Posted by Allard-Jan van Marle (131.211.32.69) on June 28, 2002 at 04:52:43:
Hi,
As to the usefulness of the clone army in AOTC I think I can add this:
While 1.2 million soldiers is not much on a galactic scale, we are talking about 1.2 million
effective soldiers. in most modern armies it takes a total of about 40000 men to put a
division of 10000 in the field. All the others are administrative and support personel. The clones
are supposedly all fighting soldiers.
Moreover, they will actually fight. Studies done during the Korean War showed that
ninety percent of a conscript army is essentially dead weight. They are too scared to fight effectively.
The clone army should not suffer from this problem. Also, while the number is not very impressive, it does
not really have to be. Armies in the Star Wars universe have achieved such a degree of
mobility that large sized ground based forces become useless. It takes too much time
too get them in position. Planetside combat would be limited to quick strike missions
against strategic targets. So we are not talking about a galactic equivalent to a
complete army, but rather the equivalent to an elite assault force, which always operates in
small numbers. (This would also cut down on the enormous amount of support personel, since
the logistics system and command structure could be scaled down considerably.
Finally, It appears that the Old Republic had no large standing army of its own, but relied
on the forces of individual member planets. (Every planet we have seen has its own military,
whereas Palpatine needs special approval to form an 'Army of the Republic'. Apparently, the Republic relied
mostly on the Jedi for peacekeeping duties) Coordinating the armies of a number of different races and
worlds together would be a generals nightmare, so it seems likely that the clone army would be able to
deal with their opponents' armies one at the time.
Great work on the website, keep it up!
Allard-Jan