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The Confederacy has had sufficient strength to commit massive quantities of troops to individual fronts and did so in a manner reminiscent of “throwing battle droids at his enemy like spent and worthless rifle shells”. (The Story of General Grievous: Lord of War) These kinds of mobilizations predated the command of General Grievous, and had been used longer then there was even a Confederacy itself. The invasion of Naboo (The Phantom Menace) stands out as an easily quantified example. While the screenplay describes the blockade as numbering in the “hundreds” this number is insufficient to blockade a planet in the manner observed in The Phantom Menace. The ships appear to be approximately five kilometers apart from one another in a formation of three lines. At this density nine hundred freighters would only cover 1.8 % of the planet. This would do nothing to halt the escape of ships, thus defying the movie statements of a blockade. With the ships stationed only at the very edge of the atmosphere (ninety-six kilometers above the surface) and an Earthlike diameter, the blockade would require 24,489 ships. This is possibly too low; as such a low orbit would not be geo-stationary as the orbit was observed to be. Further, later in the film it was observed that the SS Profiteer was in orbit beyond one of the local moons. The latter is possibly the result of it moving later however. Nevertheless, treating it as accurate, we can continue. The standard Trade Federation Lucrehulk class hauler can carry a maximum load of 550 Multi Troop Transports, and 1,500 Troop Carriers, each of which carries a company of 112 B-1 Battle droids (The Phantom Menace Incredible Cross Sections) for a total invasion force of 5.6 billion droids. This does not mean that each ship carries only 229,600 droids however, as this count neglects the crews for the tanks, transports, platoon craft, and any infantry that does not use those particular vehicles. Further, it may represent only the capacity of the war freighter type, as the details presented in The Phantom Menace Incredible Cross Sections does not match what we know about other craft (e.g. gun count). It is highly likely that the droid control ship type, battleship type, and troop transport type (Attack of the Clones novel) carry more. Calculations indicate the coreship alone can hold as many as 19.8 million droids, and that a whole Lucrehulk can carry as many as 1.6 billion troops, though a more likely number is 150 million [3]. These figures are plausible, as is shown by the sheer number of troops carried by other Confederate ships. A Providence class star destroyer could carry 1.5 million droids, a Munificent class star frigate 150,000 droids, and a Resucant class light destroyer 40,000 droids. (Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross Sections) The sheer size of the Lucrehulk allows for it to carry far more. It is notable that the tens and hundreds of thousands of droids regarded as insufficient for invasion and are not seen as “ground-attack armies”, but rather consist of “enough security droids for boarding actions”. (Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross Sections)
From this we can then examine various instances of offensive maneuvers on the behalf of the Confederacy. Unfortunately, most of the material is from the point of view of the Republic, so there is little to go on. At Kamino they deployed at least two Lucrehulks. (Clone Wars: Defense of Kamino) Reinforcements for an attack on Cobalt station consisted of five C-9979 landers worth of troops (6,160 in MTTs alone) and vehicles, plus the original forces. (Clone Wars: Last Stand on Jabiim) On Merson we see 52 formations large enough to be distinct from a considerable distance. It is likely they were full companies, similar to what was seen at Zaadja. Thus there would have been over 23,712 troops deployed. However, this is not the entire force. As General Kim’s forces were outnumbered 5 to 1 and his fleet consisted of at least two Acclamator variant star frigates, the Confederate forces likely numbered in the hundreds of thousands. (Clone Wars: The Best Blades) At Parcelus Minor they outnumbered the Republic ten to one, again indicating ~160,000 troops. (Clone Wars: The Best Blades). Over Honoghr and Rendili we see Lucrehulk coreships deployed. As each can theoretically carry 19 million droids [3] this would correspond to 19 million and 38 million respectively. (Clone Wars: On the Fields of Battle) At an unidentified space battle we see two Providence class ships fighting four Venators, totaling 3 million droids. (Clone Wars Chapter 22) The Battle of Orto involved at least eleven Providence class ships, for a force numbering some of 16.5 million droids. (Clone Wars Chapter 22) They committed 1 million battle droids to capturing a lone outpost on Praestyln, and were set to reinforce their position. (Jedi Trial) And ten Providence class ships for a total of 15 million droids led the invasion of an unknown planet home to a family of Jawas. (Clone Wars Chapter 22) At the end of the Clone Wars “millions” of Confederate warships were occupied by “vast campaigns” in the Outer Rim. (Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross Sections) Conservatively, this is at least several tens of billion, and likely trillions of battle droids serving as marine detachments to ships alone. The second battle of Coruscant involved dozens of battleships leading thousands of destroyers and frigates, (Revenge of the Sith;Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross Sections) and involved “hundreds of millions of battle droids” on the ground and in space. (The Story of General Grievous: Lord of War) That operations would be conducted on this scale suggests an army with strength no less then several quadrillion. The Republic rightly looked as such a force as nigh infinite. (The Story of General Grievous: Lord of War) |
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