TCW and the troop count

[Diablo_Cow]

So I finally decided to watch TCW. I started from season one and I am workin my way up. But I noticed something odd in the early part of season three. In the episode where the senate must vote ok deruglating the banks, five million new clones are mentioned as the prime reason for deruglation. I can see that clones are expensive the grow, train, feed, transport and arm throughout their career. But five million seems like an awfully small number given the fact that the war is being fought across the majority of the galaxy. With planetary invasions, occupations, space battles, and used duty, I thought there should be many many more clones.

 

I'm basing my idea off of the fact that ~500k troops were sent to Vietnam, and a couple hundred thousand were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan with surges of roughly 40k to help with those conflicts. Even if you combine the area of those three countries, they take up an insignificant amount of area compared to the rest of the planet. That said, the ratio between real life troop deployments and the fictional troop deployments of TCW seems much too similar.

Edited February 7, 2013 by Diablo_Cow

[Caelith]

I've noticed during the show that non of the battles are really epic.

 

It seems most times to fight on a planet they send about 3 cruisers with clones and a few Jedi, so whilst it is a battle for a planet the actual fighting seems fairly small scale.

[Tahrl]

Look at it this way, the Republic primarily relies on planetary armies, militias and security forces. But these are then supplemented with the elite clones when and where they are needed. You must also remember that a Clone Trooper is vastly superior to most off-the-line Battle Droids, making it a quality Vs. quantity type of engagement most of the time.

 

The fact that the Republic has Jedi support is also a massive boon, whereas the Seps only have Dooku, Ventress and Grievous. And those three can't be everywhere. The Force and a Lightsaber are damn powerful allies against Droids.

[DAWUSS]

I've noticed during the show that non of the battles are really epic.

 

It seems most times to fight on a planet they send about 3 cruisers with clones and a few Jedi, so whilst it is a battle for a planet the actual fighting seems fairly small scale.

 

I think there's the issue of rendering - I kinda get the feeling that if we saw massive fleets and millions of soldiers all in one battlefield we'd see lag to the millionth degree.

 

In war, I don't think every battle or skirmish is going to be an epic confrontation.

[Forgon]

Planet-wide invasions are mentioned by characters in passing but usually the story at hand leaves these massive battles (Second battle of Geonosis, battle of Umbara) to only focus on the "major" front that the main characters are fighting at.

[johnxtreeme]

Yeah, in reality a war fought across the galaxy would require an army of tens of billions of soldiers. the problem is that depicting an army, let alone a civilization, on that sort of scale is very challenging.