#imperialnavy — Public Fediverse posts
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How Large is Imperial Fleet in Star Wars
So how large is the fleet of Star Wars’ Galactic Empire?
While Lucas never really figured out – or cared about – this question, there are some indications. In the prequels, Republic has “tens of thousands” of systems and “trillions” of common folk. Elsewhere it is specified that the Jedi served the Republic on a hundred thousand different worlds. In A New Hope it is stated that there are a million systems in the Empire. This of course is irrelevant for the size of the fleet specifically, but it does give some idea of the orders of magnitude one may expect.
For example, in 1940, United States had 397 cities of 25 000 or more… today they have 1 521. Yet the US Navy had 237 surface warships in 1940 and 275 in 2024.
Also, using things such as “mass of the Death Star” for this is useless… firstly, ships are far more than their mass in steel. It is often easier to build a single 50 000-on ship than it is to build 50 thousand-ton vessels. Secondly, warships specifically have bottlenecks other than the sheer material resources. When the Royal Navy found itself strapped for battleships, decision was made to utilize eight old 15 inch rifles (still quite competitive in the World War 2) in order to expedite construction of an additional battleship in lieu of four new Lions… this battleship being HMS Vanguard. Reason behind this was simple: main bottleneck for the Royal Navy’s battleship production was not dockyard space or engines or money or materials… it was the ability to produce heavy gun barrels (and, once war had started, shortage of skilled labor). Using eight old 15 inch rifles will have enabled construction of a new fast battleship to commence without having to wait for the new guns to be built. In the end, while Vanguard was supposed to be finished by the end of 1944, she was only completed after the war as sinking of German battleships meant that need for fast battleships was far less pressing than the need for convoy escorts, destroyers and aircraft carriers.
To translate this into science fiction, a starfleet has literally dozen different potential bottlenecks that may limit how many ships it can have: manpower availability, fuel availability, dockyard space, rare resources, ability to produce specific subsystems (e.g. hyperdrive, powerplants)… A single massive space station built in orbit somewhere will have only one hyperdrive, one powerplant, will not utilize any dockyard space, and is likely to have far lower density of critical systems in comparison to tonnage than a typical warship will (fewer turbolasers per ton, lower crewing requirements per ton and so on).
A New Hope
First, I will look at the script:
https://imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-A-New-Hope.html
HAN – The entire starfleet couldn’t destroy the whole planet. It’d take a thousand ships with more fire power than I’ve…
DODONNA – The battle station is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the star fleet. It’s defenses are designed around a direct large-scale assault. A small one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defense.
These statement is basically the same in the actual movie. Novelization however makes Han’s statement lot more definitive:
“No… the entire Imperial fleet couldn’t have done this. It would take a thousand ships massing a lot more firepower than has ever existed.”
Likewise, discussion before the attack provides more detail than in the script:
“The station,” Dodonna went on, “is heavily shielded and mounts more firepower than half the Imperial fleet. But its defenses were designed to fend off large-scale, capital ship assaults. A small, one-or two-man fighter should be able to slip through its defensive screens.”
As if to confirm Antilles’ pessimism, Dodonna indicated a string of lights on the ever-changing schematic. “Take special note of these emplacements. There’s a heavy concentration of firepower on the latitudinal axes, as well as several dense circum-polar clusters.
This makes it clear that the statement refers specifically to the defensive emplacements.
Return of the Jedi
https://imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-Return-of-the-Jedi.html
MON MOTHMA – The data brought to us by the Bothan spies pinpoints the exact location of the Emperor’s new battle station. We also know that the weapon systems of this Death Star are not yet operational. With the Imperial Fleet spread throughout the galaxy in a vain effort to engage us, it is relatively unprotected. But most important of all, we’ve learned that the Emperor himself is personally overseeing the final stages of the construction of this Death Star.
HAN – Now don’t get jittery, Luke. There are a lot of command ships. Keep your distance though, Chewie, but don’t look like you’re trying to keep your distance.
CONTROLLER – Admiral, we have enemy ships in sector 47. On the screen can be seen the moon, Death Star, and the massive Imperial fleet. Ackbar moves to the comlink.
Crunching the Numbers
So first step is to establish how many turbolaser emplacements the Death Star has. That is a bit of a problem however. As comments show, gun emplacements are not spread out evenly, but rather heavily concentrated “on the latitudinal axes, as well as several dense circum-polar clusters”. Main central trench has no firepower.
Death Star size
First however I need to establish the size of the Death Star. And that begins with sizing the Millenium Falcon.
Here, we see that Han Solo is about as tall as the uppermost silver ring on the pipe. Harrison Ford’s height (at the time) is 185 cm, with maybe a few extra cm for the shoes. Between boots and the hair, his overall height might be up to 190 cm.
Using the above reference, circular part at the side of Falcon appears to be 241 cm tall. However, there may be possibility to get more accurate measurement.
Vader above is 200 cm tall in the suit; this gives Falcon cockpit tube diameter of 286 cm (matching the 279 – 310 cm that the tube would have to be to fit with the interior shots). Problem with this image is that Vader is in fact standing further away from the tube, so this estimate can only be an extreme upper end of Falcon’s size.
It seems from the image is that Vader is exactly as tall as the clearance from the ground to the Flacon’s upper hatch end (that is, lower edge of saucer).
By using the Falcon model, these can then be used to find Falcon’s width:
Overall width of the Falcon would appear to be 24,8 to 29,5 meters. Mid-range tube diameter of 268 cm is also likely the most accurate as other two shots have perspective issues, meaning that most likely width of the Millenium Falcon is 27,6 meters (2760 cm). There is a better shot however, one that does not have perspective issues of all previous shots.
This shot shows Han Solo to be as tall as the clearance from the ground to Falcon’s saucer plate. This means that Falcon’s tube diameter from Vader shot would in fact be 265 cm, giving Millenium Falcon the width of 27,3 meters.
Thus, Millenium Falcon has an average of 27,5 meter width.
Overall height of the hangar bay entrance is 19 meters by measurement. There is an issue, however. Later measurements of the Death Star show that it is not in fact spherical: this is an artefact of the video format which stretches image horizontally, by some 9% (or around 8,33%, perhaps?), giving height of 20,8 meters. This then allows determination of the height of the trench.
As can be seen, hangar bay is 10 pixels tall, while the large inset area is 204 pixels tall, giving it height of 387,6 meters. Since trench is exactly three times the height of the large cavern area, this means the trench is 1162,8 meters tall, increasing to 1272,96 meters when compensating for distortion.
Above, trench is 14 px talls compared to 115 px for the large band area, giving band width of 9,55 kilometers.
This more precise measurement gives 16 px trench and 122 px band, for the band width of 8 866 meters, or 9 706 meters if compensating for distortion.
This photo gives 11 px and 63 px, or 6,66 km for the width of the band. However, since the trench is not uniformly wide everywhere, using Falcon’s 9,7 km result is the best option. From there, it is possible to find the size of the Death Star.
Now as can be seen from the above, Death Star is not perfectly spherical… this however is likely just a distortion caused by the format. If so, then 181 px height is correct for the entire diameter of the Death Star. With band being 11-13 px, it appears that the Death Star is some 135 – 160 km in diameter. Trench itself is some two pixels, and using value of 1272,96 meters, Death Star would appear to be some 115 kilometers in diameter.
Since I am too lazy to do any more measurement, I will just take the midpoint value and assume 135 km Death Star I (which is also almost exactly the same as the arithmetic average of the three values, which is 137 km).
With diameter of 135 kilometers, Death Star I has the surface area of 57 255,53 km2 or 57 255 526 110 m2.
Death Star Turbolasers
What is necessary to find now is the density and thus number of turbolaser emplacements.
Now, as can be seen here (and in several other scenes), turbolaser towers are about the same height as an X-Wing:
(Somewhat taller, in fact, but I will use lower value in order to err on the side of caution and thus achieve higher upper limit).
There are several scenes where presence of towers can be determined from a significant distance, thus giving some indication of the density:
Looking at the height of the towers and distance between them, it can be determined that the two gun towers are some 75 meters apart:
As these are the only towers shooting in the scene, it could be argued these are the only towers present in that part of the Death Star… a box of between 500 x 500 and 750 x 750 meters.
This scene would give the absolute upper limit of one gun emplacement per 5 625 square meters (or 177 guns per square kilometer), and the lower limit of one gun per square kilometer. However, since we know from both the character statements and several other scenes that there are areas with high concentration of firepower, using something closer to the upper limit does appear to be a more reasonable approach.
Using value of 57 255 526 110 m2 for the surface of the Death Star and one gun per 5 625 square meters, we arrive at the value of a total of 10 178 760 guns. Absolute lower limit would be 57 000 guns, with higher lower limit being between 101 800 and 229 000 guns.
Star Destroyer Turbolasers
What is now needed is to figure out how many large turbolasers does an Imperial Star Destroyer have.
For this, I will use the filming model displayed at Star Wars Identities.
As can be seen, Star Destroyer has four octagonal emplacements at each side of the superstructure – ship is clearly designed for broadside engagements, but more on that in a potential future article. Each emplacement has two sets of four barrels, or eight barrels per emplacement. This means that a Star Destroyer has 64 heavy guns near the superstructure. These guns are in fact far larger and presumably more powerful than even heavy emplacements aboard the Death Star, which are closer in size to Star Destroyer’s anti-fighter defenses, also visible on the model. However, for the purpose of arriving at the maximum possible size of the Imperial Navy, I will continue to assume the Death Star guns as equivalent to Star Destroyer’s heavy guns.
Additional four-gun or two-gun heavy emplacement is located in the trench:
thus adding eight or four guns in total (note that the filming model actually has these guns only on one side).
In total, Imperial Star Destroyer has 70 – 72 heavy turbolasers.
Conclusion – Size of the Fleet
As can be seen, size of the Imperial Navy can vary wildly, based on how many turbolasers Death Star I has. Maximum value as noted is 10 178 760 guns in total. Absolute lower limit would be 57 000 guns, with higher lower limit being between 101 800 and 229 000 guns. Median would thus be around 1 million guns in total. All of this is “greater than half the starfleet”.
I will use three main values here:
- High-end: 10 178 760 guns
- Median: 1 000 000 guns
- Low-end: 130 000 guns (average of three low-end values)
Diving these numbers by 72, we have three values for number of “ISD-equivalents” in the Imperial Navy:
- High-end: 140 000 (141 372)
- Median: 14 000 (13 888)
- Low-end: 1 800 (1 806)
Since firepower of the Death Star is “greater than half” of the fleet, these numbers then have to be multiplied by two:
- High-end: 280 000
- Median: 28 000
- Low-end: 3 600
Of course, this takes into account only the large guns on the Death Star and the large guns on the Star Destroyer. As noted, it also does not take into account the size difference between the heavy guns on the Death Star and the heavy guns on the Star Destroyer… barrels on the Death Stars’ guns are some four meters long at most. Those on the Star Destroyer have barrels that are 1/3 the width of the mount… mounts themselves are 1/17 width of the superstructure (53 vs 900 px) and superstructure is 42% of the length of the Star Destroyer.
This means that – based on very rough estimates – each of Star Destroyer’s main guns would have a barrel that is 13 meters long – 10 meters at the very least. Assuming that caliber follows length (which it may not) and that firepower is proportional to size of the bolt… each of the heavy guns on the Star Destroyer would have firepower 34 times that of the Death Star’s heavy gun. This is also obvious when we compare the bolts fired: bolts fired by Death Star heavy guns are some six times the length of the X-Wing, or 78 meters. Bolts fired by the heavy guns of a Star Destroyer – seen at Battle of Endor – are themselves perhaps one-third of the length of a Star Destroyer, that is, 500 meters long. Going by volume, these would have firepower 263 times that of the Death Star’s heavy guns. From these numbers, it is entirely possible to drop the estimates seen above to between 8 000 Star Destroyers for a high-end estimate and as low as 13 Star Destroyers for a low end. I will however ignore these numbers.
With all of this in mind, median number of 28 000 ISD-equivalents is the most likely one.
This however is only “ISD equivalent” number. Executor for example is 19 kilometers long… if it has the gun density similar to the Star Destroyer, then Executor itself would account for 141 Star Destroyers (length squared since gun numbers are limited by the surface area). On the flip side, something like Leia’s blockade runner is 150 meters long and would have firepower that is at most 0,88% of that of an Imperial Star Destroyer (again going by the surface area).
Since Imperial fleet at Endor had the Executor and what looks like 40 or so Star Destroyers (at least 34 can be counted below):
then it may be reasonable to assume a “sector” fleet of a single “command ship” (Super Star Destroyer), 40 Star Destroyers and perhaps a 100 small warships (frigates, corvettes and such). Each such fleet would have firepower-equivalence of 141 + 40 + 1 Star Destroyers for 182 ISD-equivalents in total.
Using median number of 28 000 ISD equivalents would result in 154 fleets, with a total of 154 super star destroyers, 6 160 Imperial Star Destroyers and 15 400 frigates and corvettes. Thus Imperial fleet would have a total of 21 700 warships.
High end of 280 000 ISD equivalents would give 1 540 fleets, for 1 540 SSDs, 61 600 ISDs and 154 000 frigates and corvettes. This would give a total of 217 000 warships.
Low end of 3 600 ISD equivalents would give 20 fleets, for 20 SSDs, 800 ISDs and 2 000 frigates and corvettes – a total of 2 820 warships.
Given all of the above, most likely number for the Imperial Navy is 217 000 warships in total.
#ImperialNavy #numbers #shipNumbers #size #starWars #starfleet #starship -
The Lady Offshore With The 16″ Guns
https://eldraeverse.com/2023/06/17/the-lady-offshore-with-the-16-guns/
#eldraeverse #flying-low #imperial-navy #intimidation #sciencefiction #shore-party #snippet #writing
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The Lady Offshore With The 16″ Guns
https://eldraeverse.com/2023/06/17/the-lady-offshore-with-the-16-guns/
#eldraeverse #flying-low #imperial-navy #intimidation #sciencefiction #shore-party #snippet #writing
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The Lady Offshore With The 16″ Guns
https://eldraeverse.com/2023/06/17/the-lady-offshore-with-the-16-guns/
#eldraeverse #flying-low #imperial-navy #intimidation #sciencefiction #shore-party #snippet #writing
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The Lady Offshore With The 16″ Guns
https://eldraeverse.com/2023/06/17/the-lady-offshore-with-the-16-guns/
#eldraeverse #flying-low #imperial-navy #intimidation #sciencefiction #shore-party #snippet #writing