Armies of Star WarsArmies of Star Wars
This article is part of a larger project to examine in detail the militaries of the different Sci-Fi series. This article will focus on the four major ground forces of the Star Wars Saga: The Droid Army of the CIS/Trade Federation, The Grand Army Of the Republic, The Grand Army of the Empire and The Ground Forces of the Rebel Alliance.
The Droid Army of The CIS/Trade Federation:
The Confederacy of Independent Systems is a collition of over 10,000 star systems (the pricese number isn't known but 10,000 is the minimunm) that had become unsatisfied with the Republic and how it was run and wanted out. Under the leadership of Count Dooku the CIS went from a lose acociation of systems that wanted to secede the Republic to a large and powerful political force that was capable of spliting the Republic in two. The CIS also contained a large number of highly powerful and wealthy galatic corparations that include: Commerce Guild, Corporate Alliance, Intergalactic Banking Clan, Trade Federation and the Techno Union. With over 10,000 systems and numberous corparations backing the CIS they have one of the largest armies in Sci-Fi.
The primary soldiers of the CIS Droid Army are the standard Trade Federation battle droid which are suplenmented by super battle droids and droidekas. The Trade Federation Battle Droid (hereby refered to as TFBD, top left picture) are flimlsy, poorly constructed robot soldiers the Trade Federation/CIS. In fact they are so flimsy that a kick to an active one will disable it or barely touching a disabled TFBD will make it fall into pieces. TFBD are lightly armed only with carbines. The also apear to be rather incompetent soldiers, as per Grevious' statements in ROTS novel (p.111 hardcover). The main advantage of TFBDs is their relative cheapness and be extension massive numbers.
The super battle droid (SBD, upper right)is the heavy battle droid of the CIS. They have thick armour plus a twin repeating blaster with a 960rounds/minute rate of fire. SBDs are also much more stronger in build than their weaker TFBD cousins, in the Geonosis arena we see a SBD lose and arm and it just kept on fighting. Due the limited numbers seen (relative to TFBD) it is reasonable to conclude that SBD are more expensive and therefore have fewer numbers but are much stronger. All together a deadly fighting machine.
Finally we have droidekas, also known as destroyers (centre). Like the TFBD the droidekas of the CIS are apparently part the Trade Federations contribution from their appearance in TPM. Destroyers have a few advantages over other battle droids. First and foremost they have shields that can take a lot of blaster fire. The precise strength isn't known but we do know a that a Naboo fighter's cannons penetrate the shield with no problem. So if we assume that the Naboo fighter's cannons have the same strength as Slave 1's then we have about 840MJ as an upper limit. Interestingly acording to the ROTS novel is a droideka is knocked off its feet with its shield up its shield will be unable to tell the floor apart from a hostile attack and will keep pumping energy to the shield and will eventual blow it self out. Next rather obvious advantage, droidekas are smaller so they are harder to hit. And Finally droidekas can roll up into a wheel and roll around. This allows droidekas to cover large distances quickly. Like the SBD droidekas have rapid fire blasters.
Hailrire Droid
The Hailfire droids are the CIS's most effective anti-armour weapon. Their large wheels allow them to quickly cover large distance over uneven terrain. The hailfire droid carries a total of 24 anti-armour missiles in two rectangular launcher cells located on top of the main body, inside the wheels. The hailfire missiles had enough power to take out an AT-TE in a single hit. This is a droid that you don't want to find your self facing in battle.
Spider Droids
Sider droids are the CIS's other main combat droid vehical. They are slow moving quadrapeds. There are two types the drawf spider droid (in the foreground) and the homing spider droid (in the left back ground). The drawf spider droid is armed is with one laser cannon and the homing spider droid has one heavy canon and one dish gun. Unfortunately their effectiveness is difficult to gauge.
Tactics for the CIS are virtual non-existent. Their only real stratagy is to kill as many enemies as possible, which might explain the dreadful idea of lining up to attack the Republic forces on Geonosis. In fact the only real tactics seen in the movies is the droidekas surrounding Padme's raiding force in TPM.
The Grand Army of the Republic:
The Republic is a democratic government of systems in the galaxy. The number of system in the Republic appears to between 20,000 and 100,000 (this will be descused in detail in a future page). The Grand Army of The Republic was created by the cloners on Kamino under the orders of the mysterious Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas.
The soldiers of the Republic are Clones created from the DNA of the bounty hunter Jango Fett. They have been breed to be completely obedient and yet still retain many human aspects, such as the ability to think creatively, that would make them superior to droids. In AOTC we get an troop count for the clone army. The Prime Minister of Kamino say this to Obi-Wan:
LAMA SU: Please... And now to business. You will be delighted to hear we are on schedule. Two hundred thousand units are ready, with another million well on the way.So we have an army of 200,000 with 1,000,000 clones on the way. Now we learned in AOTC that a clone takes half as long to mature as a normal human. So if we assume that a clone is mature at 9 years old (the equivelent of 18 in a normal human) we have 1,000,000 clones becoming mature and ready for deployment over 9 years or 111,111 addition clones per year. So by the end of the Clone Wars 3 years after AOTC, not counting losses, the Republic army would consist of roughly 311,111 clone troopers strong. Now that may seem like not enough to fight a war with on a galactic scale, especially considering that fighter pilots are clones but remember Kashyyk? The clone army was surported by local malitia, which is probalby how the Grand Army of the Republic worked.
AT-TE
The All Terain Tactical Enforcer is the Republics primary walker and apearently the perdcessor to the mighty AT-AT. Its was primarly seen on Geonisis. The AT-TE is armed with multiple ball turrets that one would persume serve as anti-infratnry weapons as well as one large gun mounted dorsaly, which is aperantly anologous to the main gun on a tank. The non-canon information about the AT-TE suggests that the main gun is infact a rail gun, however we have never seen seen a rail gun before in Star Wars and the information is non-canon so we can safetly conclude that it is a regualar laser canon. AT-TEs were quite effective in the Battle of Geonosis, but there is little known about them beyond that.
LAAT
The LAAT(Low Altitude Assault Transport)is the Repbulic's all purpous transport/gunship. To put things simply these things pwnd the CIS at every opprotunity. LAATs are heavly armed with with powerful missles that are capable of stricking both air and ground targets. The missles are stored inside the armoured hull of the craft which allows them to carry many more than if they were mounted on hardpoints like on modern fighter craft. The inside mounting also protects the missles from enemy fire. In addition LAATs have two turrets on the front of the craft, two on the wings and two ball turrets on the side of the LAAT. The side turrets are some what unique, the weapon on these turrets is apparently a miniature version of the Death Star Super Laser. Now some people have used this to argue that the Super Laser on the Death Star was not a unique weapon, however that doesn't make sense. First just because something looks the same doesn't mean it is the same. Take for example the trilithium torpedo in Star Trek Generations, its case looked like a regular photon torpedo but that doesn't mean that the standard Federation torpedo can destroy an entire solar system. There is also the fact that the Death Star weapon uses a chain reaction, which would be a poor choice of weapon in a battle.
The other advatage of the LAATs is their transporting capablites. A normal LAAT can carry a squad of soilders quickly to anywere on the battle feild. With the large number of LAATs deployed in major battles, this could be an effective tactic, not as effective as Star Trek transporters, but effective none the less. Specail LAATs with the noraml underbelly removed were used to transport AT-TEs in the Battle of Geonosis. With that ablity the Republic could theoreticly deploy heavy armour anywhere on the battle field.
One other thing worth noting is that the AOTC novel makes reference to LAATs being shielded, but unfortunately this is overriden by the movie. In AOTC we do not see the characteristic glow of shields in atmosphere and we see enemy fire strike the side of the LAAT with no indication of shields. And finally there is the issue of Jedi having to deflect blaster bolts the entered the interior of the LAATs, which they shouldn't have to do if the LAATs were shielded.
The Republic LAAT is with out a doubt the most effective vehical in the Clone Wars.
SPHA-T
The Republic SPHA-T(Self-Propelled Heavy Artillery Turbolaser)is the primary form of artillery in the Republic army. These are interesting in terms of design because it is a line of sight weapon, which is and odd choice for an artillery. The main advantage of artillery is that it can lob shells great distances, but a line of sight artillery is limited by the curvature or terain of any planet they are on. One thing is for sure is that they are powerful, a few SPHA-Ts were able to take down a Trade Federation core ship. Another thing to keep in mind is that because it is a line of sight artillery piece its poer is limited because other wise it would destroy it self.
Clone tactic range from good to aboslutly crappy. In the battle of Geonosis the Republic army lined up like british red coats, and just went around shooting, with no thought to decent tachtics. Kashyyk on the other hand was a bit better. We see clones setting up firing posistions, kill zones, as well as taking elevated firing posistions. Now that would be a beach that would be bloody difficult to attack. Unfortunately much of that is undone when the CIS attack. We see soldiers leaving their prepared firing positions to rush at the enemy, and in the course of doing so take heavy and unnecessary casualties. Republic tactics are a mixed bag, that is some times good and some times bad beyond belief.
The Grand Army of the Galatic Empire:
Stormtroopers are the average trooper in the Empire's military. As the Grand Army of The Empire is directly decended from the Repbulic army it is reasonable to assume that stormtroopers are infact clones, with the possible conscript mixed in. There are also several veriations of stormtroopers such as snowtroopers for sub zero combat or scout troopers for recon.
AT-AT:
The All Terain Armoured Transport (AT-AT) apears to be the primary heavy combat vehical of the
Empire. This collosal war machine stands an impressive 23m high and rest on four large feet that easly
crushed a downed air speeder. The AT-AT has the combined roles of heavy tank and APC. Unlike its cousin
the AT-ST the AT-AT name is canon and its role does apear to match its name.
The AT-AT has what is probalby the heaviest armour of all ground vehicals and is armed with four powerful blaster cannons. The armour is the primary reason the AT-AT is such a powerful weapon. Despite having to march several kilometers while under heavy enemy fire and with heavy opposing air support, the Imperial force only loss two walkers. In fact there was no noticeable damage despite repeated fire. To even take out two AT-ATs over a multi-kilometer march the Rebels had to use unconventional forms of attack. The weaponry of the AT-ATs are also quite impressive, the blaster canons were able accurately fire at Rebel positions over 20km away. The precise firepower of the cannons isn't known but based on the effects of the bolts hitting the snow, the cannons apear to have a yield somewhere between 10 and 100MJ. Some have taken the multi-kiloton reactor blast in TESB as evidence for kiloton level weapons, but an unknown about of the blast was produced by the reactor itself, so this explosion does not serve as a reliable benchmark for AT-AT fire power.
AT-ST:
The AT-ST apears to be the primary small combat vehicle of the Imperial Army. It’s a bi-pedal walker
standing a little over 8m high. The EU call the AT-ST an "All Terrain Scout Transport", however the
AT-ST has never been seen in a scouting role and is a poor choice of vehicle for transporting supplies
because it has no cargo hatch, just a little one on the top and contains very little interior space
that is not taken up with the pilots and controls. Despite non-canon claims to the contrary the AT-ST
apears to be a light combat vehicle. The AT-ST is lightly armed with a double cannon mounted on the
"chin" of the head. There are also as well as what appears to be a heavy cannon on the left side of head
and another canon on the right. These weapons are not particularly strong by Sci-Fi standards, Brian Young at Turbolaser Commentaries
(scroll down to near the bottom) calculated the yield of the AT-ST's guns to be about 2MJ. Now theses
bolts lasted about 1/15th of a second so the weapons have about 30MW of power. The EU does suggest
that the AT-ST is equipped with a grenade launcher, however the EU is non-canon and there is no
indication of such a weapon in canon.
One thing that is odd about the AT-ST is that its armour is very light and doesn't seem to protect it against log, a few shots from an AT-ST canon and the force of falling over. On his AT-ST page Darkstar calculated that the AT-ST failed to withstand 2.1MJ of a swinging logs in ROTJ, which corresponds nicely with the firepower of the AT-ST canon on Chewie's AT-ST which he uses to destroy another AT-ST. One has to wonder why the armour of an AT-ST is so thin? After all the E-web in TESB was considered threatening to the Millennium Falcon and yet it is an infantry portable weapon.
Small Arms:
Imperial small arms comes in four forms, a pistol, carbine, assult rifle and heavy machine gun. The pistol is primarily used by scout troopers but officers have been seen to use it. The use ofg the pistol for scouts is odd, one would expect a scout, especially one who wears white in a forest to carry a weapon that had longer range than a pistol. Well no one said canon had to make sense :). The next small arm is what the EU calls the E-11 (top left). This is the primary weapon of stormtroopers and appears to be the Star Wars equivalent to a carbine so one would expect a range of a hundred meters or so. It should be noted that we have never seen a E-11 used for ranges over about 30m, however that does not mean it is limited to 30m. After all we have only seen them used inside or in a forest, which would limit the range of targets due to obstacles such as trees.
The Empire also has assault rifles (I don't have a picture, but I will try to find one). This rifle appears to be used in the typical assault rifle role. The only really notable thing about the rifles is that they appear to have a longer range than modern assault rifles judging by the distance they were used at in AOTC. And Finally we come to the machine gun, the E-web (a non-canon name). The E-web appears to be the heavy machine gun of the Empire. As we did not actual see it fire in any or the films we can not be sure that is in fact the equivalent of a machine gun, it could be a portable laser canon with a slow rate of fire, which does make sense given its intended use against the Falcon. And until we see it fired in canon we can't know for sure.
Body Armour:
One of the most notable things about Imperial troopers (and clone troopers for that matter)is they
always wear white body armour, even at the most inopportune time (such as in a forest). The question is
does the armour convey any advantages? Well the answer is not much. First the helmet reduces visibility
as in evidence by the pictures above and the fact that it took several seconds for a squad of
stromtroopers to see Leia, even though she was standing out in the open. Second the armour fail to
prevent death from blaster wounds. In fact ever single time a storm trooper got shot he was killed.
Hell, it even failed to block arrows:
As seen here (the picture has been zoomed in) when an arrow penetrates a scout troopers back and he
falls down. Third there is no camo for regular stormtroopers, not even on Endor, where they were
setting a trap for the Rebels. Third it offers no NBC protection as seen here:
Notice that all three helmets are unsealed? Even on Endor, where they were expecting an attack.
Fourth the Armour reduces movement . In fact the only thing going for the armour is its ability to
inspire fear in its enemies.
Lets face it tactics in Science Fiction are often abismal. Why? Because Sci-Fi is written in Hollywood not the Pentagon, so sometimes the tactics are decent and other times they are terible.
Lets start with ANH. First, the boarding of Leia's ship. The stormtroopers were quite effective in thier boarding procedures, they first used what is apearently the Star Wars equivelent to a flash-bang to temperaly stun and disorient the rebel troops, allowing the stormtroopers to quickly move through the choke point despite the rebels having decent cover. This action allowed the Imperials to quickly gain the upper hand and capture the ship with minimum casualties. Over all a job well done.
Moving onto the Death Star. This is where the incompentence of stormtroopers becomes apearent. First how did Chewie and the droids get of the Falcon? Vader wanted to be informed if anyone was aboard and he didn't seem to know about Chewie, Obi-wan or the droids, even though the weren't wearing Storm Trooper armour. One would expect that the commander of the Troopers in the hanger would have notified Vader. Next we have the Detention Block. First there were three elevators into the cells so why did the stormtroopers only enter through one, creating a choke point? Next, while this isn't strickly a tactical error; why couldn't the storm troopers hit any of the rebels? Luke how doesn't apear to have much knowladge or experience with hand guns was hitting several storm troopers. Finally, why didn't the Imperial use a grenade? One good grenade would have killed all four rebels.
Then there is the issue of what happened after they got out of the trash compactor. First, the troopers Han chased; why didn't they stand their ground? He was just one man with a gun agaist several in an open hallway. Next, why didn't the stormtroopers cordnate and surround the rebel? One would expect a station as large as the Death Star to have enough troops to surround a group of four people. Even the Jaffa in Star Gate can do that and they rely on horns to communicate. Over all the Stormtroopers did an extremely poor job on the Death Star.
Now a look at TESB. The Battle of Hoth was a well done victory for the Empire and displayed decent tactics. Fist the use of AT-ATs was the key to victory for the Empire. Due to their ability to repel the Rebel heavy guns and air support, the AT-ATs could make a strait march towards the Rebel base with minimum losses. Given the advantages that General Veers had all the advantages he did he made the best choice and did a straight march to the base. One thing worth notice is that there was a lack of air surport for the Empire, the implications of this will be discussed latter.
And Finally we have the battle of Endor. Well what can I say? Endor was the worst example of Imperial incompetence in the entire saga. How could an entire legion of the Empire's best troops loss to a dozen rebels and some pre-industrial teddy bears? The Empire had at least seven AT-STs and one AT-AT. Now there is no standard for how big a legion is but lets use a Roman legion as a benchmark. A Roman legion ranges in size from 5000-8000 or an average of 6500 infantry plus calvary and ranged troops. So lets say that there were 6500 stormtroopers plus the AT-AT/AT-ST crew. That means that the ewoks defeated probably defeated over 6000 troops plus combat vehicle support, all this from a stone age civilization. That would be like US Army brigade with tank support losing to a few hundred Native Americans.
How could things have gone so wrong? Well first the Empire should have had better recon. The ewoks had the element of surprise despite having to move a large army and build all their traps and catapults near by the bunker. If the Emperor's best legion could even notice an army or many large log traps. And while the quick and efficient capture of the rebels is a point in the Empire's favour, why did the take Han and co. out side? Do the not have cells in the base? Why did the commanding officer have the rebels taken out side where a rescue attempt could be made? Next, where were the heavy infantry weapons? we only saw E-11's and a single E-web could have made a huge difference. And its not unreasonable to expect that in one of two entrances to the base guarded by an entire legion that at least a single heavy machine gun was placed at the entrance. And why did the Imperials allow the Rebels to hold the doorway to the base? Wasn't the whole point of the Rebels mission to get inside and blow it up. A competent commander would have tried to have held the door way to stop the rebels from completing their goals. And Finally why did the AT-STs walk right into the Ewok traps?. No matter how you rationalize it Imperial tactics at Endor were pitiful.
Imperial doctrine appears to be based on inspiring fear in their enemy. The lack of camouflage is explained by the theory that the Empire wants their enemies to see vast numbers of stormtroopers aproching to scare them. Every thing in the Empire's military seems to surport this, the Empire appears to perfer large, imposing ships and ground vehicle. Ever their light combat vehical stands over 8m tall and the Executor class star destroyers is 17km long. Who needs a ship 17km long? And lets not forget the Death Star, though to be fair it might of needed to be as large as it was to support the super laser.
The Ground Forces of the Rebel Alliance:
The Rebel Alliance is an alliance of several planets that want to free the Galaxy and return it to its days as a Republic. Unfortunatly for them because of their limited resources they often have to make do with sub par equitment.
The Rebel trooper is a volunter who joins the alliance because he believes that the Galaxy should be free. There isn't really all that much to say about them really, except that the probably wouldn't have the same level of training as a stormtrooper or other soldier.
There isn't alot to say about Rebel equitment, except most of it is probably black market weapons and vehicals. Rebel ground equitment seems to consist of verious small arms, large turrets and snow speeders.
Snow speeders
The only rebel planetary combat vehical seen in the sega the snowspeeder is an airal fighter craft, primarily used for recon or air support. Armed with two laser cannons and a tow cable it is a lightly armed but would probable be effective. Snowspeeders were used against the imperial assult force in the Battle of Hoth. Unfortuanatly the armour on the AT-ATs were two strong for the snowspeeders but through an ingenious plan the snowspeeders were able to bring down an AT-AT or two by using their tow cables to trip the giant war machines.
Unlike their Imperial counter parts rebel troopers have a decent grasp of tactics that is displayed in all their battles. On the Tantive IV the Rebel troops took cover and atempted to utalise a choke point, that would have worked if not for the flash-bang like device employed the the Stormtroopers.
On Hoth the rebels set up a great defence line which, if not for the AT-ATs would have devistated any aproching ground force through a combonation of heavy cannon fire, machine gun and assult rifle fire. Any force with out heavy armour would have taken heavy, if not devistanting loses on their multi-kilometer aproch. It would be like D-Day but instead of having to capture a beach they would have to cover kilometers in deep snow.
While not much of the Battle of Endor focused on the regular rebel soldiers, we do see they have camo and have a decent understanding of squad tactics.
Conclusion
With out a doubt the CIS droid army is the largest, but the best is either the Republic or the Empire. The Rebels unfortunatly are a little too small a force to be able to compeat with any other Star Wars army on a large scale.
Links
Star Wars Technical Commentaries, Millitary Walkers
StarDestroyer.net, Ground Combat
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