compliant with those of its states or member planets. The analogies to the Republic / Empire would then rather be the British Empire and its American colonies or the United States of America, yet with the crucial difference that no enemy or alien nation is known to exist outside the galaxy far, far away.

So what is the military or starfleet actually good and needed for, given the appearance that no threats outside the galaxy do exist?

Already in ANH Solo bragged “I’ve outrun Imperial starships, not the local bulk-cruisers, mind you.” Clearly he implied a local police force and another, the “Imperial” one.

And upon witnessing the remains of Alderaan he stated “The entire starfleet couldn't destroy the whole planet. It'd take a thousand ships with more fire power than I've...”

Whoever came up with this EU conjecture of an Imperial Starfleet strength of 25,000 ships was obviously oblivious to Solo’s statement (= canon), add to this that the ESB novelization referred to Vader’s Executor and the five Star Destroyers as a “fleet” and the Imperial fleet we saw in ROTJ only consisted of one Super Star Destroyer and approx. 30 Star Destroyers.

The overall impression is that the Imperial Starfleet and military is rather some kind of special police force or US National Guard ("to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasion.").

I can’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that the majority of both the fanbase and Lucasfilm with its “nuCanon” is mostly unaware of these facts and/or observations.

Supposedly there is talk of “disarmament” after events of ROTJ that creates the impression we’d been looking at an armed conflict of nations in the OT which clearly isn’t the case.

I’d argue that in the Old Republic the Jedi were the National Guard, executing the laws of the senate, mediating secessionist inclinations and repelling exterior invasions.

The Imperial Forces were essentially the successors of the Jedi, ultimately they would have been transformed into the “Republican Forces” to continue what the Jedi originally took care of.

Any considerations to “disarm” these forces – which actually constitute an intergalactic police - beg for many explanations.

 

Maybe they were - but ultimately, the maximalists have managed to new-canonize it, with Star Wars Uprising containing a reference to 25,000+ Imperial-class ships

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial-class_Star_Destroyer

It's fairly well known among fleet junkies that there's some debate about the size of the Imperial Fleet:

http://jasonfry.tumblr.com/post/23039847571/eg-to-warfare-endnotes-pt-7

so if you want to reopen the "25,000 ISDs is too many" argument, you're welcome to do it here:

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...-capital-ships-thread-mk-ii.21527953/page-709

 

Iron_lord

What argument? What we hear and see in the OT is clear enough to get the basic idea, if somebody thinks it's appropriate to disagree or prefers the 25,000 figure for headcanon, I'm not standing in the way.

My general concern, however, is that it obfuscates a better understanding of how the Galactic Empire actually works and what the size figures in the OT actually suggested.

 

P.S.

To put things into perspective:

Han Solo said very clearly in the absolute film canon:

"The entire starfleet couldn't destroy
the whole planet. It'd take a 1,000
ships with more fire power than
I've..."

According to EU conjecture he actually said:

"The 25,000 ships of the starfleet couldn't destroy the whole planet. It'd take a 1,000
ships with more fire power than
I've..."

 

Actually, that's just Imperial-class - the starfleet has millions of smaller ships.

Think of it as

"A thousand ships with more firepower than I've ever heard of"

with each ship having "more firepower than Han has ever heard of"

1000 early Super Star Destroyers, in short (since the Executor-class itself didn't enter service till after ANH - and Han (in the EU, and I think possibly the newcanon as well, served in the Imperial Navy before going into smuggling).

 

Also this is Han's belief, I wouldn't take it as Gospel as is he really going to know the Size of the Imperial Starfleet?

 

Alternatively it is an Imperial ships stationed at Tatooine (thus still local) but just happens to be a Bulk Cruiser and not a “proper” Imperial Starship in his mind. Though yes he could also be talking about some kind of local force, likely run by the local government (in this case maybe even the Hutts), which makes plenty of sense as well, since the Empire will be running a lot but not everything and definitely not every starship in the galaxy, otherwise no people like Han. Of course he could also just be lying to impress his customers and making up stuff.

Problem here is that Han is cut of before he can finish saying what he wanted to say. Presumably he would say “I have ever seen”, but he could also say “than I have ever witnessed” etc. Also on own it doesn’t really give that much of a clue either about Imperial fleet size, only that in his opinion the whole Imperial fleet could presumably not do to Alderaan what he seems to find was done to it. He could plainly be wrong, not knowing about the true size of the fleet, or its abilities or they really can’t, though would presumably still be able to do something bad to the planet but just leave more of it intact.

Though you also have to consider that the Emperor was baiting the Rebels. They expected a Super Star Destroyer and 2 Star Destroyers to be there to guard the place and had been lured there by false reports of the Imperial Fleet spread all across the galaxy looking for them. Presumably he would still have kept ships in reserve to guard valuable assets, otherwise he would be leaving those open to Rebel attacks and sent enough of them jumping around the galaxy to make it look like they were hunting the Rebels. So those ~30 might just have been the ones he could easily hide without causing suspicion. Or in his arrogance assumed all he would actually need to keep the Rebels at bay whilst his Death Star was blasting them to pieces.

Plus you have to consider ROTS, with that giant Battle of Coruscant, with hundreds if not thousands of ships just short of the Empire’s Star Destroyers there battling it out. If the Republic and Seps can come up with such ships in the short time the Clone Wars took, how should the Empire have less of them despite being an extremely militaristic regime and having had a good 20 years to just keep building up its forces?

 

While Solo's remark leaves a fair amount of wiggle room for estimating the Imperial fleet size, I agree that it pretty definitively rules out a fleet size of thousands of star destroyers. He's not going to know the exact numbers of the fleet, but as an interstellar ship captain who regularly has to avoid imperial patrols to do his job, a rough ballpark number of capital ships would be well known to him, just as today any naval officer from around the world could tell you roughly how many aircraft carriers the US navy has. And if the Imperial fleet was even a thousand ships large, why would they use so few of them in ESB and RotJ? Based on the movies I'd say the largest plausible fleet size is maybe two hundred of the modern Star Destroyer class ship. Even that would mean the emperor only committed a sixth of his fleet in the critical Endor space battle, but that might have been necessary to successfully lure the rebels there in the first place. That 25,000 figure is totally off base - that would mean Endor only involved one eight hundredth(!) Of the imperial fleet.

About the question of RotJ to TFA being analogous to post WW1 europe, I agree it doesn't make the most sense. When MonCalamari cruisers and other frigates and things show up in RotJ on the rebel side, the implication for me was that these were the "local forces" mentioned in the OP switching sides. The conflict in the OT was absolutely presented as a revolution, not a battle between two powers each with their own industry and production etc. So a treaty of Versailles type resolution to the conflict doesn't seem to fit. Also, from an out of universe perspective point of view, why shoehorn in the most overplayed, overused historical reference ever? Nazi's are boring.

 

Aside from Han just expressing his disbelief of the empire being capable of destroying Alderaan (what they had just done) the quote could as well imply, that the Imperial Starfleet (or thousand of its ships) can't or wouldn't assemble enough vessels to destroy a planet in a single place.

And if you want to use canon-quotes how about "the empire has many command-ships" (also Han from ROTJ)? Or, since Han is a low-key smuggler and criminal, how about General Dodonna "the battlestation has a greater firepower than half the starfleet" (ANH). Until you want to assume, that the common imperial ship has ridiculously high levels of firepower, there have to be a lot of them (even if you include things like TorpedoSpheres or smaller battleplatforms).

Ignoring the fact, that Solo as a sole witness is of questionable use the ESB novelization describes DeathSquadron as a larger fleet than one SSD and five ISDs on several occasions (when it first appeared and during the asteroid-hunt). It is more likely that the five ISDs are just Executor's constant escorts, while the other ships are performing other duties for its fleet. As for Endor we have "with the imperial fleet spread over the galaxy trying to draw us into battle", again the "many commandships", not to mention, that the DeathStat itself counts for millions of ships in terms of material and firepower.

It is also the tool the Galactic Empire uses to occupy and oppress the millions of worlds of the galaxy.

"We are protectors of the peace, not soldiers. We can't fight a war for you." Mace Windu in AOTC.

The PT has also shown, that commercial enterprises or even private citicens (if we count Count Dooku as such) can field massive armies and even create them in secret, not to mention, that there has to be something, that keeps the sometimes considerable local forces of the Empire's member-states in line (or mutineering elements within the Imperial Starfleet itself although so far, there haven't been a lot of those in the NuCanon).

 

To each his own, but I think many of these movie quotes can be taken in many different directions, both pros and cons for a larger Imperial Navy. I don't think they all should be counted as gospel in terms of giving an accurate number on the size or power of the Imperial fleet, and are more figures of speech. When it comes to power and overall size of the Imperial Navy do you count star fighters in that? Individual Stormtrooper blasters? High yield ordnance? Only reactor power? Which half of the Imperial Navy? Etc.... Using Legends universe numbers, and if you assumed the 25,000 ISD's or less were all the Empire had then, there would be one ISD per 4,000,000,000,000 sentients, one every 2,760 Imperial Star Systems, and one every 7,200,000 star systems in the Galaxy if my math is right

From my own opinions or POV, of the Star Wars Galaxy and based on the Legends universe, I would think from corvettes up the Imperial Navy has got to be measured in the millions. How many millions I don't know. I think 25,000+ Imperial-I ISD's and thousands of Imperial-II ISD's is an okay number with one caveat. The caveat that there would be a lot other warships class operating out there, from what I would think should many other ship builders, not just a handful. Maybe not as prevalent as an ISD, but a lot more diversity than we actually end up seeing. When you count Victory-class, Venator-class, Tector-class, Allegiance-class, Secutor-class, the other Star Destroyer classes, and what the Republic Navy nationalized from the individual PSF's during the Clone Wars that you would arrive at a decent number. Plus I would guess the Empire would never be able to deploy the entire fleet all at once between garrisoning important locations, patrols, training, repairs, and refits.

I am fully aware of some of the aspects of the Star Wars universe with regards to being a space opera do lend things to be on a smaller scale and thats fine. Opinion wise though, I would think with what should be a Galaxy extremely rich in resources and technology with unimaginable power, that fleets of powerful ships and planet destroying weapons would not be a rarity. There were plenty of superweapons in the Legends universe, and I don't think devastating or breaking up a planet would be very hard at this point. I have always reserved the Death Star as special because it can overcome planetary shielding, defeat fleets of capital ships, and any other form of defense outside of a lucky shot

Again to each his own, I greatly enjoy Star Wars either way, and I personally prefer vagueness when it comes to this stuff so that everyone can use their own imagination.

 

@jimmycrank

Doubting the reliability of a renowned OT character as a kind of EU conjecture defense is somewhat odd, IMHO.

In the particular case of Solo I think the evidence on his behalf is obvious: He is a former Imperial officer (supposedly), who has outrun Imperial starships (ANH and ESB) and is obviously well aware and correct about Imperial Star Destroyer procedure (ESB). Since his profession as a smuggler requires intimate knowledge about his foe, there is really little to no reason to doubt his statements.

@Gorefiend

"I've outrun Imperial starships, not the local bulk-cruisers, mind you. I'm talking about the big Corellian ships now." The authentic (!) screenplay from March 15, 1976 identifies Vader's Devastator as an "Imperial starship" and "Corellian Cruiser" was the official designation, yet the VFX team referred to the model as "Star Destroyer".

Later Solo himself is surprised to find one (and ultimately three) Imperial Cruisers / Star Destroyers in Tatooine's orbit which he didn't expect ("Our passengers must be hotter than I thought.").

While Vader originally didn't want to attract unnecessary attention, I'd say its obvious that after the sandtroopers lost the droids' tracks (they were not with Luke at the south range) Vader ordered three Star Destroyers from the fleet (or his personal group) to prevent any vessel to escape Tatooine.

I think Solo's "The entire starfleet couldn't destroy the whole planet. It'd take a 1,000 ships with more fire power than I've..." clearly conveys that the entire starfleet can't possibly have the firepower to destroy the planet. Assuming Solo knows the firepower of a single Star Destroyer it's possible to make an educated guess and arrive at the conclusion that it would take at least 1,000 ships and more firepower than he's ever seen / witnessed.

Isn't it safe to assume that 25,000 Star Destroyers would have equalled 1,000 ships and more firepower?

Regarding the Battle of Couruscant the Republic fleet's personnel were mostly clones and IIRC, there was a great reluctance of the Senate member planets to contribute personnel to the cause. After Palpatine had risen to power I'm pretty certain that he made sure that in the next conflict, the member planets would contribute personnel and ships, so there was really no need to make the Imperial Starfleet as big as the Republic fleet during The Clone Wars.

@FTeik

Thanks for mentioning Solo's "Now don't get jittery, Luke. There are a lot of command ships." Assuming that a standard fleet consisted of 5 Star Destroyers and 1 Super Star Destroyer, we’d be looking at 4,166 Super Star Destroyer command ships. The context of the scene is to put Luke at ease, why then didn’t Solo say there are “hundreds” or even “thousands” of command ships (i.e.probability that Vader is on it is astronomically small)?!?

A Starfleet size of 108 Star Destroyers (i.e. 18 fleets) would still have 18 Super Star Destroyers which could qualify as “a lot”

“The battle station is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the star fleet. It's defenses are designed around a direct large-scale assault.” General Dodonna’s statement only looks like a contradiction to Solo’s earlier remark at first sight. From the context of the scene (briefing of the fighter pilots) it’s obvious that he does not refer to the planet destroying firepower, but to the defensive power of the Death Star which is the one thing the fighter pilots need to know.

From the ESB screenplay:

EXT. SPACE - IMPERIAL FLEET
Darth Vader's Star Destroyer, larger and more awesome than the five
Imperial Star Destroyers that surround it, sits in the vastness of
space. The six huge ships are surrounded by a convoy of smaller
spacecraft. TIE fighters dart to and fro.

I’m not aware of any passage in the ESB novelization where Vader’s fleet is described as being bigger than those six. Later on while searching the asteroid field the hologram scene was originally scheduled to feature “20 battleship commanders” but ultimately we only saw three (and those 20 Star Destroyers could have been pulled from other fleets).

@King of Alsakan wrote

I don't think they all should be counted as gospel in terms of giving an accurate number on the size or power of the Imperial fleet, and are more figures of speech.

That's an interesting way to pave the way of what is erroneous EU conjecture into "canon". This is how I imagine the 25,000 ship claim to have echoed with original audiences that had paid attention to dialogue and events onscreen:

"The Imperial Starfleet consists of 25,000 captal ships"

ANH audiences:

"The Imperial Starfleet consists of 25,000 captal ships"

ESB audiences:

"The Imperial Starfleet consists of 25,000 captal ships"

ROTJ audiences:

 

@Lt. Hija

I largely agree with you.

The OT films don't really imply an imperial fleet with 25 000 ISD's.

Take RotJ, Mon Mothma says that the imperial fleet is spread out over the galaxy in an attempt to engage them.
If the empire has 25 000 ISD's, placing 30-40 of them at Endor would not be an issue.
So the rebels would have no reason to think that the DS 2 would not have a big fleet defending it.
Also in RotJ, when Palpatine orders Vader onto the SSD and tells the rest of the FLEET, to hide behind Endor, Vader asks "What about the reports of the rebel fleet.." Why would he asks that unless he thought that the ships on Endor might be used to engage those rebels ships at Sullust? If they have 24950 other ISDs out there, his question is odd.

Another bit of EU that I always found hard to accept, the firepower of an ISD.
Some tech manual give the firepower of ONE shot from ONE gun of ISD to be greater than all of Earth's nuclear weapons put together.
One ISD can kill all life of a planet and pretty much destroy everything on the surface in about an hour.
With that type of firepower, why even build a DS? One ISD does pretty much the same job, it only takes a bit more time.
Also this makes Han's statement rather wrong as 10-20 ISD's could totally destroy a planet in less than a day.

The DS was supposed to be a weapon of terror. If regular ISDs do pretty much the same job, why is the DS a big deal?

Buy for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

Not ISD - Acclamator (Republic Assault Ship) - the (now Legends) book Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections: AOTC - 200 gigatons. ISDs have never had an official energy figure per shot, given.

The timeframe has never been officially laid down for ISDs - though it's been theorised that a bombardment, to be tactically viable, cannot be longer than an hour. Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections ROTS (by the same author as the previous Incredible Cross Sections book - Curtis Saxton) talked about Grievous's ship - (only 1 km long - smaller than an ISD) leading a 1 hour bombardment of a planet that depopulated it and "partly melted" the planet's crust. It's not clear how many other ships participated in that bombardment though.

The problem is- to destroy a planet, one must eject its matter from its surface at escape velocity. Just melting the surface doesn't eject matter from the planet - and even if the shots were powerful enough that some matter achieved escape velocity with every shot - a planet is vast.

 

Samuel Vines wrote

Also in RotJ, when Palpatine orders Vader onto the SSD and tells the rest of the FLEET, to hide behind Endor, Vader asks "What about the reports of the rebel fleet.." Why would he asks that unless he thought that the ships on Endor might be used to engage those rebels ships at Sullust? If they have 24950 other ISDs out there, his question is odd.

Good point. Yet I'm sure what we saw at Endor wasn't the entire starfleet, but only a part of it, possibly and mostly consisting of Star Destroyers that were secretly pulled from the other fleets but in a manner that Rebel spies would not have noticed it.

The question remains how big one of these "fleets" usually is. ESB suggests a fleet unit with a minimum strength of 6 up to approx. 20 ships.

CONTROLLER General, there's a fleet of Star
Destroyers coming out of hyperspace
in sector four.

 

I always assumed that he was envisioning a thousand ships with firepower equivalent to the Eclipse of later EU lore; not a thousand Star Destroyers, but a thousand ships with arrays of miniature super lasers.

 

More power to you to believe what you what to. Just stop for a second and think about what a realistic size of a galactic power's navy would have to be (especially an "empire") to have reasonable control over the space lanes. How many systems were in the Empire's control at its peak? If you think the Imperial navy consisted of a few hundred capital ships, think how rare it would be to see such ships anywhere in the galaxy. Let alone on a back water such as Tatooine, where Han doesn't seem all that surprised to see a few Star Destroyers.

 

I see what you're saying about the size of the galaxy, but I prefer to weigh what we are shown in the movies over speculation. And just because the Empire controls a lot of systems doesn't mean that it is going to be permanently stationing its own top of the line capital ships at each and every one. Han is indeed surprised when he sees the destroyers after blasting off of Mos Eisley, prompting him to comment that his passengers must be hotter than he thought (although I see what you're saying that he should probably be more shocked). The Empire would doubtless have plenty of corvettes and fighters stationed in bases throughout its territory for control of important space routes, but even so they are forced sometimes to rely on local forces for law enforcement, according to Han Solo. Based on the numbers we see in the movies I doubt the Empire could afford to build nearly enough Star Destroyer class ships to make them anything but a "rare sight" throughout the galaxy. If they could, why would the construction of the death star even have been necessary to maintain control after the dissolution of the senate?

As far as an empire needing more than a couple hundred capital ships, think how rare a sight an American aircraft carrier is. There's like twenty of them if you count amphibious assault ships. Nevertheless despite being extremely rare they have the capability to bring more power to bear than anybody else, and so can maintain the US's superpower status. Heck, the British were able to create a huge empire and dominate most of the planet with only 100 or so wooden ships of the line. As is emphasized in the very first shot of ANH, star destroyers are really big ships. The fleet of only six that attacks Hoth is considered by the rebels as far too powerful to even consider fighting head on. If the emperor truly had even a thousand capital ships at his disposal, why only bring 30 for the Endor trap? He could have tripled that number and guaranteed a quick and easy victory.

 

One of them is nearly 200 times the volume of the other five though - may possibly have firepower to match.

 

The problem though is that considering the size of the galaxy throws a further spanner in the works. We know from TFA that the galaxy SW is set in looks a lot like an idealised map of our own. The Milky Way contains 100 to 400 billion stars (and so billions of planets). This would make a force 25,000 star destroyers seem like a very tiny drop in a very large bucket. They couldn't control more than a very small area, unless it's a scale-model galaxy.
This is why I think it is better to stick to the implied figure of 100 or so at most, because it limits the number of unexplained possibilities from the movie. A force of 25,000 would mean that the empire's losses weren't that significant, and it would ask the question of why a death star was needed and why the emperor needed to be where he was when he was dispatching a tiny force.
The 25,000 figure seems like it was made to sound impressive, like 'dude, they have an iron grip' without its originator having any understanding of the scales used in both the movies and in real life. The presentation in the movies are on too small a scale and asks why the empire couldn't have crushed the rebels like a bug under a shoe, while real life is many orders of magnitude larger. The 25,000 figure makes no sense in either context.

 

Even if Han is completely honest in everything he says (he isn't) he can err, have wrong or outdated information or doesn't know everything (if the empire managed to keep operational confidentially, just look at the DeathStar).

See above. Also AFAIK in NuCanon nothing is said about Han being a former officer. Also why would he have intimate knowledge about the size of the Imperial fleet as a smuggler? Here on earth a layman might know, that the U.S:navy has eleven NACs operational, but do they know how many - for example - Perry-class-frigates there are? Or Los Angeles-class submarines?

First, this shows, that the Empire can spare three ISDs to block an insignificant sandball like Tattooine. Second, it is not even certain that at that time of the OT Vader had power over more than Devastator and his own squadron of TIE-fighters.

Well, it only took one ship (although one of considerable size) and what is so incredible about Han talking bantha-poodo, because he is shocked?

Spread over the entire galaxy.

First, the Republic Fleet of the the CW IS the Imperial Starfleet and second, what do you think how Palpatine convinced/forced those member planets to contribute?

As much as I would like 4,168 Executors I doubt there were that many. And putting Luke at ease would be pointless, if he could just answer "yeah, but not that many". Also the fact, that Han - as you said - didn't say hundreds or thousands makes clear, that he isn't as knowledgable about the Imperial Fleet as you claim.

This is bantha-poodo. The superlaser is part of the firepower of the DeathStar. And even if Dodonna were only talking about the devensive power, we have seen in ROTJ, that the superlaser is capable of destroying attacking capital ships (which would cover the "designed around a direct large-scale assault").

But nothing says, that this was the entire fleet at Vader's disposal.

I also doubt we ever saw the 200,000 finished units of clones in one place, yet from AOTC we know they existed. And even if those twenty ISDs came from other fleets, it only shows that the empire has enough ships to free them from their usual tasks.

 

Again, while Han could be hinting at the general size of the Imperial fleet, it seems to me like he's imagining some new form of warship with weapons far more powerful than any seen before, like some king of Mega Ultra Star Destroyer. That's always the image that came to mind; a thousand battleships blasting away at a planet with lasers that could smash continents.

Interestingly, in the Infinities version of ANH, the final scenes show a fleet of many Super Star Destroyers orbiting Coruscant. This is in a universe where the Rebellion has been destroyed, but it's still a pretty cool (and pretty terrifying) vision of how far the Empire might be willing to go to maintain dominance over the galaxy:

 

FTeik

You do realize, that your reasoning and attempt to defend what is - by all means - an EU conjecture, is entirely based on assuming incompetence and/or lack of information at the expense of Han Solo? I'm pretty certain that George Lucas, when he wrote these lines, had no ambiguity in mind. It was genuine information delivered to the audience as a side remark through one of the principal characters.

There was no reason whatsoever to doubt the validity of his statement which can't be said for the EU conjecture, add to this its consistent with the ongoing depiction of the Imperial Starfleet size hinted in ESB and ROJ.

"First, this shows, that the Empire can spare three ISDs to block an insignificant sandball like Tattooine. Second, it is not even certain that at that time of the OT Vader had power over more than Devastator and his own squadron of TIE-fighters."

Solo was surprised to see Imperial Cruisers in the orbit of the "insignificant sandball". The context of everything that happens there is to retrieve the stolen Death Star plans, especially after Praji's detachment had been unable to do so. Even Solo immediately acknowledges that these Star Destroyers are after his passengers, i.e. the Death Star plans. Whether Vader had the authority to send them there or whether he needed to ask General Taggi for these ships is irrelevant, the point remains they were there to assist in the plans' retrieval efforts.


"This is bantha-poodo. The superlaser is part of the firepower of the DeathStar. And even if Dodonna were only talking about the devensive power, we have seen in ROTJ, that the superlaser is capable of destroying attacking capital ships (which would cover the "designed around a direct large-scale assault")."

That's inconclusive, we only know that the second Death Star (slightly different design and bigger) had the capability to destroy capital (!) ships and fire these beams slightly faster than the beam that destroyed Alderaan. Whether the first Death Star already had this capability is not known.

I say that the context of Dodonna's presentation is self-evident

“he battle station is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the star fleet.

Reads: Your fighters have to overcome a lot of shields and the defensive weapons (turbo lasers etc.) spread over the surface carry half the firepower of the Imperial Starfleet (sounds like bad news)

It's defenses are designed around a direct large-scale assault. A small one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defense.

Reads: Good news is that the firepower is designed to deal with capital and slower moving ships, so it isn't really of concern to you and your snubfighters.

Again, what do the fighter pilots care about the planet destroying capabilities? The only thing they are interested in is to what extent the defense mechanisms of the Death Star constitute a threat to their fighters.


I acknowledge that the equally conjectural distinction of "Imperial army" and "Imperial navy" (there's only the "Imperial forces" in the films) may have largely contributed to the myth of a large and standing military.

Of course, that isn't necessary at all once we consider that the member worlds had their own armed ships that would have been brought to the table for example in case of an alien invasion threeatening the Galactic Empire.

And again, the films reveal that other armed ships - capable to battle Imperial starships - had been in use by Galactic Empire members, e.g. the Corellian battleships (Tantive IV), "Nebulon" cruisers and the Mon Calamari (and Sullustian?) "frigates".

These ships never belonged to an invading alien force, these ships were used by Imperial member worlds, because - at the end - it's a civil war we are looking at.

The whole problem for Palpatine and Company had been that aforementioned ships were no longer operating under the lead of the Imperial Starfleet, but had joined the other side.

If we were to realistically imagine civil war battles, we'd see Star Destroyers of the starfleet fighting alongside with Corellian battleships and Nebulon cruisers of loyalists against - Corellian battleships, Nebulon cruisers and other ships of those that had joined the rebellion.

 

Considering the power of the Death Star superlaser, the statement that it carried a firepower greater than half the star fleet to me implies a massive Imperial fleet. Maybe they're not all Star Destroyers (although we really never see any other kind of battlecruisers being used in the movies), but given the sheer force needed to shatter a planet like Alderaan to bits, "half the star fleet" sounds pretty formidable.

 

I doubt a super star destroyer has 200 times the firepower of a regular star destroyer based on what we see of its battle performance in RotJ. My guess is a lot of that extra space is devoted to carrying the ground army and its equipment, including ATATs and transports and everything else required to launch the kind of attack we see in ESB.

 

1) If you want to look only at movie canon, the size of the Republic Senate gives you the impression that there are A LOT of worlds within the Republic.

2) I agree the Imperial Navy will not be in every system all the time. They will be deployed in a realistic manner.

3) If Han was seeing 3 Imperial-class Star Destroyers leaving Tatooine, out of what, 100 .. 300? I think he'd have **** his pants at the realization of his predicament instead of making an offhand comment that his passengers might be hotter than he originally thought.

4) Han's comment about "local forces" doesn't mean each/some system(s) had it's own military. The Empire might have had forces stationed in each sector permanently, and others who were deployed as required. We just don't know so let's not assume.

5) The construction of the Death Stars may have only be required because the Emperor was a megalomaniac, maniacal, and iron-fist dictator who wanted to capability to destroy an entire planet instantly. I see the "Tarkin doctrine" has made back it into the NEU.

6) I don't think you'll find comparing the Imperial Navy to our world will help you argument. The United States currently has 11 aircraft carriers, and about 90 Destroyers and Cruisers which could be analogous to a SD. It has 328,194 personnel, 272 deploy-able combat vessels, and more than 3,700 aircraft in active service. The US has a population of approximately 322 million people.

This means that over 0.1% of the US population is serving in the US Navy RIGHT NOW. Now think about applying similar logic to a galactic government. A galactic government rules via a dictatorship which touts a doctrine of ruling by fear through military strength. If you were to further divide that percentage by 10, and assuming 5000 member worlds (all of this is going to be conservative to prove a point), with 1 billion people each. And 0.01% of the people serve in the Imperial Navy. You have 50 million people in the Imperial Navy. If even 1% of those personnel serve on board warships. How many warships will you fill? If a Imperial-class star destroyer has 40,000 crew, that's 125 ships.

Now I have degraded my numbers by orders of magnitude at ever step, and achieved a result that still is more than you think is plausible from the scenes in the movies.

7) At Hoth, the Rebel Alliance, which is still quite small and no match for the Empire, thinks that the Executor and several ISD is too much to handle. Yes.

8) The Battle of Endor was a TRAP orchestrated by the Emperor. If he wished for it to succeed, most likely he's not going to station 100 ISD's at Endor, on the far side of the moon, in the next system, or even tell his senior navy commanders about the plan. Because it's a trap.

9) This was actually the topic of my first post here in the forum. I can't find it anymore but it's a good discussion.