I personally really like the idea of an imperial star destroyer being a something that can change an entire fight. The idea of thrawn holding 5 or so sd’s that would be able to turn tides

Random Captain in EGTW: “I have 500 Frigates, 150 ISDs, and 3 SSDs!” Imperial Ruling Council in Crimson Empire: “We have a 1983 Toyota Corolla.” Me Playing Empire at War: “I have 3 Billion Mon-Calamari dreadnoughts, why am I still considered the Rebellion?”

I think a lot of it has to do with what the human imagination can picture and keep track of. It's much easier to write a strategy for say, six ships than six-hundred. Picture a Civil War line battle and then try to picture a WWII operation. It's much easier to write strategy at the smaller scale when we can barley comprehend the stuff that happens on an organizational level without going to a military academy. Then you have stuff like W40k, involving billions of combatants but the authors usually keep the tactics to "Throw people at it until it dies." Tactical and strategic writing is hard.

I always imagined the Empire having 50.000-100.000 Star Destroyers and millions of other smaller ships to support them, most being older ships defending less important systems. The Galaxy is large and if you‘re to believe the amount of resources, technology and intentions to arm themselves massively they had at their disposal, and also consider what we‘ve seen in the post Rebellion era with Palpatines resource heavy vessels built in not decades but a few years, it seems only realistic to me.

The only sci-fi thing I've seen that gets the space size right is the legend of Galactic Heroes, where space battles are between thousands of ships that look like stars shooting at each other. A small fleet in that show is 2,000 ships and 2 million men.

I didn't realize how small Thrawn's fleets were until it was pretty much spelled it out for me at the end of Dark Force Rising. Also Eck's flagship video reminded of Bel Iblis' tiny force and how unlikely it seems for it to survive against the empire, much less wage a private war with only 3 to 6 Dreadnaught cruisers and zero help from the Rebellion. Even with the added automation it just seems like one of the worst ships to have in a guerrilla war. Even as a military genius he must have been stuck skulking around in the backest water worlds of the outer rim.

Say it with me! Sciiii Fiii writers have no sense of Scale, sciiii fiii writers have no sense of Scale, That's how we get the stats for the acclamator!

Will you and Eckhartsladder be covering the New Jedi Order/Yuuzhan Vong War books?

The statement that Truce at Bakura intimates the entirety of the Imperial fleet in that area was wiped out is patently false. The book said that due to the disarray of Imperial forces nothing was likely to answer their calls for assistance.

*laughs in Legend of the Galactic Heroes fleet sizes*

This was very interesting! And it brought me back the memory of the old "how powerful is a turbolaser?" debate that I read as a kid. I'd love to see more videos that touch on a similar subject as this from you, cheers!

I never really though about this. Interesting tho!

The way I square this particular circle (short of just admitting that scifi writers never have a particularly good sense of scale) is that depending on the era, the number of dedicated military combat ships is always relatively smaller than you'd expect. But only because the actual amount of territory a centralized government would realistically need to patrol and defend. Even during a time of war. Follow me a moment. Space is just that: space. Empty, cold, lifeless. With a whole lot of nothing measured in lightyears between celestial bodies. Save for the major hyperspace routes, it's neither cost effective nor practical to have fleets or even squadrons constantly prowling through them. So space born military vessels are probably garrisoned at important hubs or nodes to defend them and act as rapid response in the event of an emergency. Following that, for the billion billion stars in the galaxy, only some of those are going to be planetary systems. And of those and even smaller amount are going to have the exact type of atmospheric, gravimetric, environmental and rotational conditions to support life. Specifically human or carbon based life. Yes, aliens exist in Star Wars and some do get pretty weird. But, by and large, the bulk of the various species (including humans) seem to require a very specific environment to live and thrive. So those most habitable worlds become the "islands" in the vast cold of space that attract the highest populations and, thus, require the most attention for defense. Less hospitable worlds can and no doubt are settled as well. But their harshness or remoteness means their own natural terrain and environment acted as a kind of defense. So depending on a planet's function in the greater galactic Republic or Empire, worlds can be prioritized as to how much military hardware is allocated to them. A prime aggro world or important trade hub is more likely to need a Star Destroyer parked in orbit to keep it "safe" than a black water mining colony on an asteroid. Then of course we have the role of the planetary defense forces and Imperial Customs. The former being the homegrown "local yokels" who keep the peace and the latter the "smokies" who keep an eye on things. The Empire likes to project an image of strength. But, as mentioned, it can't park a military grade warship over EVERY planet. So for pacified or generally compliant worlds, local forces probably use their own surplus (and often outdated) warships and fighters to deal with smugglers, pirates and raiders (who themselves only really use whatever they can steal or scrape together.) Supplemented by Imperial customs vessels that add some extra punch when needed or call in the big boys if something comes long they can't handle. This frees up the Imperial Navy proper to deal with the better equipped Rebels and less than compliant worlds. And this brings us to the Imperial battle doctrine itself. The Empire adheres very strongly to the "fear of force" mindset. Their mainline vessels are often big and imposing with a very "shoot first and ask questions later" mentality. Just the appearance of a Star Destroyer can frighten even a moderately advanced world into submission without firing a shot. And even a handful of heavy cruisers can still reign down orbital bombardments that can knock a world back to the stone age. To the average citizen or even pirates and raiders, tangling with them is suicidal. Which brings us to a final, and perhaps most important point. Weapons in the Star Wars universe are far, far more dangerous and deadly than anything we have currently. Blasters, lasers, and turbolasers can shred just about anything a moderately advanced world my throw up against them. Ion cannons and bombs can render your ships dead hulks in a matter of seconds. Proton torpedoes, concussion missiles, and thermal detonators are basically pocket tac nukes. That lethality coupled with an itchy trigger finger means that you pack a bigger punch for a lower cost. To put it in perspective, a wing of TIE fighters could probably decimate the entire US air force with minimal casualties and still have enough juice to waste any ground or wet navy targets. A single armor company of AT-ATs could march on D.C. and stomp it flat without taking a dent in its paintjob. A single Raider Corvette could drop enough enough ordinance to wipe out every major city in the US and be virtually untouchable. Not every world has planetary shields, orbital cannons, and a dedicated military. So it's not hard to imagine something like the Empire needing more than a garrison or a medium cruiser in orbit to "monitor" on a world that makes too many rumblings. So those major battles you mentioned, even in the era of the Clone Wars, were probably more the exception than rule when it came to space battles. The relatively "small" number of ships involved a function of resources being allocated elsewhere. And it's also why the Rebellion relied so heavily on hit and run tactics rather than a straight fight with the Empire. It both let them focus what strength they had on weak points and forced the Empire to expend more and more resources to fortify and defend its holdings. But that's my take on it.

Sizes of defence forces post Endor could easily be explained at their lack of size due to the fracture of the Empire. So that important industrial world may have had 2 star destroyers a couple of light ships and 100 ties but mass defection and resource grabbing left it with only 20.

Fascinating video. Personally I lean more towards the minimalism side of things but not to the insane degree of only having a few squads of TIE fighters to protect a planet. For example, I take the 25,000 star destroyer figure as a rough estimate of how many Star Destroyers there are. However rather than conclude that they're all Imperial class or even all capital ships, I include every vessel commonly referred to as a Star Destroyer ranging from Victories and Gladiators to Executors. Then I assume that between one and two thirds of the fleet is docked at any given time much like navies IRL for overhauls, refits, crew rotation/training, etc. Which would bring the number of active star destroyers down to between roughly 8,333 and 16,667 vessels, most of which would be lighter vessels. Not including support ships and combat ships not labeled as star destroyers of course. I also tend to apply the minimalism to the Galaxy as a whole. Treating the hyperspace routes like a river system with almost all of the worlds we see being on/near either the main route or a branching 'stream'. My logic being that colonization went a lot like the set up of early cities on Earth, staying near the fastest form of transportation possible for economic and defense reasons with it being either too dangerous, impossible, or not economical to spread out further in most cases because of how much of a delay that would add to everything. So rather than one continuous blob, the various empires would look more like trees with interlocking branches that sometimes connect and sometimes don't. Said mindset also helps me make sense of the various strategies and plot points used in the various media related to setting up choke-points in what would otherwise be a 3D environment that should be easy to bypass and the massive differences in apparent speed we see when traveling from world to world. Plus that way statements about fleet power also make more sense as it could just be referring to the capital ships involved as by definition a navy is effectively defeated if it losses all of its capital ships.

@Corey's Datapad I really enjoyed the video. It was a nice overview and a unique analysis for a playful universe. I believe there is room for both the minimalist and maximalist approach. There is however no room for a "realistic" approach as many scholars in the comments are trying to take. I cant think of anything easier to kill than a giant space triangle with engines in the rear. Just pull up behind it, shoot it in rear lol But let me give some examples. I believe the Borleais defense in Rogue Squadron was absolutely enough to hold a planet. And we have no numbers for ground troops. Borleais had no planetery conflict, had no strategic resources, had no military production capacity, and no real strategic value other than being a route to Coruscant. The only military need that I remember from that book would have been escort and interdiction of commercial traffic. There was also at least 1 Star Destroyer and 1 Interdictor operating in that region. The real purpose of the military strength was to serve a narrative, which it did very well. There are a couple of historical battles that I would recommend for review if you do find this type of analysis fun. First, the Battle of Jutland in WW1. In the build up to WW1 countries spent fortunes and over a decade to build the worlds first iron fleets of dreadnoughts. And they sure as hell werent going to just throw them away. Because if you lost the threat, thats the key word THREAT, of naval supremacy, you lost the war. The second battle I would recommend is Midway. I am no historian but I have read alot of military history and Midway is the most important battle the world has ever seen in my opinion. Had the US lost that engagement, the world and definitely Europe would be a far different place. That battle was won on a series of circumstances. A mechanical failure on just the right scout plane causing a blind spot in the IJN picket. It all came down to one decision, and poor damage control and handling of munitions by the IJN. Both of these real life examples would be on the maximalist side of the coin. If you go back to say the battle of Trafalgar, that is a battle that more reflects what most people think galactic conflict would be like but I disagree. The reason why is because of the ability to project power was made alot easier with flight. And this is a universe with flight and faster than light travel and shields. One Star Destroyer could easily control 100 planets, maybe even a 1000 depending on the level of resistance. What is control in the Star Wars universe? Probably just like ours. Allow trade and pay your taxes. You better hope the Empire doesnt find Star Destroyer fuel on your planet though lol. Another thing to consider is the human element. This universe is driven by humans and a human cant just live their life on a damn ship. Carrier groups on average spend 6 months at sea then 6 months at port. I highly recommend the youtube video called "Landing on a pitching deck". Life on a spaceship would be miserable. I would love a duty station like Borleais. Well that was fun. Overall I think it was a good video. It made me think alot and write a damn essay. I am only here because of your mod for Empire at War Mr. Cory. You and your team have done an amazing job. Thanks

I have thought about this a lot before. I always came to the conclusion that the individual numbers for a planet would be about right as 48 Tie fighters is more than enough to hold off a small pirate attack off and if there is anything bigger then you call in the local fleet and delay until they arrive. If you run the numbers, presuming the Star wars galaxy is on a similar scale to ours then there will be something like 100 billion planets, assuming a tenth of them are inhabited (which to my knowledge is not too far off what we actually see as many systems are not inhabited) then if you average 48 tie fighters per planet then that is 480 Billion Tie fighters. Then I would also assume something like 2 gozanti (or equivalent) and 1 arquintence (or equivalent) per planet. That in my head works out as the right scale, but is nowhere near any of the numbers we see as they are small fry compared to the great expanse of the galaxy. I would then presume one fleet per 1,000 planets and I would expect a fleet to be 12 star destroyers and the assorted support ships. Then the 12 Grand Admirals would Roam the bigger sectors of the Galaxy to deal with larger threats like the Rebellion.

A fleet Should be made up of battle groups. Battle Groups would allow for the command ship (usually the largest in the BG) to have proper support ships around it. Both Star War and Star Trek fail in this. The Lore of Battlestar Galactica during the first Cylon war is an excellent, imo, example of the use of battle groups making up a fleet.

Great video. Yup unfortunately there is a lack of consistency. I am always leaning towards at least using a little bit of common sense. I don't want it to be hard physics or super realistic, but as it was I feel things are a bit on the low side. I would put the the Imperial Navy in the millions of ships of all sizes. 25,000+ Imperial-class Star Destroyers is okay, but I would want to see other Star Destroyer classes have similar large runs. It is a big Galaxy, with super advanced tech available, and certainly no lack of resources, so the scale and scope should make more sense.

7:55 To be fair there are some countries like Mexico that have relatively small Navies and Air Forces that are composed of mostly support ships and aircraft that would make a better comparison to this situation I'd think. For example as a comparison to the Canadian example you brought up, Mexico only has 4 F-5's which make up the entirety of Mexico's fighter jet arsenal. So while I agree that a small number of squadrons is silly as a garrison for a full planet I could buy that some backwater planets would only get like a hundred TIE fighters for a garrison.

This interesting issue boils down to *writers not comprehending 'naval' technology and military history* , like an Illiad picturing e.g. chariots as the personal ride of a chieftain, instead of running down loose formations of massed, light skirmishers. *A plausible work around in order to engage in traditional storytelling of **_individual heroism_** - and resonant character arcs - is the choice of 'special operations' as a setting for the plot* , like in 'A New Hope' where the scale and nature of the Galactic Empire and it's civil war was only hinted at before the very last act of the 'Battle of Yavin', fought between a static 'battle station' and a handful of squadrons of individual space fighters, exploiting a design flaw - with each squadron leader shown briefly on screen. *The plot of the first movie was thus modeled after a 'spy thriller' or 'heist', retrieving crucial military intelligence and sabotaging secret, **_strategic_** equipment* - later reimagined in the prequel 'Rogue One' spin-off and it's 'Andor' series and reflected in video games like 'Rogue Squadron' (1998). This literary _topos_ then reoccures in the spin-off movie of 'Solo' while trying to capture snapshots of largely _meaningless_ , pitched planetary ground battles of an Imperial Army while the Imperial Navy - under the *Tarkin Doctrine* - is to be understood as a _social_ policy, keeping veterans of the Clone Wars employed and thereby under daily ideological influence of the 'Commission for the Preservation of the New Order' - after the destruction or integration of 'Confederate separatists' and independent systems during the prequels that pictured the 'Clone Wars', lacking any actual rival fleet in the known galaxy (the animated spin-off series is indeed more invested into military matters). *Spy craft and 'small wars' operations can be defined as the setting of the inital world building of George Lucas' original movie trilogy, culminating in a claustrophobic throne room where a panorama of a historical 'naval' battle in the background of the frame is just that* : an iconic image, _symbolizing a personal struggle of ethos and loyalty_ , pitting a spiritual concept against a secular, political. The 'Expanded Universe', novelized by mulitple writers - of varying skill - was facing *the problem of picturing the aftermath of a total Rebel victory at the 'Battle of Endor'* in the last act of the original movie trilogy - which again was bought by individual bravery of a special operations force, disabling a shield projector that had protected an otherwise vulnerable battle station under construction - to be fair, there is a theme of 'popular, colonial struggle' in the crucial role of the native, primitive and ignored Ewok tribes, 'the fateful pebble that brings down the hubris of colossal statues when striking it's clay feet' - again a reoccuring biblical theme. *If one tries to map the entire plot of the franchise into some sort of authoritative, 'canon' source reference, a plot hole becomes instantly evident of a : how did the Rebel Alliance ever become the dominant 'naval' force in the galaxy when having been forced into hiding **_until_** Endor if not the entirety of the Imperial arsenal was destroyed* ? Even considering the 'political psychology' of a Sith 'Rule of One', playing twisted personalities against another wouldn't have changed the fact that each break-away imperial warlord would have had local superiority over Rebel forces in any pitched battle - hence the narrative of 'Operation Shadowhand' when _a galactic emperor, reborn would sabotage Imperial Remnant operations_ , funneling flagships into an oblivion at Byss as if intending to pit Rebels and Imperials against another, perpetually as with the Separatists and the Republic during the Clone Wars (making any truce look like a satisfactory resolution of a story of galactic civil war)... This lingering writing problem was never solved in the sequel reboot of 'The Force Awakens' and 'The Last Jedi' as many reviewers were then eager to point out for _those_ works by Disney - when a planet destroying 'First Order' emerged as omnipotent from total, off-screen obscurity while the New Republic had shrunk during a sort of 'Long March' literally into a single boatload of 'The Resistance'. Considering the historical reference to a Chinese Civil War, it is not impossible to write out the gaps in lore, completing a plausible worldbuilding - but that would take competent writers with some grasp of realistic, 'social history' to do so - when the actual New World can't even hold up consistent narratives in real life... These are the insights that can be gained from wondering about _a 20th century fictional issue_ .

I have a headcanon where the Droids and Ewoks cartoons from the Expanded Universe (Legends) are actually in-universe cartoons that were made by the New Republic post Endor. I cite how "The Faithful Wookie" animated short from the Holiday Special was shown. And I base this headcanon on how the Battletech franchise handled the canon violating animated series was treated by making it an in universe cartoon...

It's a trope called "sci-fi writers have no sense of scale".

On a related note, I think canon hyperspace speed is too fast and should be retconned down so that it takes weeks or months to get across the galaxy not days. As it is hyperspace speed is just so fast that the concept of holding territory doesn't make sense when you can get a fleet of Star Destroyers from Kuat to Mon Cala in a day or two. I get that some of the hyperspace routes are really hard to navigate and consequently a lot slower but I still think a slower travel speed would make the concept of galactic strategy and warfare more interesting.

people really need to learn what consistent storytelling is and why it's awesome.

I've always just headcanoned the size of the forces engaged based on how the narrative wants me to consider it instead of what the authors say. For example, the clone wars being thr biggest war ever while there are only 1.2mm clones (and 1mm of then are "on the way") is insane. That isn't even enough men to fight the Battle of Stalingrad let alone a brutal war for an entire galaxy. So I just up the number appropriately. Same in Warhammer 40k, where adding a zero to any number generally gets you a pretty solid figure

The Empire having 25,000 ISDs would still make sense. They have to police what? 100,000 worlds? A million? More? That's still a small number to deal with such a massive place.

This is why I liked some of the Halo novel balance of battles like Chi Ceti with a small engagement between one Covenant vessel and a few UNSC ships, Sigma Octanus IV which is standard Battle Group against another or Reach where there are 100s of ships and I thought Nylund did a great job of describing the tactics of the Covenant fleet against the UNSC and vice versa, I agree with your assessment though and it is one of my irritations about SW space battles in some areas.

Corey, you're forgetting a few things, the result of Liberation of Coruscant during the galactic civil war was pre-determined. Director Isard let the New Republic have the planet so they would bankrupt themselves by dealing with the Kryptos virus.

Canada doesn't have 400 fighter jets! The current number is 87.

Hahaha 5:37 the battle of "Scarf" huh?! 🤣

Thanks for doing a video on this! I have always thought about this. The X-Wing books and NJO are my favorite EU books and they feel very contradictory, especially given the size of the force Han Solo had for tracking down Zsinj

I mean the galaxy is huge. It makes since that the various governments and factions have to spread their fleets thin to protect such large amounts of territory. At least thats how I rationalize the small fleet sizes in "The Clone Wars".

Personally, I prefer the approach of keeping the scale of the setting fairly small to make it easier to keep reasonable numbers.

The best justification that I can come up with for relatively small fleet sizes is to suggest that large combat spacecraft are very, very expensive. This doesn't solve every problem with Star Wars fleets (smaller spacecraft being very common is necessary to the setting, and makes it harder to believe that larger vessels are as expensive as they'd need to be for the minimalist fleet sizes to make sense), but it can help a bit.

I'd like to point out a lot of planets in SW have smaller populations than Earth. Usually a fee hundred million

I distinctly remember the black fleet crisis, I read the books as a kid. The new Republic 5th fleet (or was is 7th?) I always imagined as huge. I had freshly come off of the 2003 clone wars, and considering that the yeventha had a ssd, an Imperial fleet, AND their own defense fleet, I imagined that the new Republic must've had a massive armada. The k-wing crew sequences were so fun. I suppose I always up imagined fleets to fit my child-like grand battle fantasies. It's wild looking back and seeing how wildly fleet sizes ranged. In republic commando: order 66 they describe *millions* of ships in orbit over corusant, back the battle is a several week/month slog. This was exasterbated by palatine's secret fleets he was building up for the empire, effectively trapping the CIS between a hammer and anvil with no way out. Tl;dr--fleet sizes are crazy yo

Indeed. And the size of Luke Skywalker at 07:14 makes no sense, either.

This is one of the cases where more is better. If you take into account the size of the galaxy the larger numbers are the correct ones. The Rebel Alliance being so small is one of the exceptions because it makes more sense. The Rebels were never going to pose a real threat to the Imperial Military, what destroyed the Empire wasn't the Ragtag Rebellion it was the Empire itself, Palpatine's arrogance, and his inability to image an Empire without him led him to place himself in danger and not prepare an heir. This caused the Empire to spiral into a massive civil war which ripped it apart. This has always been the Sith's fatal weakness and shows that evil will inevitably destroy itself, Lord of the Rings is another story that does this brilliantly.

So here's a problem. Lore-wise big navies make a lot of sense, as you've said. I think in many cases Galaxy is downsized in people's heads to something more manageable, even with people like Lucas. Even with the biggest number I've seen GAR is still smaller then armies we currently have on Earth. In the context of the broader galaxy saying that there are 25k ISDs in the Empire makes sense. However, for storytelling purposes fleets this huge are not so great. Space battles generally work best when we know every ship and we can understand what is it doing ar the time

Not a fan of strictly Doylist explanations. Mind, if we're straying from Watsonian grounds anyway, I think the most important one is Writers Have No Sense Of Scale. On another hand, though, when you're supposedly working in the same setting, consistency is something to be strived for. If the scale for the story doesn't match the scale the setting implies, that means the author should work to explain the discrepancy, which would add to the world rather than break things. Less sure of some of the smaller fleet sizes; it's implied that a relatively prosperous world like Naboo only had some starfighters a decade or so before the Clone Wars; this suggests that unless you're in a nasty area, many governments didn't see the need for a fleet, and there's always going to be more stuff to spend your budget on than you have budget to spend. This seems sillier in the latter portion of the Clone Wars era and post-Endor with the turmoil between the the various successor states of the Galactic Empire and/or CIS; even if the local government doesn't protect the place, their star-nation is likely to station a defense force.

Escalating numbers is a cheap trick used by hack writers to cover up that they can't actually come up with good battle scenes. Not just in Star Wars, but in general. Once you get above a dozen or so ships, tactics become meaningless and it's just a big dumb slugfest.

not one to loose my mind at media but a cavalry charge on a space ship made me angry and a little sick

By the way it wasn't spectre of the past that established that the empire had 25.000 Stardestroyers. Before that book it was already established by the Westendgames Star Wars Roleplaying Game from 1987-1998! I saw Timothy Zahn at the Jedi Convention in Munich/Germany in 1997. There he was asked, what limitations he was givin' by Lucasarts for his books! 1) the main characters mustn't die 2) Luke mustn't marry 3) and hold on to the products of Westendgames!!! He signed my WEG SW Revised and Expanded Core Rulebook :) Nevertheless it is interesting to know that Timothy also used that number in spectre of the past, which I haven't read YET ^^ Another story from that convention. Steve Sansweet was also there. In front of the crowd he was asked, if the number of 25K ISDs from the Roleplaying Game is correct. His answer was to him there is only Star Wars, Empire strikes back and Return of the Jedi! Remember it was in '97 :)) With Force from germany!

I’ve always viewed Star Destroyers as sort of the Star Wars equivalent of a super carrier, (not specifically as an aircraft carrier, but instead as the main, and most powerful vessel within that Navy’s fleet.) As such, I would also expect them to be the least common type of ship within navy, and as they are they most important, most powerful, most expensive and hardest ships to replace within the fleet, they would NEVER operate alone, and instead would have an entire task force of various other class and type vessels, whose primary task is to protect and support the Star Destroyer which the task force is centered on. Most fleets wouldn’t have a Star Destroyer at it’s core, but ever Star Destroyer should have at least a small defensive task force permanently assigned with it. This task force could operate on it’s own, or take charge and merge with other fleets and task forces, both large and small, as required by the mission at hand. Think of it as a US carrier task force, it with have a Nimitz class super carrier supported by an assortment of cruisers, frigates, destroyers, corvettes and submarines. In general, it’s not a huge fleet, like you would expect in times of war, but includes ships to perform various tasks to protect the carrier, with vessels being tasked to anti-sub, anti-air or anti surface ship roles. At various times other ships will join and/or leave the task force, but at no time with the carrier be without a considerable escort fleet. When required by the mission a carrier battle group can even have multiple super carriers at the core of the fleet, with each carrier’s support fleet adding to the protective umbrella the task force provides. So, with all that said, the Star Wars movies, always showed the Empire doing the equivalent of the US Navy sending a Nimitz super carrier into the Persian Gulf alone, without escort, with orders to get in tight with the shore of Iran to scout for hostile actions by any Iranian forces. Among the various movies and series, we regularly see mixed fleets for the Republic, the CIS and even the Rebels/Resistance, but for the empire we only see mixed/composite empire fleets in SW Rebels, other than than every Empire fleet is simply one or more Star Destroyers, despite cannon having a huge variety of ships listed as being used, many extensively, by the Imperial Navy. I understand they don’t want to make things confusing, so much so, that we rarely see more than 8-12 starfighters used at the same time, even in TCW. Every time I rewatch the Clone Wars, I’m saddened that no matter how many Venators there are in the Republic fleet being shown, we’re rarely, if ever, shown them launching more than 8-12 fighters/bombers between them. I mean it’s sad that you regularly have three, and often 5 Venators, each which supposedly can carry over 400 Star fighters, but even when facing 8+ CIS capital ships, instead of seeing a wave of a couple hundred fighters, followed closely by few waves of Y-Wings, each with close to 100 bombers. As a side effect of this, we regularly. See huge ships destroyed by just a few bombers, instead of the huge waves it should take.

Solid, well informed video as always. I live how your experience making mods also gives insight into topics like this! Great job

No matter how big a fleet in star wars is an imperial defense or blockade fleet will always have 2-3 isds for me as well as some support ships. I mean as a blockade its more realistic than eaw's “there is an enemy fighter, you cant build station“ logic. And it has a more balanced feeling than what we see in TROS with thier collection of random ships on one side against a lot of the same type of battleship sized superweapons

Canada has aboot 88 CF-18s in service. Not 400 eh?

Good video however Canada only has 80 fighter jets and half of them don’t work

always felt like fighter compliments in the books and certain depictions described the things that were done by single fighter that should actually be switched to fighter squadron. which would make more sense.

Most scifi universes make no sense. In Star Trek, Starfleet would number in the tens of thousands of ships as well. The Federation covers at least several hundred thousand cubic light years.

Canada is Support to have 400 fighter jets, thats Sound more like a cold war era number not a modern number

Yes, BUT Isard intended to lose Coruscant to the New Republic because she contaminated it with Krytos Virus.

I’m curious do you think it was smart to have the falcon leading the charge on the Death Star reactor and if not what ship would have been better for Lando to use?

Always appreciate your perspective, and you're under no obligation to cater to an old-school fanboy...*and* I understand wanting to keep your visuals fresh. But, yeah, the Disney Star Wars clips in this video meant I couldn't get through it. Take that for what it's worth (which should be very little, at most), and keep doing your thing!

Many writers just have no sense of scale

Disney killed the size and scope or star wars, the whole empire was defeated in 2 battles....i hate it, i loved the warlords

I've always thought that gigantism is what kills Star Wars. A galaxy of quadrillions of living beings, tens of billions of planets and fleets of hundreds of thousands of ships. WHERE IS ALL THIS?! Why the most populated planet is the damned Coruscant with 1-2 trillion inhabitants, which in terms of demographics allows us to say that 0.00001 of the entire population of the galaxy lives there. And after all, there are only a dozen such units, although, based on an astronomical sum of 100 quadrillions, there should be a dozen planets or sectors in the galaxy with the population of China or India. But not only do we not see such states (and I believe that planets with a lot of population and, therefore, a strong economy could well build independent states, or at least be autonomies), but we don’t even know their names. Billions of planets, but the battle takes place over 2-3 hundreds of strategically significant worlds, the rest does not matter. The Empire has 25,000 Star Destroyers, but in decisive battles, they will use one or two hundred at best, even if it's protecting fucking Emperor Palpatine. Yes, yes, and the other 24,800 Star Destroyers were on very important business, of course. In a galaxy where 90% of space is occupied by the Empire. Heck, they even figured out in the Dark Empire that Palpatine was pitting parts of his fleet against each other when they realized that Pellaeon somehow had LESS than 1% of the Galactic Empire's military by 19 ABY. And yes, I can state as a historian that even Nazi Germany or Japan were not in such a vulnerable position by the end of the war, although they were literally forced to surrender, and not to sign a peace treaty. The new Canon could cancel all this stuff. To declare that the galaxy is much smaller, that there are many times fewer planets and star systems in it, that the population is estimated not in a hundred quadrillions but in trillions. That the Imperial fleet leaves one or two hundred Star Destroyers, etc. But no. Gigantomania is our choice.

i think what most people are forgetting here, all through the comments, is the Logistics costs. they far exceed just the cost to build a ship. and would be a huge drain on any smaller system. only the most robust economy's would be able to support the logistics costs of so many ships, and i doubt any place would spend 100% of its budget on military spending. i think for about 1million planets of varying sizes a navy of 1.6million ships 25000 of whom are flying fortresses, thats more than enough, and much more would strain the logistics capacity of the economy.

Star Wars isn't about realism. So, of course authors will tell the stories that they want which makes fleets arbitrarily large or small. One way to get around this would be to have a central lore repository that keeps a running tally of ship production and destruction ships and hero power level are allocated from this to each story in each era. But, would anyone really read anything like that and would authors consent to editors saying: "You can't have 7 squadrons of Star Destroyers because that would be a whole Sector Fleet and leave important strategic resources undefended. Edit your story to use 3 squadrons instead."

In a couple thousand years people are going to try to interpret Star Wars like we are trying to interpret the Bible

The only scify franchise that surprisingly makes sense with its fleet numbers is 40k😂😂😂

Yeah Yeah Yeah !!!!!!! That’s what I’ve been saying all along . Yeah Yeah Yeah 😮😮😮..........

when has the galactic empires fleet ever be described as a few stardestroyers. Even in ww1 when the royal navy showed up at jutland it wasent the entire royal navy it was "just" what was send there they still had ships somewhere else on the world. Gigantic battles should not been shown as something that can be easy to understand thhats what we have admirals and captians for. You either show battles from a fighters view with everything wizzing by or you show it from the abstract view of an admiral with crucial moments getting a focus like legend of galactic heroes. Trying to just show the whole thing just gives you modern starwars.

Your canada example doesnt work for one reason. Most worlds wouldnt have big fleets most units would be for normal defense and focused more for pirates and criminals as such a few squadrons would be more then enough. Its unlikely the empire would leave a lot of pre empire military forces around meaning the empire even for as big as it is just wouldnt have that many people yea they will have a lot but not enough to station full or even mini fleets at even most industrial world that are important let alone anything semi important.

e value e represent the word efficient r recovery ai will detect and by means of spherical in analysis including archive -----

No. SciFi writers do have a sense of scale... ...then the smiling FX artist team leader comes to the board meeting with the producers and the SciFi writer and tells them he wants $50 billion for just 5 seconds of a single space battle scene. Producer: You going to retcon the part with the hundred million starships. SciFi: **nods but cries on the inside**

Smells like 40k

even the maximalist approach is way too tiny. An Empire spanning 2/3 of a galaxy could field trillions of major capital ships. If humanity on Earth had the technology the Empire had, we would be able to build a fleet to overwhelmingly outnumber and outgun the canonical imperial fleet.

SW is a Kardashev 3 civilisation. Them not having uncountable millions of ships makes absolutely no sense.

Talks about inconsistencies while showing sequel era lol

when im reading and there is a fleet of thousands of ships... im out

Buddy. pal. I hate to break it to you, but literally nothing in star wars makes sense, or is self consistent, or is even written well. back up a little from your fan-hole, kay?

Star Wars is a series for children, you are wasting your time analysing it.

Canada's 400 fighter jets also AIN'T SHIT for a country, lol.