How could the CIS lose?

[Redtech]

True that. But remember, this IS Star Wars. You want a realistic war, we're in the wrong place. Heck, even the Breen Managed to kick Starfleet butt when they invaded Earth, and that was a hit/run!

[PoiuyWired]

Well no kidding. I mean if you have droids half as smart as that you would rule the space combats. W/o need of life support system you can basically just make legless droids with jet engines attached to their bums and a huge proton topedo attached to their nose. A lot cheaper but much much more effective en messe. You basically don't need a "ship" for many things, just a huge hyperdrive with holes/tubes loaded up with these things. Ok, maybe a few other warships and freighters(with lasers) and bombers and transports.

 

Being droids are also great planetside. Ignoring some more simple biological needs is a plus, but it also mean you can make every every grunt a biochemical warfare agent. You know droids don't get sick or anything.

 

POINT: even according to starwars world view, CIS is still at least on par with the clones, if not better. Clones winning the war is more of a political schemeing solution than anything else.

[Prime]

The ridiculous part is the apparently canon number of only 3 million clones from Kamino. That simply shouldn't work and the CIS should have walked all over them.

[Kurgan]

Yeah, the EU has frankly turned the whole situation completely ridiculous. Essentially they are asking you to believe that say, one Delta Force soldier could take on all the soldiers of the entire earth... and win. I don't care how incompetent the soldiers of the entire earth are... that's just unbelievable!

 

To make sense of the scenes I just ignore the EU stuff, and assume there are a lot more clones already out there than implied by the movie and with lots of support troops as well (but you need lots of clones, you can't call it the Clone War if only 1% of your troops are clones, can you?).

[PoiuyWired]

well actually, I alwys think its the clones who are doing the majority of the fighting. Support personel and such are still filled mostly by non-clones.

[Darth Alec]

In episode 2 they said 1.2 million UNITS, what if one unit is 100 or 1000 clones, that would even the odds slightly. But they would still be smashed.

[Prime]

Yeah, the EU has frankly turned the whole situation completely ridiculous.

That's an understatement. The part that I find silly is that there are now all sorts of retcons to try (unsuccessfully IMO) and make the number at least someone reasonable. So there is a big convoluted mess when instead they could have changed one number.

 

Essentially they are asking you to believe that say, one Delta Force soldier could take on all the soldiers of the entire earth... and win. I don't care how incompetent the soldiers of the entire earth are... that's just unbelievable!

Not only that, but G-canon says it is simply not the case. I can't remember the exact line, but the ATOC novelization mentions that clones are not vastly superior to droids (dispite the Kaminoans' claims). Since there are billions of droids, 3 million clones after the first year doesn't work. And at the Battle of Geonosis, out of 200 Jedi only a handful survived, and I think we can agree that a Jedi is superior to a clone. IIRC there were 200,000 droids at that battle.

 

To make sense of the scenes I just ignore the EU stuff, and assume there are a lot more clones already out there than implied by the movie and with lots of support troops as well (but you need lots of clones, you can't call it the Clone War if only 1% of your troops are clones, can you?).

We do know that there are additional forces than just clones, mainly natives on the various planets. We see this on Utapau in particular. But most of the battles that are depicted in the EU consist mainly of clones.

 

well actually, I alwys think its the clones who are doing the majority of the fighting. Support personel and such are still filled mostly by non-clones.

Sure. But in the films we see clones doing pretty much everything, from piloting to starship gunnery crews and so on. We know that they do more than act as simple soldiers.

 

In episode 2 they said 1.2 million UNITS, what if one unit is 100 or 1000 clones, that would even the odds slightly. But they would still be smashed.

There are several sources, including Karen Traviss's 3 million clones after the first year, that state that 1 unit = 1 clone. There are many reasons why I think this number is simply incorrect:

 

3 million clones can be transported by 188 Acclimators. Leaving none for Venators, stationing on planets, or crewing anything, including the acclimators.

 

The NEC says this about Battle of Muunilist: "The Republic countered with sheer numbers, sending hundreds of assault ships, each one groaning from the weight of troopers and war machines. Many vessels reached the surface only as smoldering hulks; others found themselves cut off from their drop zones, forced to make landings behind enemy lines." Technically assault ship means an Acclimator. That means that the entire clone army was at that battle. Leaving none for anywhere else in the galaxy. According to the EU, this is not true.

 

One retcon has been that a clone was worth about 200 battle droids to justify the small number. That implies that, in ROTS on Utapau, where there are "thousands of battle droids", the Kenobi would only need a handful of clones. If there were 10,000 droids, he would only need about 50 clones. Yet we see several acclimators flying overhead. Was this complete overkill? Even if there were a million droids, they would only need about 5000 clones, which is one fairly empty acclimator. That ratio just doesn't work.

 

3 million isn't an unheard of number of soldiers for an army on Earth. Did the GAR not protect any of their holdings after they won them? Yes, there were non-clones involved in the Clone Wars, but in the films apart from Utapau everything we see is done by clones (pilots, crewman, soldier, etc.). And according to the ROTS novel, "the new governors are arriving with full regiments of clone troops…what they call security forces.” So after the war they are used as occupying forces. Yes there can be more than the 3 million number from 2 years before, but how many more? They have a lot of occupying to do. From ANH novelization, Tarkin tells us “This station is the final link in a new-forged Imperial chain which will bind the million systems of the galactic Empire together once and for all.”

 

Even if the Republic had gained an order of magnitude more clones in two years, that is still only 30 clones to occupy a system (not planet). Yes, not every system needs occupying, but the Emperor is trying to enforce his rule, so it is reasonable to assume that most systems would need to be controlled. Even if it is only a third of the systems, probably the upper bound is 90 troopers per system, assuming all those extra clones. At just double the growth, we are looking at 3-9 clones per system.

 

Yikes.

[Shok_Tinoktin]

Ultimately, Grievous ended up with a powerful fleet over a poorly defended coruscant, now, if I was in his shoes, I'd have nuked it. No leadership=end of war.

 

Two words: Planetary Sheilds

[Kurgan]

Hmm, maybe that's why we only saw two Stormtroopers on Tatooine before Vader sent the "Detachment" to find the stolen plans?

 

lol.... what a mess

[Darth Alec]

Prime, you got the last two quotes wrong. I wrote the last thing.

[Niner_777]

I do think that the clones are better than the droids. A single clone can take out many droids because they have the ability to think. They can find cover. I suppose it is kind of like the American Revolutionary War. The British had way more troops, but they fought out in the open, while the Americans hid behind trees and rocks, which reduced casualties.

 

However, the droids lost because Sidious wanted them to lose. They might have ended up winning, had they not been shut down, under the order of Sidious.

[Kurgan]

The problem is there are a billion (or a trillion) droids to every clone trooper, according to the EU numbers. So they can't possibly win, no matter how good they are!

 

The EU authors, perhaps realizing their mistake, tried to say that the Clones were so awesome they could kill 200 (or 2000) droids before going down. Despite that this is ridiculous considering their performance in the movies (even the Jedi don't do that well!), they would lose badly if this is all they could do.

[PoiuyWired]

I do think that the clones are better than the droids. A single clone can take out many droids because they have the ability to think. They can find cover. I suppose it is kind of like the American Revolutionary War. The British had way more troops, but they fought out in the open, while the Americans hid behind trees and rocks, which reduced casualties.

 

However, the droids lost because Sidious wanted them to lose. They might have ended up winning, had they not been shut down, under the order of Sidious.

 

Well I agree with your second point.

 

As for your first point:

1) Red is definitely not a good color... you learn that from startrek. It also makes an obvious target.

 

2) American tactics are better. Even so, there are many external elements to the Revolutionary War, as for CIS vs Republic, there is no known significant external power to interfere.

 

3) The sheer scale of WoMD is way too different to compare. In starwars both sides have the technology to genoside a whole freaking planet within hours, if not less, also a point mostly avoided by LA and writers.

[Niner_777]

The problem is there are a billion (or a trillion) droids to every clone trooper, according to the EU numbers.

 

Oh, if that's the case I don't see any wayt that the clones could win had the Emperor not shut down the doids. Even a jedi doesn't take out a billion (or a trillion) droids. At least I don't think they do.

[Prime]

Prime, you got the last two quotes wrong. I wrote the last thing.

So I did. Damn Cut & Paste! Apologies...

 

I do think that the clones are better than the droids.

They are. But it is impossible for them to be so good as to overcome the absolutely staggering odds.

 

A single clone can take out many droids because they have the ability to think. They can find cover. I suppose it is kind of like the American Revolutionary War. The British had way more troops, but they fought out in the open, while the Americans hid behind trees and rocks, which reduced casualties.

Sure, they had better tactics, but they can only go so far. Tactics cannot overcome the such complete numerical superiority. Sure, you can hide behind a tree from the 150 battle droids, but the other 50 are standing behind you. Can't dodge 200 shots at once...

 

However, the droids lost because Sidious wanted them to lose. They might have ended up winning, had they not been shut down, under the order of Sidious.

But Sidious also had to convince each side that it could win so that they fought on. If the Republic sees that it has 3 million troopers, and the CIS has billions upon billions of battle droids, surely they would surrender. The original (equally ridiculous) number of the CIS droid army was a quintillion droids. That's right, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. So that is a 1,000,000,000,000 to 1 odds. Clone troopers aren't that good. Even if they were worth 200 battle droids, I think you will agree that it falls a little short.

 

The EU authors, perhaps realizing their mistake, tried to say that the Clones were so awesome they could kill 200 (or 2000) droids before going down. Despite that this is ridiculous considering their performance in the movies (even the Jedi don't do that well!), they would lose badly if this is all they could do.

They (she) did realize that they made a mistake, and offered up yet another retcon to try and make things fit with it, instead of just fixing the original number. The change is that the 3 million were only those from Kamino, and that there were also secret facilities on Coruscant. Also, the Republic grossly overestimated the CIS's numbers due to bad intelligence, and is actually closer to hundreds of millions. And the Clone Wars were actually more like brushfire conflicts...

 

Secret facility on Coruscant? When did this happen? If the facility was set up after the Clone Wars started there isn't nearly enough time to get them into the field. If it was there before, well, that isn't even worth discussing.

 

Bad intelligence? Sorry, we overestimate the CIS numbers by about 1,000,000,000 times.

 

Again, why couldn't they simply change the original number? Afterall, it conflicts with all the previously published numbers.

[hk47]

Destorying general grievous was what ultimately destoryed them because after his ship was destoryed the cis mostly went into hiding no more attacks or anything then it just went into hunting so its likely that most of the droids were controled my grievous's flagship and the rest of the raid fleets captial ships.

 

And then when they went to utapal its likely that that was there headquaters so after they destoryed there outpost there billions of droids would have just been disabled like in episode 1.

 

Then when anakin went to kill the cis leaders on mustafar that would of proably been there last major outposts so after anakin destoryed them there that was the end of he cis only afew more outposts were left but they had no commandos so they just sat there like you see on geononis on starwars:rouge squadron 3.

[Canderous_ordo1]

they probley diddent have the advantage in numbers in battle

THOSE WHO CANNOT DEFEND THEM SELFS SHOULD NOT BE AROUND THOSE WHO CAN

ive seen that happen alot in many battles and in my own battles also most run off because they cannot defend them self

and really its forfit its pretty true if you think about it the cis never had the advantage in numbers if they had larger numbers they might not have lost if you think about a war that happend recently against the iraqi in desert storm the us had the advantage in numbers so the iraqi had to give up they never had the advantage in numbers

[Kurgan]

What do you mean? The production show in AOTC alone implies billions of droids, minimum, and only speaks of "one million units" (plus another half a million units=1.5 million "units").

 

According to the EU there are either "quadrillions" or "quintillions" of droids, a unit for clones equals one soldier, and that they only "tripled" the number of clones, to 3.x million.

 

So you have:

 

3,000,000+ clones vs.

2,000,000,000,000,000+ (or)

2,000,000,000,000,000,000+ droids!

 

So that's equivalent to:

3 to 2,000,000,000 (or 2,000,000,000,000 odds!)

 

We don't know the population of the CIS systems, they just refer to "thousands of star systems" and then "another 10,000 star systems will rally to our cause" (Dooku, speaking to the other leaders in AOTC). This is enough to spur Civil War with the Republic. The Empire is said to be something like a million star systems according to the movie novelisation iirc (in Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker).

 

Of course does this mean populated systems? How many living in each?

 

But ultimately it means little. In the movies the vast majority of the Seperatist forces we see are made up of droids, and the vast majority of the Republic forces are either Clones or Jedi. Yes, they do show local troops backing up their side (Wookiees, Geonosians, Utapauans), but these forces are relatively small by comparison.

 

Are you saying the CIS had tons of undefended planets and so were stretched too thin? Who knows, but I would think that would be more of a problem for the Republic, especially if they had the miniscule numbers for an army that the EU says they had. I wonder if a system would break away from the Republic to join the CIS if they didn't have some fighting force...

 

 

Anyway in the movie everyone acted like killing General Grievous would "end the war" but of course it obviously didn't. After Anakin murdered the Seperatist Leaders on Mustafar Palpatine ordered him to order the droids to all "shut down." Assumedly that could be done from the headquarters there on the planet, so why assume that before then they had shut down billions of droids? In a deleted scene for AOTC, a team of Jedi commandeer the droid control ship over Geonosis and give the shut down order. The droids in the arena stand still for a moment, then sputter back to life on "backup systems" (or something like that). So we're supposed to believe that they thought of this after their embarrassing defeat in TPM at Naboo. Of course this scene never made it into the actual movies, and I can't remember if it was mentioned in the novelisation, but probably.

[Prime]

According to the EU there are either "quadrillions" or "quintillions" of droids, a unit for clones equals one soldier, and that they only "tripled" the number of clones, to 3.x million.

As I pointed out, the canon number for droids is now "hundreds of millions", which also goes against other information. Given the production rate of Geonosis alone, that number can be built up in a matter of days.

 

So you have:

 

3,000,000+ clones vs.

2,000,000,000,000,000+ (or)

2,000,000,000,000,000,000+ droids!

 

So that's equivalent to:

3 to 2,000,000,000 (or 2,000,000,000,000 odds!)

 

We don't know the population of the CIS systems, they just refer to "thousands of star systems" and then "another 10,000 star systems will rally to our cause" (Dooku, speaking to the other leaders in AOTC). This is enough to spur Civil War with the Republic. The Empire is said to be something like a million star systems according to the movie novelisation iirc (in Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker).

As far as I know the million count for the number of star systems in the Empire (and therefore probably a similar if slightly less number for the Republic) is canon.

 

Which begs the question. Why did Palpatine/the Republic need to create the clone army at all, if it was going to be so few in number (apart from the stuff going on behind the scenes)? I mean, you could take the 3 best soldier off each planet and have the same number. They might not be quite as good as clones, but they would definitely be near that level. A draft in that case would be a much more effective way to build such an army.

[Redtech]

Well, this ain't realistic. Anyway, as RL shows, you can draft as many troops from as many countries as you want, but quality goes down the pan!

 

It makes good cinema and lets Lucas play with sci-fi stuff as he pretends he's an expert on robotics and cloning. Heck a single suicide bomber would wipe the senate. 9/11 x1000 methinks.

[Darth_Deastron]

It doesn't really matter who had the bigger army. The Droids weren't as effecient as the clones. And they had a ton of Jedi on their side, while the CIS only had Droids, more droids, Durge, ventress, Dooku, and Grievous.

[Kurgan]

Hundreds of millions? So minimum 200 to 1 odds. Are these hacks still claiming that every Clone trooper kills 200 droids?

 

More nonsense I say, but more realistic than millions of clones vs. "quadrillions" (or quintillions!) of droids.

 

Why can't these guys and gals just watch the movies carefully and extrapolate from there? Oh well...

 

PS: Anybody know which source is now claiming "hundreds of millions of droids"? Just curious.

[Prime]

I think it is in one of the latest Insider magazines.

[Commander Obi-Wan]

I think it is in one of the latest Insider magazines.

 

I think it is too. I have it, and I'll check when I get home.

[06protoguy]

its all been said here im just gonna but it in my own words. The Droids lost on two fronts. The clones even though there numbers were low are better soldiers. They have insticts and feelings. They also in a phitness perspective have much more flexibility. But also they were under control of the emperor so thats how the CIS lost. Its seen in the Revenge of the Sith.