Army of the Republic
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- For the United States veterans organization, see Grand Army of the Republic
The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), also known as the clone army or Republic Army, is a fictional fighting force in the Star Wars universe created by George Lucas. It is depicted as 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.
Lucas's film Attack of the Clones shows the army being created by the Kaminoan cloners on Kamino. It was composed of 200,000 growth-accelerated clone trooper units and their war machines as of the start of the Clone Wars.
After the initial engagements, a million more clone units were added to the ranks of the army, followed by numerous additional divisions by the conclusion of the war, by which point it was one of the largest ever assembled.
The template for the clones was the bounty hunter Jango Fett, whose only request in return, in addition of course to an abundance of credits, was an unaltered clone by the name of Boba.
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[edit] Size
There has been some 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.
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. 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 assigned individual governors 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 (Star 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" 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).
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.
The account of the Battle of Muunilinst in The New Essential Chronology says that the Republic landing involved "hundreds of assault ships, each one groaning from the weight of troopers [again, no clear indication if they were clones or non-clones] and war machines"; the figure of 3.2 million is arrived at if this phrase is extrapolated to mean around two hundred Acclamator-class assault ships, each carrying its full capacity of 16,000 clones. The term "assault ship" could indicate another vessel, like the much smaller Low Altitude Assault Transports and Republic assault gunboats, whose primary roles are troop deployment. The term could also refer to the supercruiser troop transport, a type of Republic vessel that could carry more troops than an Acclamator. No distinction between assault ships was made in the chapter which could be explained as the document's in-universe author's ignorance with military terminology as evidenced by calling all Star Dreadnoughts Super Star Destroyers. All sources dealing with the Battle of Muunilinst make sure to differentiate between the large assault ships and the small gunships, however. In Star Wars: Clone Wars, the attack on Muunilinst is arried out by LAAT/I gunships while he Acclamators fought the CIS's space forces.
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:
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, then 200,000 of these would render 132,200,000+ clones and the 1,000,000 others spoken of as 661,000,000+. This grand total of 793,200,000+ would make be far more suitable for the core of a galactic army.
[edit] Organization and structure
Order of Battle 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.
Command structure of regular forces
- Grand Army (3,387,280 clones) — 10 systems armies, with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine as commander-in-chief.
- Systems Army (338,728 clones) — 2 Sector Armies led by a High Jedi General (Jedi High Council member).
- Sector Army (169,364 clones) — 4 corps led by a Senior Jedi General (Jedi Master).
- Corps (42,341 clones) — 4 legions led by a clone marshal commander and a Jedi General.
- Legion/Brigade (10,585 clones) — 4 regiments led by a senior clone commander and a Jedi General.
- Regiment (2,646 clones) — 4 battalions led by a clone trooper commander, clone regimental commander, and a Padawan Commander.
- Battalion (661 clones) — 4 companies led by a major.
- Company (165 clones) — 4 platoons led by a captain.
- Platoon (41 clones) — 4 squads led by a lieutenant.
- Squad (10 clones) — 9 troopers led by a sergeant.
Command structure of special forces
- 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), commanded by Jedi General Bardan Jusik (Jedi Knight).
- Company—5 troops (100 men).
- Troop—5 squads (20 men).
- Squad—4 men.
Command hierarchy
- Supreme Chancellor/Supreme Commander
- High Jedi General
- Senior Jedi General
- Jedi General
- Clone marshal commander
- Senior clone commander
- Jedi Commander
- Clone regimental commander
- Clone trooper commander
- Clone trooper major
- Clone trooper captain
- Clone trooper lieutenant
- Clone trooper sergeant
- Clone trooper
Ground and air vehicles Artillery
- All Terrain Attack Pod
- All Terrain Experimental Transport
- Self-Propelled Heavy Artillery
- Unstable Terrain Artillery Transport
Armor
- All Terrain Armored Transport
- All Terrain Heavy Enforcer
- All Terrain Tactical Enforcer
- Heavy Assault Vehicle/wheeled A4 Juggernaut
- Heavy Assault Vehicle/wheeled A5 Juggernaut
- Heavy Assault Vehicle/wheeled A6 Juggernaut
Heavy cavalry'
- All Terrain Scout Transport
- All Terrain Personal Transport
- Infantry Support Platform
- TX-130 Saber-class fighter tank
- TX-130T fighter tank
Combat service support'
- Low Altitude Assault Transport/carrier
- Low Altitude Assault Transport/vehicle
'Aerial assault
- High-Altitude Entry Transport-221
- Low Altitude Assault Transport/infantry
- V-19 Torrent starfighter
- Aggressive Reconnaissance-170 Starfighter
- V-Wing Starfighter/Recon Bomber
Mechanized infantry'
- All Terrain Armored Transport
- All Terrain Open Transport
- All Terrain Tactical Enforcer
- CR20 troop carrier
- CR25 troop carrier
- Heavy Assault Vehicle/wheeled A4 Juggernaut
- Heavy Assault Vehicle/wheeled A5 Juggernaut
- Heavy Assault Vehicle/wheeled A6 Juggernaut
- Republic troop transport
Reconnaissance
- 74-Z speeder bike
- All Terrain Recon Transport
- All Terrain Scout Transport
- BARC speeder
- Republic recon speeder
- 105-K lancer bike
[edit] Notable units
- 7th Sky Corps
- 9th Assault Corps
- 41st Elite Legion
- 65th Shock Troopers
- 91st Reconnaissance Corps
- 212th Attack Battalion
- 327th Star Corps
- 442nd Siege Battalion
- 501st Legion
- Delta Squad
- Galactic Marines
- Homeworld Security Command
- Lancer Battalion
- Omega Squad
- Sky Corps
- Squad Seven
- Polis Massa 19th (volenteer)
- Polis Massa 9th (volenteer)
- Polis Massa 7th (volenteer)
- Ryloth 2ed (volenteer)
- Ryloth 3erd (volenteer)
[edit] Behind the scenes
- 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. No one has yet explained Lucas's penchant for using this term for his military organizations, though it can be speculated that he was fond of the name of Napoleon Bonaparte's imperial armed forces, the Grand Army or La Grande Armée.
- As Karen Traviss is one of the people who have 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.
Also, the name "Grand Army of the Republic" uses the same formalized language as armed forces used in the American Civil War (1861-1865). Though the overall Union Army (also known as the Northern Army or Federal Army) was named simply, its major units were given formal designations based on rivers. Thus, they were named Army of the Potomac, Army of the Ohio, Army of the Tennessee, and so on. One unit in particular, which newspapers referred to as the Grand Army of the West, was commanded by General William Tecumseh Sherman during his march through the South, and it may be this that inspired Lucas as well as the Napoleonic model. The post-Civil War Union veterans' association was known as the Grand Army of the Republic.
- The Confederate States Army, or CSA, named its units after states or geographic regions rather than rivers, such as the Army of Northern Virginia, the Army of Tennessee, the Army of the Peninsula, and the Army of the Northwest. The Confederate veterans' organization was known as the United Confederate Veterans.
The ongoing references to the American Civil War may be one of Lucas's subtle ways of utilizing the language of the actual Civil War to flesh out his own fictitious civil war. This is likely also why he used the name "Confederacy" to refer to the breakaway segments of the Republic, as opposed to some other name.
Appearances
- Star Wars: Battlefront
- Star Wars: Battlefront II
- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (First appearance)
- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones comic
- Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars game
- Star Wars: Clone Wars
- Star Wars Republic 49: Sacrifice (Mentioned only)
- Star Wars Republic 50: The Battle of Kamino
- Star Wars Republic: The New Face of War
- Jedi: Mace Windu
- Republic Commando: Hard Contact
- Jedi: Shaak Ti
- "Heavy Metal Jedi"
- "Fierce Currents"
- "Hide in Plain Sight"
- "Run Mace Run"
- Star Wars Republic 54: Double Blind
- Jedi: Aayla Secura
- Shatterpoint
- Jedi: Count Dooku
- The Cestus Deception
- Republic Commando: Triple Zero
- Star Wars Republic: The Battle of Jabiim
- Star Wars Republic 59: Enemy Lines
- Star Wars Republic 60: Hate and Fear
- Star Wars Republic 61: Dead Ends (Appears in flashback(s))
- Star Wars Republic 62: No Man's Land
- Jedi: Yoda
- Star Wars Republic 64: Bloodlines (Appears in flashback(s))
- Star Wars Republic: Show of Force
- Star Wars Republic 67: Forever Young
- MedStar I: Battle Surgeons
- MedStar II: Jedi Healer
- Star Wars Republic 68: Armor
- Star Wars: General Grievous
- Star Wars: Republic Commando
- Secrets of the Jedi
- Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
- Star Wars Republic: The Dreadnaughts of Rendili
- Star Wars: Obsession
- Labyrinth of Evil
- Star Wars Republic: The Siege of Saleucami
- Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
- Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith comic
- Star Wars Republic: The Hidden Enemy
- Star Wars Republic: Into the Unknown
- Star Wars Republic 78: Loyalties
- In His Image (Mentioned only)
