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Grand Army of the Republic

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Grand Army of the Republic

General information
Founder(s)	Sifo-Dyas Army^[1] Darth Sidious^[1] Dooku^[1] Jango Fett^[1]
Leader(s)	Supreme Chancellor Palpatine^[1]
Headquarters	(Coruscant^[2] Kamino^[1]
Historical information
Founding	32 BBY^[3]
Fragmentation	19 BBY^[3]
Other information
Era(s)	Rise of the Empire era^[1]
Affiliation	Galactic Republic^[1]

[Source]

"An army of one man, but the right man for the job."

―Clone trooper rallying call^[src]

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), also known as the Clone Army, was the main part of the armed forces of the Galactic Republic in its final years, becoming one of the largest armies ever assembled, although not as large as the Separatist Droid Army. After the Clone Wars, it served as the nucleus for the armed forces of the Galactic Empire.

It was created by the Kaminoan cloners on the rainy planet of Kamino. It comprised two hundred thousand growth-accelerated clone trooper units and their war machines at the start of the Clone Wars.

After the initial engagements, over a million more clone units were added to the ranks of the army, followed by numerous additional divisions. The Republic spent much of its waning wealth on grand armies and fleets, making it one of the largest militaries ever assembled by the end of the war.

The template for the clones was the bounty hunter Jango Fett, whose only request in return, in addition to five million credits, was an unaltered clone by the name of Boba. After Jango's death, the Kaminoans had to stretch Fett's DNA to produce more clones.

HistoryEdit

"As my first act with this new authority, I will create a Grand Army of the Republic to counter the increasing threats of the Separatists."

―Supreme Chancellor Palpatine^[src]

At the beginning of the Palpatine administration (32 BBY), the Republic had no standing armed forces, though the debate about the reinstatement of an army and navy had been ongoing for decades. The only military forces were the Jedi, which kept peace for generations. The Jedi were no army though. At one time, the Republic's military forces were considerable, but in the wake of the New Sith Wars (1,000 BBY), a gradual process of down scaling began, in favor of increased support from the Jedi Order.^[4]

More and more often, the Jedi were called upon to act as negotiators. But as crises piled upon each other, some within the Order began to sense a coming darkness, which their numbers alone would not be sufficient to fight. The creation of a clone army was secretly ordered by Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas without the knowledge or approval of his comrades, in response to the growing shadow in the Force.^[5] Sifo-Dyas had been manipulated into placing the order by Sith Lord Darth Plagueis, in his guise as Hego Damask, who used his own wealth and that of the Banking Clan to fund the army. Plagueis believed the Kaminoans would only accept the order if it came from a Jedi due to the Kaminoans interest in them.^[6]

The GAR's first engagement would be at the Battle of Geonosis,^[1] where it successfully routed an unsuspecting droid army. However, this merely started off the much larger Clone Wars, in which the army took heavy losses.

However, some Jedi such as Bardan Jusik felt that the Jedi Order was actually using it as a slave army, since the clones were not allowed any leave or rest, and had to fight continuously. This eventually led to Jusik leaving the Jedi Order, disgusted by its actions in allowing the Republic to use a slave army.

Though the clone troopers fought under the Jedi for most of the Clone Wars, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine wrested executive control over the army from the Jedi late in the war,^[7] and used the clones to destroy the Jedi Order at the start of the Great Jedi Purge when he created the Galactic Empire on the eve of the war's end.^[8]Having declared himself Emperor, Palpatine quickly transformed the clone army into the Stormtrooper Corps and integrated it into the military of his new Empire.

After Order 66 and the Jedi Purge, this lead to a number of clones deserting from the Grand Army. Most of these clones were from the Special Operations Brigade, including the partial Omega Squad, Null-class Advanced Recon Commando and some Advanced Recon Commandos such as Captain Maze.

Before the end of the war, the Sector Governance Decree was issued, which placed governors on every world of the Republic, along with their own force of clone troopers. It also created the position of Moff or sector governor. Fearing for the future of democracy and the Senate's powers, this decision was one of several protested by the Delegation of 2000, but they were overruled.^[7] Governors and their clone regiments began arriving on their designated worlds soon after.^[9]

The total amount of clones involved in the war is not known, as their ranks were bolstered by new stocks and volunteers as the fighting dragged on. With the formation of the Galactic Empire, the Grand Army of the Republic ceased to exist and was reorganized into the Imperial Army. All military personnel of the GAR were required to swear allegiance to the new government in order to remain on active duty and those that refused were branded as deserters and traitors after which they were hunted down and executed.^[10]

During the Galactic Civil War, clones of Jango Fett's lineage made up about 1/3 of all stormtroopers in the Galactic Empire, but it is not known how many were left from the Clone Wars by the start of the Galactic Civil War.^[11] Due to the influx of non-Fett clones and regular humans into the army, the Fett clones, such as Commander Cody, viewed the Stormtrooper Corps as an embarrassment to the legacy of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Organization and structureEdit

"In response, the Old Republic assembled its own army by leveraging mysterious cloning technology to create a near-limitless supply of troops."

―Description of the Republic building up its military^[src]

A number of GAR facilities were constructed by Kaminoan droids, especially during the Decimator campaign.^[12]

Order of BattleEdit

The army was split into separate Orders of Battle (ORBATs). These were regular forces, and special forces. Most of the structure of the regular forces was unchanged through the Clone Wars and was even used by the Galactic Empire. The special forces were highly independent clone commandos that had specific objectives and required very little help from Jedi commanders.^[12]

Command structure of regular forcesEdit

"…if the GAR were made up of average humans, you simply would not have a functioning army now. Clone troopers are optimized humans, and only two percent of the population could be as tough, resilient and aggressive as these men are."

―Mij Gilamar, on reports that clone troopers do not feel pain, because they were created for war, and bred for it^[src]

Grand Army—10 systems armies, a total of 3,000,000 units, with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine as Commander-in-Chief.^[12] The number 3,000,000 was Sifo-Dyas' initial order, as the number of total clones increased during the war.^[3]
Systems Army—2 Sector Armies (294,912 units) led by a High Jedi General.^[12]^[3]
Sector Army—4 corps (147,456 units) led by a Senior Jedi General.^[12]^[3]
Corps—4 legions (36,864 units) led by a marshal commander and a Jedi General.^[12]^[3]
Legion/Brigade—4 regiments (9,216 units) led by a senior commander and a Jedi General.^[12]^[3]
Regiment—4 battalions (2,304 units) led by a regimental commander and a Jedi Commander.^[3]
Battalion—4 companies (576 units) led by a battalion commander and major.^[3]
Company—4 platoons (144 units) led by a captain.^[12]^[3]
Platoon—4 squads (36 units) led by a lieutenant, second lieutenant, and sergeant-major.^[3]
Squad—9 units led by a sergeant and corporal.^[3]

The rate of casualties greatly reduced the Grand Army's numbers throughout the Clone Wars. Prior to the Battle of Coruscant, many of the original Kamino clone troopers were dead or unable to continue fighting.^[2] However, the Republic military enhancement bill—passed by a majority vote in the Galactic Senate midway through the war—authorized the funding of five million additional clone troopers.^[13] During the waning days of the Clone Wars, millions of Spaarti-grown clones were deployed to supplement their Kaminoan-created counterparts.^[2]

Command structure of special forcesEdit

Special Operations Brigade (SO BDE)—20 groups (10,000 men), commanded by Senior Jedi General Arligan Zey, made up of 10 battalions by one year after the Battle of Geonosis.
Commando Group—5 companies (500 men)

Company—5 troops (100 men).
Troop—5 squads (20 men).
Squad—4 men.

Ground and air vehiclesEdit

ArtilleryEdit

ArmoredEdit

Heavy cavalryEdit

Combat service supportEdit

Aerial assaultEdit

Mechanized infantryEdit

ReconnaissanceEdit

Aquatic vehiclesEdit

Notable unitsEdit

Behind the scenesEdit

The GAR is actually the second armed force in the prequels to be given the name "grand army". The first was the Gungan Grand Army from The Phantom Menace.

As Karen Traviss is one of the people who has written extensively about the Grand Army of the Republic, the terminology used in the Expanded Universe by the Grand Army is similar to that of the British Armed Forces, as Traviss herself is British.

NumbersEdit

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There has been controversy regarding the actual number of clones that comprised the Grand Army of the Republic. In Attack of the Clones, the Kaminoan prime minister, Lama Su, informed Obi-Wan Kenobi that 200,000 "units" were ready for deployment immediately prior to the outbreak of the Clone Wars, with a million more "well on the way." Although the film itself does not elaborate on what Su meant when he spoke of "units," the novelization and most Expanded Universe sources have treated the term as though it referred to individual clones (in the novelization, it is assumed by Kenobi that one unit equals one clone). This is backed up by a statement in Inside the Worlds of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (p. 21): "When Obi-Wan arrives, Tipoca is already primed to deliver 200,000 clone troops, while facilities across the planet are equipped to produce millions more."

This means that, at the beginning of the war, the Grand Army would have consisted of 200,000 clones, increasing in number quickly to 1,200,000, a figure apparently attained by the time of Shatterpoint (written by Matthew Stover), set six months after the Battle of Geonosis. A figure of ~3 million clones was cited in the article Guide to the Grand Army of the Republic and the novel Republic Commando: Triple Zero (both written by Karen Traviss, with Ryan Kaufman as co-author on the Guide…), set a year after Geonosis.

In a later discussion on TheForce.net's literature boards, statements were made by Kaufman denying that this was treated as a definitive figure for the total army:^[source?]

"FYI, re: 3 million. LFL was very clear to us that no fixed number of total clones would or could be assigned. Therefore, the number 3 million (plus) does not represent the entire fighting force."

―Ryan Kaufman

Additionally, most stories made since AOTC have shown dozens of battles, during many of which the clones sustained massive losses, casting doubt about arguments that they represented a "small, elite, special operations force" compared with regular battle droids. The Cestus Deception states that a million clones have died, and this is only as of 21 BBY, at most a year after the Geonosis invasion.

Some fans point to the existence of Spaarti clones, and the massive number of recruits as possible explanations for high troop figures. Recruitment was mentioned in The Story of General Grievous: Lord of War and The New Essential Chronology, and non-clone forces were seen in Jedi Trial. Along with recruiting, one notable Jedi General Rahm Kota had his own serving Militia, as he saw the clones as unfit for battle. Spaarti cloning technology did not become available to the Republic until eight months after the Battle of Muunilinst, however, and the entire need for the clone army arose from the fact that the Republic had no central military organization to organize and carry out a war against the Separatist forces.

From sources like Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter and Nomad, and even through various Star Wars: Republic comics and the novels Labyrinth of Evil and Jedi Trial, there are several instances before and after the Battle of Geonosis showing non-clone soldiers serving as the majority of forces in military conflicts and being actively recruited by various military organizations. The reliability and quality of mercenaries and bounty hunters would not be high, and having large numbers of non-clone troops available from the outset of the war would have eliminated the need for a clone army and ended/prevented the controversy over the Military Creation Act. It should also be stated that the sources that depict non-clone forces prior to Geonosis are all referring to small-scale conflicts and minor battles.

Additionally, the non-clone military forces in the Battle of Praesitlyn in Jedi Trial were largely non-Republic mercenary forces. The Sons and Daughters of Freedom mercenary group, which contained 50,000 infantry troops and thousands more serving as armored unit and starship crew members, had its number of active members reduced to fewer than 2,000 operatives by the end of the battle. Moreover, the non-clone Praesitlyn Defense Force is entirely wiped out by the droid invasion force, with its own commander stating that non-clones are far capable at combating battle droids. Likewise, while the Republic force sent to Praesitlyn consisted of only 20,000 clones, as well as additional non-clones, the only non-clones described in the novel are member of either the command staff, starship crews, or support personnel. When that force faced off against the Separatist force of over one million droids, the clones took extremely heavy casualties and would have lost the battle had it not been for two successful suicide missions undertaken by the commanding Jedi General against the Separatist leadership.

Most of the initial clones would go on to fight in the Battle of Geonosis, with 192,000 clone troopers deployed on the battlefield there (Star Wars: Complete Locations, p. 88), and an unknown number serving as crew aboard the twelve Acclamator-class assault ships that landed troops on the surface or the "thousands" of Republic ships descending upon the grounded Confederate fleet (Attack of the Clones novel).

The ground troops suffered a large number of casualties; reports on the ships arriving at the medical facilities stationed at Ord Mantell listed 12,000 in need of triage, 8,000 walking wounded, and 72,000 combat-fit troops (Republic Commando: Hard Contact). General Grievous personally killed "entire clone trooper companies" or at least 288 troopers plus officers according to Unknown Soldier: The Story of General Grievous. The 100,000 missing troops in the Ord Mantell report indicates either the use of multiple bases, that 100,000 was considered an appropriate garrison force (since one was established after the destruction of the Geonosis foundries in Star Wars: Complete Locations), or that the Grand Army suffered over 50% casualties in its first victory.

The Revised Core Rulebook states that the Republic immediately ordered 1,000 more Acclamators, indicating an army of at least 16 million troops, though whether they were intended for use by clones or non-clones is still in contention. Additionally, Traviss's own Triple Zero states that (at least up to that point of the war) all Acclamators are fully crewed by clones; combined with the twelve Acclamators present at Geonosis, that would mean that around 713,000 clones (or 23% the entire fighting force of the Republic) were tied up as largely noncombatant ship crews.

Labyrinth of Evil describes clones being an omnipresent force on Coruscant, acting as security and anti-terrorism forces. Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary also states that clone troopers are an "ubiquitous" presence on Coruscant and other worlds.

The Sector Governance Decree, individual governors were assigned to each and every planet in the Republic with regiments for their "protection." (Revenge of the Sith novel). These actions were occurring at a time when the Republic forces were stretched thin and to the point of being pushed out of system after system (Revenge of the Sith novel) as well as conducting the lengthy Outer Rim Sieges (Star Wars: Clone Wars, Revenge of the Sith).

It is not surprising that Lama Su stated that all clones take this long in Attack of the Clones, as the Kaminoans were businesspeople, and they were known to boast that their advanced model clones were the same as the stock units, just renamed to encourage higher sales (The Clone Wars: The Pengalan Tradeoff).

The largest figure given for the Grand Army, so far, was millions of clone divisions, which were undergoing intense combat evaluation at the start of the war. This information was stated in Inside the Worlds of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (written by Simon Beecroft and Curtis Saxton), a book dealing directly with the worlds presented in the film. It was later restated in Star Wars: Complete Locations, which gathered information from the previous three Inside… books, as well as new pieces of information.

As to the disparity with the numbers of battle droids, the short story, Odds, suggested that the CIS only had hundreds of millions of battle droids, with the larger figures being chalked up to propaganda on the part of Palpatine. This directly contradicts the article The Story of General Grievous: Lord of War, which stated that Grievous commanded several quintillion droids. Any Republic propaganda dedicated towards its own people would have had little impact on the enemy's supreme commander, who has actual access to his own troops. On the other hand, the numbers given in The Story of General Grievous: Lord of War are somehow flawed by the huge disparity between the number of its various mechanized war machines (battle droids, Vulture droids, tri-fighters, tank droids, Hailfire droids, etc.), said to be only in the billions, and the quintillions that Grievous commanded. Standard battle droids are produced much quicker and are more dispensable than droid vehicles, however, and the "quintillions of battle droids" could also include CIS droids not used in battle (such as OOM pilot battle droids). Also on Star Wars: the Clone Wars - "Ambush", Count Dooku stated to King Katuunko "Our droid armies outnumber the Republic clones 100 to one", which, if taken literally, would put the numbers of Clones in the quadrillions. However although in most (if not all) major ground battles seen in the Clone Wars series the CIS outnumbers the Republic significantly, it is interesting to note that there is almost always an even number of Republic and CIS capital ships pitted against each other. Although this could be partly explained by the fact the Munificent-class ships (Which are the main ships used by the CIS in the show.) carried 15 times the number of troops as Venators. This still leaves a huge number of droid ships that are not seen in use against the Republic (which goes against the standard CIS tactic of overwhelming numbers).

Revenge of the Sith: Incredible Cross-Sections also noted that, because of millions of Separatist warships being locked up in battles with Republic fleets, only a few thousand frigates and destroyers could assault the galactic capital towards the end of the war, accompanied by dozens of battleships. The Revenge of the Sith novelization states (from the out-of-universe perspective of the narrator) that the CIS had pursued the war to that point through sheer force of numbers, with its droids outnumbering the clones, and even implies that the Confederacy was actually winning at several points.

With the Dorling Kindersley line of books (which first mentioned specific droid numbers), being written from an out-of-universe perspective, high droid numbers would have been stated matter-of-factly, and any deception would have been noted (as it was with the mention of Invisible Hand trading places with its sister-ships, in DK's ROTS:ICS).

It should also be borne in mind that a battle droid is not directly equivalent to a clone trooper; standard B1 battle droids were cheap, expendable units, often used for foot patrol in civilian areas. They were typically deployed for combat in massed units that lacked the initiative and versatility of real soldiers, relying instead on sheer numbers to overwhelm opposition, although elite droids like B2 super battle droids and droidekas were both numerous and relatively intelligent. Odds also depicts extensive sabotage of droid production lines. According to the story, the weakened droids are significantly easier for the clones to destroy, although clones have been shown being gunned down with similar ease. However, it is doubtful that the Republic managed to sabotage all major droid foundries.

Additionally, from the Journal of the 501st, it seems even elite units held a negative view of relatively small odds:

"When we arrived on Kashyyyk, things were just as bad as we'd feared. The droids had us outgunned, outmaneuvered, and out manned by a five to one margin."

―Retired 501st Legion clone trooper^[src]

The statement that only a few dozen ships were seen on-screen in the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon bears little meaning, as many battles in Star Wars are often fleshed out in different sources. The same series also showed hundreds of Providence-class carrier/destroyers in the Battle of Coruscant, yet some people treat this as unreliable.

Another possibility is that when Lama Su mentioned that there were 200,000 clone troopers ready for deployment, with a million more on the way, he could have been referring to only those troopers being trained in Tipoca City, although this assumption conflicts with Obi-Wan Kenobi's statements during the Battle of Kamino:

"Kamino still has about a million or more clone troopers in various stages of preparation…"

―Obi-Wan Kenobi^[src]

One last solution is to return to the vague term "unit" which Lama Su mentioned. If a "unit" were to be referring to one of the battalions of 576 troopers (seen on Coruscant), then 200,000 of these would render 115,200,000 clones and the 1,000,000 others spoken of as 576,000,000. This grand total of 691,200,000 would be far more suitable for the core of a galactic army. Furthermore, if a "unit" refers to a real-life division of 15,000 men, the 1,200,000 units would equal a force of 18,000,000,000 clones, a truly "grand" army, suitable for defeating the huge numbers of droids under the Confederacy.

However, the actual number of clone soldiers which can be seen standing in each formation at the end of Attack of the Clones amounts to 624 (26 per column and 24 per row), showing a disparity with the numbers presented in the Guide to the Grand Army. If a unit indeed amounts to one battalion, this would mean that the grand total of clones was 1,728,000,000, considering the 3 million units that many sources state, and counting a unit as a battalion of 576 clones. This is reasonable since the Kaminoans referred to the Clones as both "units" and "Battalions." Which could possibly imply that both terms are merely two different ways of stating 576 man units/battalions. It seems logical that the Kaminoans would have their smallest available package of troops be made up of several hundred men. Since Cloning was a 10 year long process and (Since the training and feeding would also have to be taken into account.) an expensive one. It would make no sense that anyone would want to buy a couple of men and have to wait for 10 years when they could come by ten times as many droids for a fraction of the cost, and with a wait of perhaps a week at the most.

Furthermore, it should be noted that all planetary and judicial forces loyal to the Republic were folded into the Grand Army, allowing the Republic, which enjoyed a large population advantage over the CIS to make up for the number of battle droids with possibly hundreds of trillions of organic, non-clone soldiers. However, conscription of civilians is implied to have not taken place in a statement by Chancellor Palpatine, due to potential political consequences.^[17] Though this implication is contradicted in The New Essential Chronology by the following statement:

"Conscription, however, was a necessary reality. Countless beings of every species became draftees into the Grand Army of the Republic."

―Daniel Wallace^[src]

Thus is it is most likely that the Grand Army was combination of clones, draftees, and troops from local planetary armies.

In addition, the Confederate battleship Malevolence was known to have made at least fourteen attacks, of which at least two occurred against three ship task forces.^[18] Assuming that the other twelve were assaults on single ships, which seems unlikely, and that the ships were Venator Star Destroyers, which would fit with their prominence in this era and the relative importance of the Malevolence, there must have been at least 126,000 clone casualties in crews alone. If these vessels were fully loaded, the casualty count rises to 180,000, over a tenth of the supposed number of combat ready clones. As the chief concern over the Malevolence was its ability to destroy the ships without any indication of its nature^[18] and not the casualties, this would seem to indicate a much larger clone army than stated in certain sources.

In Attack of The Clones, it is stated that there are too many clones for the droids to combat. This is supported by an estimate given that, at the beginning of the War, the casualty ratio for members of the CIS versus the GAR is 20 to 1. Since there are supposed to be around 3 million droids present at the battle, and approximately 200,000 clones, the clone army there would have, by that estimate, easily been able to handle the droid army.

However, this comment was made by Count Dooku, replying to Nute Gunray's suggestion to "send all available droids into battle." Dooku desired a long, difficult war. Dooku needed the war to facilitate his rise to power with Palpatine. In Star Wars: The Clone Wars video game, an order is given to destroy the Droid Core Ships, as "each one houses enough firepower to threaten an entire planet." A similar description is given through Obi-Wan's thoughts in the novelization Episode II. The CIS forces had a fair chance of holding out against the Republic longer, which may have led to a shortage in troops later in the war.