The video was great....right up until you said the Rebels are the best because they beat the Empire. Come on man, that was a 100% plot win and nothing more. The Battle of Endor was a disaster for the Rebels, with them only winning 'cause they had the main characters. Crappy intel, ground team was ambushed, their fleet couldn't escape. If Palps wasn't trying to annoy Luke into being evil, it wouldn't even be a battle at all.
@@HanaTheSloth The Old Republic is so much further on the power scaling that is wouldn't be a fair or even fun comparison. The Planet Prison, Silencer fleet, and don't even get me started on the Eternal Empire. It's all just too much for the other eras to match.
Seconded. Anakin Skywalker may have been a better Admiral than any Separatist Admiral, but the average Separatist Admiral seems to have been as good as or even better than the average Republic Admiral.
I think the key to both the failings and successes of the republic, CIS and Empire is Palpatine. If he were removed from the equation I think they will be very different organizations. Thrawn proved that in spades during his campaign.
True. Palpatine purposefully mismanaged and manipulated events during the Clone Wars to bring about the downfall of the Republic, and Dooku did the same on his behalf in the C.I.S. to keep the "balance". The Empire suffered under Palpatine's rigid rule of fear. Tarkin's doctrine also crippled the balance of the Galactic Navy, favoring only Capital Ships with little or no support vessels. Too many of the First Order's leaders were 'selected' by Palpatine and therefore flawed. The old time travel theory... "What if Hitler was assassinated? WW2 would have had a different result." etc. As stated by The Templin Institute in the beginning of the video, leadership plays a much higher role than raw capabilities of the fleets, as exemplified by the Rebel Alliance.
A good example: with Palpatine’s death, he literally commanded his own forces to commit scorched earth on its own border and loyal systems. Any other galactic empire could be expected to recover from a defeat in a single fleet engagement… but Palpatine ensured half the empire was on fire from its own attacks
@@gzer0x I still hate that piece of Disney lore. I doubt a significant portion of the Imperial Navy/armed forces would follow it (and even less would follow it once the scale became even a little bit clear). The lower enlisted/lower ranked officers/most officers because they actually believed they where the "good guys", and scorching Loyal worlds for no reason ain't good by any sane persons standards. And the vast majority of officers would be too busy making power grabs.
@@hanzzel6086 yeah but like… thats the point? that’s also possible irl and the main weakness of the empire in all canons. They’re all enlisted folks on a massive ship with thousands of personnel, firing at a target reduced to ones and zeroes, targets a million miles away. The soldiers of the empire simply know they are doing their job and rely on orders from above, they want to rely on orders from above, but those commanders ar hand picked by a… well, a hecking lich.
I would say that the X factor for the Separatists is that their navy was, by and large, extremely cost effective. Utilizing droids cut down on required man power for basically everything that didn't require a critical eye. Most fighters were mass produced droid fighters designed for a purpose, most ships were retrofitted from standardized carriers and cargo freighters, and they had numerous manufacturing facilities across the Galaxy. It wasn't quality that was giving them an edge. Just like with their ground forces, they utilized quantity to get results. Every soldier was expendable since another 5,000,000 were already in production, every ship lost was much less costly given the minimal amount of crew, and thus skill, lost, and there was always more to come.
Palps was also manipulating the Republic to keep the war going for a while. Well he was manipulating both sides. Your mileage may vary on whether that helped or hindered the CIS more (the latter I suppose since CIS was intended to lose but it is possible that if left alone Republic might have been able to do better and CIS be unable to match it as well).
@@gokbay3057 Do you think the Banking Clan's position could've also helped the CIS? Since passing more orders, laws etc for more spending on Republic forces could've hindered them?
Additionally, they had quality when they needed it, Droidekas and Trifighters were demons of their respective battlefields, and the Trifighter still has a legitimate claim to being the greatest starfighter of all time, easily surpassing the X-Wing in capability and contending with the likes of the TIE Defender for significantly less cost. There are other examples as well, but Palpatine's manipulation killed their best "game changers" in the cradle.
@@gokbay3057 The CIS had to be held back more frequently. Palps was often leaking information to get their most promising prospects destroyed before production, and their competent leaders killed.
In truth both the Old Republic and the Confederacy were the only true naval powers within the Galaxy that revolutionize combat doctrines, created inventions that shape the Galaxy to come, and it was the Clone Wars that many of the factions on this list that they learned their lessons from.
Don't forget the Sith Empire of the Old Republic. :p The Sith Empire managed to fight a Galactic War with a vastly minimal number of ships compared to their foe purely through utilizing ironically Rebellion like strategies.
I strongly disagree with the assessment on the CIS's "Area Denial". Blockades were a core tenant of their doctrine, and were repeatedly shown to inflict heavy losses on Republic assets. The only instances I can think of where the blockades were shown to be broken were all through the intervention of a handful of specific Jedi using unorthodox strategies, often resulting in the sacrifice of at least one Venator, or in one instance exploiting a prototype cloaking device. These are exceptions, not the rule. The rest of your assessments I generally agree with.
Eh. He really shows a lack of understanding imo. Saying that most of the CIS ships were repurposed Civilian vessels is just wrong. The Lucrehulk was the only repurposed warship. They did have others, but were only used in supporting roles not meant for heavy combat. 90% of the mainline fleet were actual dedicated warships like the Providence, Munificent, Recusant, and Sabat. Not to mention he also doesn't take into accound the strike craft of the CIS, arguably their best asset in space due to their vast numbers and the fact most ships could carry quite a bit without the need for dedicated carriers
@@dman8115 he also ignored how the CIS has by far the largest arsenal since they could shit out so many new droid models that constantly take the republic by suprise in the clone wars.
@@wilburforce8046 I think the main reason the cis did as well as they did was quantity outweighing the quality of the republic forces. It's very difficult for a fleet of high quality ships to defeat a fleet over triple their size in combat. For most of the clone wars, it was shown that most major fleets if the republic only had 3-5 carriers supported by their escort ships, while separatist fleets had 2-3 heavy warships supported by 5-10 escort ships each. In terms of quality of leadership and assets, the republic far outweighs the cis forces, but when you have to face such high amounts of troops it gets more and more difficult. Take the outer rim sieges for example, to break a blockade or take an area you have under siege, it normally takes 3-5 times the forces to take the fortified position, which when the defenders can shit out millions more droids in a week, becomes very hard for the attackers to break.
@@fala5764 yes and the CiS didn’t have that advantage by accident, it was their entire doctrine. And unlike the empire they didn’t use humans so they didn’t have to deal with half the logistics. Despite having less then half the resources and money the empire had on hand their army was about as large if not larger. This video gave the CiS not nearly enough credit. I mean the first order consistently gets clapped by just a squadron of x wings and was never shown doing anything remotely impressive on screen, yet this video gives them a better score. Also while the clones obviously outmatch droids they did have to upgrade their vehicles after the CiS made some better models.
Considering the fact that the Republic started the star destroyer tradition of Victory, Venator and Imperator(ISD with out hanger ) and the Mandator star dreadnought line ALONGWITH starfighters like Vhwings(pre-Tie) ,and Arc 170&headhunters(pre X-Wing) and the Incredible Y-Wings I Agree that Interdictors and Special Forces(Conpnor, ISB ships suck as the Inferno squad corvus ,Imperial storm commandos escort cruisers ,stealth ties ,tie defenders ,onagers ,inquistors,Eclipse ,torpedo spheres , ) and Super weapons are what the empire brought
honestly, given their reliance on battle droids (and the sheer scale of that industrial operation) the Confederacy had an enormous numerical advantage that, had they been led properly, would have meant their victory. Holding might have been a different matter, but they are the only galactic power that could meaningfully employ ground invasions in numbers that would matter, and bulk up their starship crews such that they could have conceivably gone for a quantity over quality approach and flooded the galaxy. though i dont think its *just* sith sabotage and egomania in their leadership that are responsible for their failure to employ this advantage effectively, as the Galaxy has indicated that droid manufacturers and the populace at large are in fact, paranoid about a potential AI uprising that a CIS victory might well have made possible. an uprising that may *still be* possible what with the enormous amount of materiel the CIS built and eventually left derelict. space is hard on electronics, and a gamma ray in the wrong place, another droid with force-connective lubricant, or a careless salvager might obviate the shutdown commands keeping them inert.
I completely agree, the confederacy absolutly missed its strategic opportunity window when the republic had no army. They were both overconfident in their capabilities, and not confident enough to strike the earth of the republic and seize the advantgae. They were defeated by an army that did'nt exist three year before. For me the republic army should take the second place, to grow in strengh so fast is the mark of remarquable intellectual capabilities, their army was perfectly adapted to the task and they were able to achieve victory in a war on a galactic scale in only three years.
That's an argument for the Jedi, who somehow managed to contain vastly numerically superior forces with an army that was fresh off the training grounds. Remember, there's only 10,000 Jedi, and usually they number like two or three in any given battle. And the clones under them, too.
@@Aspiringamoeba1997 and that's despite having neither the training or mental conditioning (or the organizational infrastructure) required for military commanders
one *BIG* problem between cis and republic is the fact, that they are controled by ONE single person who told the cis AND republic command how and where to attack or withdraw directly or indirectly.
New Republic ironically has similar problem. Rebellion has excellent command, because only competent commanders were capable to survive until empire and well, defect from Empire as many of them were ex-Imperials. But New Republic lack united vision. People fight for Rebellion because they hate Empire (or wanted to reform it). But then when Empire colipase, so did the rebellion. Most of competent commanders went rogue, retired or were ousted (Leia). And new leadership form from computed politicians like Fey'lya, who weren't better then Empire. With aging Mon Mothma ironically turning into what she wanted to defeat. Isolated totalitarian leader. What result in ex-Imperial sentiment and fifth column (largely because New Republic inherit tons of Imperial infrastructure), creating First Order (or Darth Caedus fleet in Legends). Who in the end were largely Imperial cosplayers.
Come to think of it, the Clone Wars "behind the scenes" was kinda like the Pixar short "Geri's Game", where the titular old man Geri plays himself at chess. (incidentally, Geri shows up in Toy Story 2 to restore Woody)
@@Nicitel94 I'm fairly certain he did exactly that in a Robot Chicken Bit; When the Jedi Council freaked out he started pretend holding himself hostage and fighting back.
@@lonelystrategos The CIS still needed Palpatine's expertise inorder to launch the Battle of Coruscant. The war would become a war of attrition, and while the Separtists had the numerical advantage, they couldn't sustain the war as long as the much larger more resource intensive Republic.
I generally agree however I would like to point out some things. Just like the CIS lost battles due to Palpatine's manipulations, the GAR won them out of them same reason. And since the entire Clone Wars were just Palpatine's schemes, it kind of screws the perspective. The Rebel Alliance generally understood what type of war it fought, however it also made some big blunders. Rights after the destructions of the Death Star, it started a Mid Rim Offensive which however quickly turned into Mid Rim Retreat since the Empire had infinitely more men and ships than the Alliance. After that they returned back to the guerilla war and with some exceptions (e.g. Hoth) remained in it until Endor. The New Republic followed the same line of thinking as pre-Clone Wars Galactic Republic meaning that the central military was very small and the planets/systems were supposed to take care of themselves. Anyway it's funny that Palpatine was de facto supreme commander of 4 out of 6 of those fleets 😀
I think it’s unfair to say the CIS had poor leadership as they had the only truly experienced generals and admirals as the republic military leadership was just deployed (ie. clones) or had only in book experience. The CIS on the other hand had leaders who saw and won battles the best example being Grievious as he lead the entire CIS military like when he lead his native Kaleesh species against the Huk which he practically won if it wasn’t for the intervention of the republic, he was the mastermind for that Coursant raid. The only reason we see them as poor is because Dooku and Palpatine sent them to battles and campaigns they knew they would lose. The CIS also had one of if not the best tactical leaders in the super tactical droid I would rate them at least fair or average.
Yeah that thing your missing about the CIS and Clone war fleets is that the republic was outnumbered on a scale of at least 10 to 1 most of its battles. They were much higher quality but they had to slowly widdle down the massive numbers the CIS used agaisnt them to get close to winning
@@jeffbrewer1580 not really, no matter how many ship the republic could make this would always be constrained by the amount of clones to man the ships whilst in comparison the separatists could keep printing out ships due to the fact that they could easily man said ships in seconds with droids. Alongside that the separatists fighters were also usually ranked as better than the republics due to being in a much larger abundance and also being pretty high quality and only really loosing these fighters due to Jedi pilots.
Also using the battle of Geonosis is a terrible representation of the republic’s capabilities in general, that battle was won by a miracle. They deployed most of their forces onto a flat terrain with an enemy that outnumbered them 100 to 1. Not to mention the peacekeeper magic zealots that haven’t seen much militaristic combat at all lead the clones into gaining significantly more casualties then there ever should’ve been.
@@PizzaSteve-101 To be fair, though, many of the Separatist ships were caught on the ground, so there's an argument to be made for rushing them down, especially considering that the Acclamators available were pretty limited in naval combat capacity. The Jedi's strategy on that battle wasn't wrong, and frankly speaking, given how much a lot of the clones liked their commanders, and how many clones ended up still alive against those numbers, the magic zealots did pretty alright.
@@jeffbrewer1580 not really, the munificents were much more easy to spam out and just 3 were able to overwhelm a venator, and the munificents came in HUGE numbers.
They couldn’t disband their navy anyway, the empire and its splinter groups still existed and many of those splinter groups were still at war with the new republic.
And designed some pretty decebt ships at the same time, transitioning from modified and salvaged/captured Vessels to purpose built ones. After a period of having to continze using and building the old designs, given that a war was still going on and designing, building and crewing a ship takes time. The first 6-7 years of the New Republic's existence were basically a near constant high intensity war which on at least two occasions turned into a struggle for survival. The first new designs turned up around 12-13 ABY, so about 8 years, which is reasobably realistic, given both 1930s and WW2 ship procurement. It's almost like the creators of the Expanded Universe knew something about Warfare, unlike the Disney/KKK muppets. It's
Honestly I don't understand why the channel didn't just go with the NR of legends and discounted the first order. I mean he admits he had to speculate on almost everything given how Disney did zero worldbuilding. I would love to see nebula star destroyers, mc90s, star defenders, corona frigates, bothan assault cruisers, endurance carriers, K-wings, E-wings, and upgraded ships and starfighters from the rebellion being ranked.
Something to understand about the Canon New Republic is that they want to warn and "teach" people about the dangers of thinking oppositely to TCW era politicians. While TCW Senate was a bunch of pompous warmongers who advocated for a militaristic dictatorship, the NR Senate was meek, drunk on victory, limited governing experience, constantly in fear of what people thought of them, overly trusting and forgiving. NR in the EU is a competent, almost fantasy outcome for a bunch of country bumpkins who just got done blowing up government stiffs with dynamite. They're very enjoyable to watch, but they don't give us a lesson. You can agree or disagree with whether or not Canon NR was successful in its lessons compared to Lucas and is TCW Republic, I'm just trying to explain the objective.
One thing I think is unfair with regards to the Republic is the total level of transparency between it and the CIS, thru Palpatine. Palpatine was playing both sides. He deliberately shared sensitive information whenever it suited the Sith plan. He outright told them about the Separtists on Utapau. Sure, the Commandos were able to verify it, but that kind of a play is simply unheard of in the upper echelons of war. So saying the Republic dragged on the war they should've been able to win easily is kind of unfair when Palpatine is deliberately sabotaging them to prolong the war. Same with the CIS.
The byproduct of the CIS's scrambled navy was that most of their purpose-built warships were the best the galaxy could provide. Each of them was doubly sieved, first through the megacorps, and then by the CIS itself. They weren't designed specifically to fit together, but even in today's armies, nothing is. All systems are chosen so that they fit best instead.
plus they actually used them together to get SOME balance. the republic just spammed 1 type of ship 99.99999999999999999% of the time. like when do we actually ever see their escourts? basically never.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 By some degree that's actually fine tbh as the more standardized the production the easier it is to just completely roll them out in huge numbers
@@buddermonger2000 that's also a huge problem, if the enemy figured out a counter and employ them effectively then your entire military is compromised and be forced to diversify anyway or lose the war.
@@robbieaulia6462 There's only so much you can counter tbh. Effective countermeasures to all systems exist. It's about how many there are in one battle and if you can fight said countermeasures. It's never so simple as "we have full counter you'll never win"
@@matthiuskoenig3378we saw them in the films, but TCW is garbage and throws canon around like a bag of dirt so I'm guessing that's where you get that idea from
Just because the Rebels won it doesn't mean they suddenly had resources. There were surviving Imperial holdouts that weren't part of fronts to prepare the First Order or Final Order, so they couldn't just liquidate Imperial assets, at least, not very fast.
Add to it, the New Republic knee jerked HARD in the opposite of the Empire, mostly by spreading out governmental decision making and by mostly ratcheting down military assets and spending by a fair margin. NR went so hard in the other direction it neutered itself.
@@stumpy1146they didn't ratchet it down they completely abolished it, the only ships they had were old rebellion assets or planetary defense fleets. The new republic is like what would happen if a child was in charge and thought the rebellion era was cool and wanted to be a cool rebel general fighting as an underdog
In Legends, the New Republic adopted much of the Empire's equipment and infrastructure. While they largely stuck with their excellent fighters from the rebellion era, they incorporated many captured star destroyers into their navy. A far more pragmatic choice than in Disney canon. (Also, way cooler)
I find the New Republic in Disney canon fascinating but in a reactionary way, like the citizens, and thusly the politicians(mainly Mon Mothma), of the New Republic seeing any kind of centralized military as a threat to the people of the New Republic. I find it interesting because the New Republic in Disney canon is trying to please everyone and it failed to please anyone.
Because this is what every revolutionary government would do. You may reduce the former regimes military expances but you wouldn't trash all of it immediatly. Maybe slowly phase it out over the next decades while introducind new, modern ships.
@dawoifee or just look at most Eastern European militaries, chock full of Soviet designed equipment for about 2 decades until domestically produced and NATO hardware replaced it overtime.
The ARMY (much more the Jedi leadership) was a mess yes but the navy did an incredible job delivering Thousand of clones almost unnoticed into Geonosis.
The battle was a mess because the leaders got to lead the army for there first battle, literally hours before the battle, the first year of the clone wars is not comparable to even the second year of the war
If that’s any version of canon, everyone that approved it needs to be banned from writing ANYTHING military-related ever again. The clones would have had a LOT of training, training that doesn’t just disappear because they’ve got new commanders, all of which would have quickly been encountering the senior officers that previously commanded those formations and would then be their XOs or chiefs of staff, assuming the Jedi took any real command to begin with. You don’t make the Jedi look stupid by saying that the clones took heavy casualties making stupid decisions on day 1. You make the clones look stupid when you do that.
I mean...this was the first major war in the galaxy in like forever. And it immediatly started with a planetary invasion of a huge scale. As was done before in history the jedi were made generals on the spott but unlike in times long gone jedi werent exactly trained in military matters anymore. Add to that the republics believe that wiht a full on frontal assault they could quickly overwhelm the suprised seperatists and capture their leadership that could end the war right there it is a logical mess.
I know a lot of it has to do with budget requirements for movies and shows....but I always feel that Navy sizes and fleet battles in Star Wars are too small in scale considering the size of the Galaxy and the resources available....with the Battles of Coruscant and Exegol being something close to the appropriate size. Maynot be a fair comparison but once I got used to the scale of Warhammer 40k...I feel Star Wars and even Star Trek should be a considerable larger. The Reinmagined series you guys did does an excellent job of correcting that.
@@starwarsnerd100 that's definitely a notable point....I was told that particular battle needs to have an extra zero or two to represent the numbers needed for it it be as climatic as it was.
The thing is that's really only true for land battles, in space the ship numbers is pretty reasoable, and 40k is terrible with its numbers, they say less then 1 million soldiers fought in the seige of terra, meanwhile in starwars, the battle of courscant was fought from surprise, and had literally thousands of ships from both sides taking part, which would place it to be far larger scale then a battle that was supposed to be the biggest thing the imperium has ever done, under a sneak attack
Nice, though it would be nice to also have some Legends factions for comparison... Yuuzhan Vong, Imperial Remnant Fleet, Galactic Alliance Navy, Legends version of New Republic Navy (that, unlike the NR Navy from the continuity under Disney, was far larger and battle-ready... and it operated pretty interesting roster of ships including an Executor-class Star Dreadnought and several Star Defenders) and so on...
I know it's closely tied with leadership, but I feel like some more consideration for the individual admirals commanding the fleets would have been worthwhile. The republic had pretty average admirals none of which are noteworthy, the CIS however did have some noteworthy admirals such as Grievous, even if they weren't the best either. The big ones that stick out to me however are Thrawn of the Empire and Hux. Thrawn was by far the most capable admiral seen in Star Wars, and the Empire dedicating him to the outer rim during the rebellion is another example of their bad leadership. Hux on the other hand is so incompetent that it's laughable, and yet he still managed to fight the new republic
Grievous was incompetent, too. If we're talking Legends, yeah, he was very skilled. But Clone Wars? Guy was a buffoon. Lost the Malevolence. Lost to Gungans.
Thing is, the famous admirals and leaders we see in most of Star Wars media are the minority. Remember, a fleet has thousands of admirals directing its operations, and even if say 2 or 3 are prodigies in the field of battle, that still leaves thousands more whose skill vary greatly. Not every imperial admiral is Thrawn, and not every separatist admiral is trench.
don't forget the best logistics of all the mentioned fleets. they had been building their ships for years to even decades. so plenty of spare parts, all the mechanical kinks worked out [so very reliable and easy to repair] and production efficiency at high capacity, vs the untested newly designed, rushed to production republic designs, the overly hodgepodge new republic and rebels. only the empire gives them a run for their money here, but still lose out due to fully organic crews being much more wasteful logistically. AND the CIS ships can all carry more than their counterparts in supplies. professionals discuss logstics and the CIS has the best here. so not only do they have the most balanced fleets in practice, not only are they the easiest to mass produce allowing for the biggest fleets for a given industry, but they are also the easiest to keep running even behind enemy lines. their only weakness is leadership.
Giving the Rebels top slot makes sense when you consider their situation versus everyone else's. Every other faction could have chosen differently what kinds of ship they built and used (even the Confederacy) but the Rebels were mostly stuck with what they could steal, retrofit, or resurrect. Only in starfighters did they have anything cutting edge but they were only able to produce them in limited numbers meaning every single one was precious. And yet they still won.
The CIS Navy was superior to most fleets on this list at least on paper. Their ships were better equipped and designed, they had an superior armament, so was the Providence Dreadnought equipped with over 100 torpedo launchers and a variety of conventional weapons and the Munificent frigate was equipped with a vast variety of smaller turbolaser and laser canons (46) and a massive twin Turbolaser cannon capable of piercing the shields of an grade 3 battle station. The usage of droids resultat in an much leasser Personal costs. Most of the CIS ships only needed an Crew of 900 Droids and could carry an entire Invasion force allone. Additionally was the droid fighter compliment far supirior to those of any navy in this list, especially the TRI fighter. I know that the CIS looks week in most shows but that is due to the plot armor.
I think on paper, the Empire has the best Navy just on size alone. But, I do believe the CIS has the best Navy. CIS has a great fleet composition and arguably the Best capital Ships. The leadership for most factions is screwed up because of Palpatine. How do you judge the CIS and the Republic’s military leadership when Palpatine controls both sides and controls the outcome of the war?
I see one fundamental problem with the Clone Wars for any navy comparison. That both sides of the conflict were manipulated for Palpatine's interest, to destroy the Jedi Order, the Republic, and democracy itself. So any strategic decision was based on that, so there's no telling from the course of the war which side had the better navy and who would have won the conflict on fair terms.
The only change I would maybe make here would ranking the Republic above the CIS as Palpatine meddled with its operations just as much as he did the Separatists. For example, during the Clone Wars, Palpatine leaked the location of Nute Gunray to the Separatists in order to mount a rescue operation and the fact they ultimately won the war. But maybe that’s my bias towards the clone army showing, as the CIS was an incredibly effective navy during the war regardless, and whilst it’s leadership was handicapped in some areas, in others it was given free reign, and where it had free reign, it generally did well, as we’ve seen Droid Fleets ambush and annihilate republic fleets multiple times during the war, whilst the same cannot be said for the Republic. It should also be noted despite his failure to protect the Malevolence, Grievous was an effective commander, as he singlehandedly annihilated Kenobi’s fleet in season 5 with Kenobi forced to scuttle his flagship to cover his escape. He also managed to ambush a Venator during season 4, and achieve the same result, and taking the Jedi in charge prisoner. And to top it all off, Grievous headed the attack on Coruscant and kidnapped the Chancellor.
I'd argue that the CIS had overall higher stats than the Republic. Their army being almost entirety made of droids and their ships being sourced from countless comemrcial ships alongside their wartime produced ships. This already existing source pool of ships and infinite droids are their disposal meant they could far out project the Republic and their mere few million clones. The lukrehulk is an ideal vessel for a navy. It could function as an orbital command station for the occupation of a planet, a cargo logistics hub for a fleet, and a carrier for hundreds upon hundreds of vulture and tri fighter droids which absolutely mulched the Republic's clone pilots when Jedi aces weren't present. Furthermore, without a clever maneuvering or a far superior assaulting force, it was very hard for Republic Venators to gain orbital supremacy over a planet locked down by a Lukrehulk with some supporting CIS warships. So overall, their operating forces should be at least good, they should have excellent projection, and area denial could reasonably be called good.
Considering that both sides of the Clone Wars were controlled by a single person it's difficult to accurately rank their Navies. Furthermore giving a *"Poor"* grade on the Imperial Navy's leadership, just because they lost the Galactic Civil War, is biased and fails to take into account people like Grand Admiral Thrawn who in his campaign nearly brought the New Republic to it's knees.
@@dimenzed Lets be real, people like Thrawn, Vader, Daala, etc. were exceptions to the general rule on imperial leadership. Palpatine was going for what was in essence a glorified dictatorship and as the institute said, went for a hitler style social darwinism. Promoting officers based on loyalty rather than merit (Thrawn being another exception here) as well as promoting infighting and sabotage to prevent others from massing enough power to challenge him. Palpatine vastly underestimated the threat the rebel alliance posed and the tarkin doctrine and the general makeup of the imperial navy may be good in standard line battles, but in a guerilla war against a stateless opponent its more of a hinderance and fear just serves to alienate more of your constituents. So yes, i agree with the assessment that the imperial navy's leadership was extremely incompetent and with the exception of some leaders (see above) could never fully grasp the war they were fighting. Nor were they flexible enough to adapt to the fact they were fighting a stateless faction rather than a full fleged government/faction like the CIS.
@@keeganfox1864 Thrawn is a pretty significant exception if you ask me, to the point where he singlehandedly almost undid everything that the Alliance previously achieved.
@@dimenzed That is true, but for context sake the majority of the actions you speak of that he did took place during the sadly non-canon Legends continuity during the New Republic era. The imperial navy as it is talked about during the video is during the height of their power, Thrawn would fit more into the warlords/imperial remnant period
I would argue the Rebellion's power projection was more average or even good. Their Starfighter corps were notably equiped with Hyper Drives meaning they can strike anywhere. Having limited assets and almost all those assets being able to appear anywhere their needed its impressive.
They can hit and run, but can never hold due to lack of manpower. The pilots also need to eat and sleep (unlike Vader, who has to be fed through a tube).
The fact that the rebels got delt a pile of drier lint, a few paperclips, a lock with no key, and pile of cat poop and somehow managed to win is awe inspiring in and of itself.
I would argue that the Republic Navy and Separatist leadership was only as capable as Palpatine allowed them to be, feeding information, misinformation and issuing orders designed to put either side at a disadvantage. I think you are absolutely right about the Imperail Fleet logic, Thrawn was wholy capable but even he was stunted by stupidity, arrogance, and pride of those who thought themselves his better. Had Thrawn been given more control and greater resources and not been betrayed again even his betrayal shows how greed just outweighed logic in the Empire, but had he been given more control and resources the Empire would have been ready for almost anything non force related. So good rankings I totally see what you mean about the rebel fleet and the Empire again just not realizing what kind of war they were fighting
Galactic Empire definitely wins, in my opinion, but can I just give a shout-out to my New Republic and their awesome Starhawk Battlecruisers? They've become my favorite new ships since they were described in Aftermath, and let's just say I lost my sh*t when they finally got a model.😊
But ultimately New Republic failed to utilize that ship properly. Sure they used it to dismantle the rest of the Empire, but after that the New Republic just keeled over itself.
@@Lahiss Oh, for sure, but I'm one of those fans who likes that the canon New Republic was flawed and made mistakes. Obviously I would've preferred a war between the First Order and the NR but I'm okay with what we got. Plus, there's still stories after Exegol that are yet to be told! I'm hoping the Republic comes back, humbled and stronger for it.
@@dimenzed Something like that might still happen with the shows, and I'm here for it! I just hope whatever happens doesn't conflict too much with the post-Jakku books like Bloodlines, which was amazing, by the way.
@@owenparris7490 it's the whole treatment of the post Endor era by Disney's canon that i dislike. The EU handles that era so much better. The EU Thrawn trilogy are some of the best Star Wars books ever written.
I agree that the rebel alliance takes the top slot and the New Republic+First Order belong on the bottom given how quickly they folded under pressure. However, the Republic, CIS, and Imperial navies are hard to rank. The CIS and Republic navies arguably achieved their objective, entangle the galaxy in a prolonged war which resulted in the erosion of democracy and installation of Palpatine as the uncontested ruler of the newly created Empire. On the other hand, while the Imperial Navy was basically uncontested on a firepower level for 23 years, they decisively lost the only major conflict they engaged in. And once the Galactic civil war transitioned to a peer-peer conflict they never gained the initiative and ultimately only survived because of sheer inertia.
You gotta remember that the Empire was designed to fall if Palpatine was killed. Combine that with intense dislike towards the Empire in most of the galaxy, and you've got chaos and attacks happening in every system. No navy would be able to stay afloat in that situation.
Just in case anyone was wondering. If the points were added up with a 1-5 ranking this is how it ends up: 1. Imperial Starfleet - 16 2. Republic Starfleet - 14 3. First Order Navy - 13 4. Separatist Navy - 10 5. Rebel Fleet - 8 6. New Republic Defense Fleet - 7
The alliance had terrible ground forces for the most part. Their army command was so decentralized that you would have some sectors with well equipped and trained soldiers, while others had to rely on farmer frontier militia that had almost no training and support.
Defending the empires leadership it had a few diamonds in the rough like Maximilon veers and grand admril Thrawn ad they were both excellent strategists.
Great leadership makes the difference in any military as they know their strengths, limitations and effectiveness of their forces. History shows this well but a good example would be the American Civil war and see the difference to Union forces after a leadership change in the military had happened.
1. When the Templin assessed the Empire as Excellent in three out of four categories, I couldn't help but hear the Imperial March playing in my head. 2. The New Republic could've easily adopted modernizations of Clone-Wars-era ships (whether Republic or Separatist) to give their fleet a bigger boost than just maintaining upgraded Rebellion vintage. 3. As someone still loyal to the old Legends canon (Disney's "Canon" is an imposter for all I care), I'd like to see how the New Republic and the First Order compare to their Legends Counterparts, the Galactic Alliance, Imperial Remnant, and One Sith. 4. I'd dispute putting the Rebellion ahead of the Empire in this list, as the one that got Excellent in three out of four categories should be considered better than the one that was Excellent in only one.
So, if I may clarify, even though you admit yourselves that the Rebel Fleet is objectively the worst, it gets first place because it won? Taking plot armour into consideration when ranking factions isn't the kind of thing I've come to expect from your channel. Aside from that, great video.
Actually, when you think about it, it wasn't just plot armor. The Rebel navy did indeed have a thorough grasp of the war they were supposed to by fighting, and while I can't agree with all of their decisions, this makes their victory at least plausible. If we were asking who made the most affective use of the resources available to them and not who was the most powerful, it the rebellion would indeed be first place, and the Empire second, for the reasons stated in the video. That said, it can certainly be stated that if we change what is valued, our ranking system will also change
@@xxxxxx-uh5pu The Rebellion won bc of plot armour dude. It won bc George Lucas wanted a story where the good guys win. The Rebellion only won major battles bc George Lucas wanted them to win, like at both Deathstars.
@@louiswinterhoff334 First, your right about the battles. The Rebellion was a hit-and-run faction, and it even mentions this a few times in the intro blurbs on the original movies. Their fleet was effective in this role, especially the surprisingly well built fighters. The empire, on the other hand, was objectively ill-built for this kind of fighting and failed to adapt to it. The thing is that it is hard to make a movie about death by a thousand cuts. Second, plot armor has a name in star wars, and they call it the force. From the beginning, these stories had a strong element of mysticism, so the old testament or the Iliad are basically better depictions of realism in Star Wars. If the force is with them and not with you, logic can not save you because the force, like Cthulu, is beyond mortal effort, understanding, and potential. Only a fool would rely on their gods to fight for them, but often this is because they are confusing the role of master and servant. Last, it is often reasonable to say something in film is improbable, but impossible should be reserved for the out-right physics braking. The ridiculously improbable happens with predictable regularity, because that's just how statistics works. 1/1,000 odds mean nothing after 1,000,000 opportunities, and little after 10,000 opportunities. The clever use statistics, fools rely on them and are inevitably betrayed.
The separatists had a superior navy because they had more diverse combat roles. The venator star destroyer was meant to be a carrier. When up against droid fighters and a navy that fills each role well despite not being designed initially to go together the weakness of not having a dedicated ship of the line designed for that role shows. Often times the venator was only deployed with other venators as well making this weakness even more glaring.
Isn’t the imperial star fleets ranking more of an on paper thing. All of the heavy lifting was the Republic navy VS the separatist fleet. All the elements that define it as what it is we’re in place after the clone wars had been done.
The Institute's rankings are respectable, but I think it's a missed opportunity to not look at things numerically. With poor corresponding to 0 points, average to 1 point, fair to 2, points, good to 3 points, and excellent to 4 points, the alternative rankings are as follows. Empire: 12 Republic: 11 First Order: 8 Separatists: 6 New Republic: 6 Rebels: 4 I think these rankings are more in-line with the overall story, but impartial enough to inform on various hypothetical wars, campaigns, and engagements.
I really love these Military/Political ranking videos and I really like the decision to abstract the final rankings rather than destroying all nuance by assigning numbers to each rank, I'd love to see more of these style videos for any Alternate World, but specifically one on 40k would be cool.
The CIS has a very good navy, there ships are cheap, outside of there cargo freighters they are mass produced, but those freighters are able to keep an entire planetary invasion stocked on supplies, they are kick ass, in there roll, and you talk a lot about the malevolent, and it was a powerful ship, but it had to be a raider, using it in open battle would result in massive friendly fire, and would be unable to deal with a fleet without the surprise of them dealing with the EMP for the first time, as they'd simply flank around it, maybe losing a few veneers for a ship worth 100 at a minimum
@@user-sy6ky6ed2efalse. it depends on the designers/etc, especially in a sci-fi universe with shields in an era with 1000 years of only minor naval engagements created by style-over-substance civilians. the lucrehulk (the ONLY converted cargo ship in frontline CIS service, the other 3 main ships are all pure military ships) carried more fighters than any purpose built ship of the clone wars (literally 10 times more), had greater shields (literally enough to stop entire fleets singlehandedly). its weakness was speed and inefficient fire arcs, but most ships have inefficient fire-arcs in star wars. the only exceptions are 2 of the other 2 ships used by the CIS...
The Empire was only successful due because of the Clone Wars. AoD/AoC and Force Projection was effortless because it was non-existent. Who was there to challenge them? No one. It took nearly twenty years for them to even get into a decent fight. Even then, most were hit-run attacks with two major fleet battles under their belt. You're right about the Leadership, though. Sycophants and backstabbers, all of them.
@@deriznohappehquite The Republic and CIS gave birth to the Empire. While the Republic was more competent overall, it really was virtually non-existent for most of those thousand years. Both the Republic Navy and the Empire success was due to Palpatine. He lied and schemed to make the war footing for the Republic and through that, the Empire. The Republic barely had a military, much less a navy, for a thousand years.
Man your little speech about the malevolence just made me realize that the malevolence is just Star Wars Bismarck. I can’t believe I didn’t see it until now.
To be fair for the CIS. Their leaders like that one nemodian in the ryloth campaign was able to successfully ambush the republic and would have won if Anakin didn't commit a war crime and admiral trench was an amazing strategist.
Excellent video. Only point I'd challenge is the Separatist's Operating Forces, the 'X Factor' you were looking for. The Separatists had the backing of some of the largest ships/weapons/droids manufacturers in the galaxy. What's important is that these manufacturers were placed in standardized roles. For example all droids aside from Droideka and select others were made by Baktoid, all ships by only 2 massive companies, etc. Even more organized than how the US contracted corporations like Boeing during WWII. By assigning galactic-level arms companies to specific roles and utilizing a type of army that takes maximum advantage of manufacturing ability, that is how the Separatists managed to stand toe-to-toe with the Republic. Hence I think their Operating Forces should be at least Average if not Good.
The CIS would’ve stood a higher chance of winning the Clone Wars if Palpatine (Lord Sideous) wasn’t in the picture. The CIS was a major part in Palpatine’s plan to dominate the galaxy, but there were those within the CIS who were actually fighting for what the CIS was claiming to do. Palpatine and his inner Sith circle knew the CIS was designed to fail, but the rest of the CIS were unaware of this and were fighting for their independence.
I agree as well. They have such a wide array of vessels. Many of which are specialist vessels to fill a singular role. They also manage not to fall into the trap the rest of the factions do. Thats is that their super-capital ships have been mass produced.
The CIS just have the best designed fleet with multiple ships filling a set role in the fleet. Every other faction besides the rebellion relies too much just on one type ship.
If we're talking exclusively about how cool the designs look, I think the First Order or CIS win easily. If we're talking the actual efficiency of their navies, it's a hard thing to measure. The First Order should be a clear-cut winner based on what we know of their ships, officers, and overall accomplishments, but we have no real examples of their fleets in action, and the few examples we do have don't line-up with what we know in the lore. If we dive into Legends, I'd say the Eternal Alliance would have the best Navy by a complete landslide.
@@laisphinto6372 As I said, what we see in the movies does not line up with what we know in the lore. In the lore, The First Order was formed from the very, very best of the Empire. The best officers, the best ships, the best soldiers, everyone Palpatine trusted above all. However, the movies show a very politically oriented power-struggle between incompetent officers and cowardly generals. Which would be fine if the movies actually acknowledged that, yet it's all banished to novels and deleted scenes. I'd highly recommend reading the 2017 Phasma novel, if you haven't already. It's an incredibly interesting look into why the First Order's leadership is the way it is.
The CIS could probably use a bit more investigating. While the republic fleet was all new, we see very few different kinds of vessels in service, the majority being Acclimator Assault ships and Venator, both of which are multipurpose, by necessity. In the CIS fleet however, you have droids at every level, like buzz droids sabotaging enemy ships from the outside. Most of their larger ships only had a small skeleton crew of organics, the unfortunate losses making a less harsh blow to the overall force. Despite their forces coming from megacorps in peacetime, they were already had some combat experience, as the freighters were armed against pirates or enforcers sent to bully worlds into paying debts they were overdue on. The psychological side of the war also played a part in their power projection. Grevious's flagship had such a reputation that it's presence in a system could broach a surrender from the locals. It's sister ship was used to capitalize on that, while the Invisible Hand could be deployed where it was more needed.
Keep in mind that at least Legends-wise, the Jedi ARE considered the premier military experts, having been the spearhead of the forces that beat back the Sith and maintaining most of those martial traditions. Jedi commanders were often well-liked by their troopers, and were quite successful in preserving a force that was outnumbered badly on the ground against forces, that, while inferior, held immense numerical advantages. Moreover, the Jedi were capable of slotting themselves into a desperate shortage of capable commanders in almost every theater, being excellent front-line fighters, good squad commanders, and strong strategists all at once. The problem is the Jedi's reliance on the Force. If your strategic and tactical acumen is used in conjunction with a connection to the universe around you, and that connection is muddled by the dark side, as it was during the war, your abilities in command will also degrade. It's this problem that the Jedi failed to overcome, though they even came close on several occasions. People bash on the Jedi a lot, since they lost out against the Sith, but to be honest, they're pretty effective for what was essentially a group of monks with laser sticks.
I liked everything, except your conclusion. You had these different criteria to judge the fleets on, among which was the quality of their hardware, area control and power projection, but in your conclusion you completely dismiss these factors and rank the Rebel fleet as best "because of what they were able to do with their limited resources". Which makes Leadership the only relevant category, because their entire success depended on recognizing that the Imperial apparatus was kept in place entirely by 1 person: Palpatine. Cut off the head of the snake and they win, the fact that they managed to do this was of course largely down to the obsession of Palpatine with Luke Skywalker and the lingering paternal feelings of Anakin. To rate the Rebel Fleet as superior because of the reason stated is to ignore the nature of the conflict and what led to their victory, which was largely independent of the quality of the Fleet as a whole, it is result oriented. As a thought-experiment, imagine the following: Luke Skywalker didn't exist, in his place was another human with the same capabilities, but not Anakin Skywalker's son and not force-sensitive. Would the Rebel Fleet have come out victorious? No, of course not, even if they would manage many of the same successes in battles without a force-sensitive pilot (who got guided by a telepathic master Jedi-spirit) among their ranks then the Emperor would have crushed the Rebels and never have allowed anyone to come close enough to him to kill him, nor would Darth Vader. And it isn't like the Rebel Fleet planned for Luke to do all this from the start, their Leadership and psychological knowledge of the Emperor and Darth Vader wasn't THAT good... We can only surmise that the Rebel Fleet was, as you said, exceptional at making do with what they had, but they would have lost to the Imperial Fleet. The war was won by factors that had little to nothing to do with the fleets engaged in the war and all to do with personal abilities and psychologies of 3 key figures: Luke, Anakin and Palpatine...
Good rankings. Especially with the New Republic. You could argue that they took down a crap ton of Super Star Destroyers, but then you'd have to point out the fact that the majority of Super Star Destroyer losses were due to sabotage and on a few occasions, destroyed by other dreadnaughts.
I get why the New Republic was so afraid of becoming a new Empire, but they learned the completely wrong lessons from it. Instead of using rag tag capital ships and changing their capital more than their underwear to appeal to locals, they should've created laws to prevent someone like Palpatine from gaming the system or established a more federalist power structure to prevent the high levels of corruption that drove people towards the CIS. The New Republic was too occupied with *appearing* like they eliminated the flaws of both the old Republic and the Empire instead of *actually addressing and fixing* these mistakes. Same is true for the First Order whose take away from seeing the Empire lose two Deathstars was to build even more Planet Killers in a vain attempt to make it impossible to destroy them all by sheer numbers.
If they were exclusively ranking the fleets, I'd say that was stupid. But they put the Rebel Alliance on top, when the Rebel fleet is literally the worst out of them all (save maybe the new republic). Yeah, the republic fleet is definitely the best
Worth mentioning with some of these factions is that their navies were not always their main priority. Obviously nobody pays for a fleet of warships only to blindly throw them into hopeless fights, but there is a world of difference between having the means to potentially achieve something and possessing the drive to meaningfully do so. The administration and overall leadership of the wider CIS for example were heavily disconnected from the actions of their military, relying on Dooku to manage such arrangements and having to trust in the reports he brought back. The Empire, on the other hand, was basically a fleet of warships that also ruled planets when they had the spare time in their busy schedules, their navy was everything to their leadership and thus had an immense amount of resource priority, to the detriment of their ground forces. The CIS holding its own against the Republic seems impossible until you consider that the goal of the Separatist Navy was primarily ideological, sowing panic and chaos throughout the Republic rather than being designed to fight pitched battles specifically. Meanwhile, for all the assets and talent that the Empire possessed it mattered little when every institution and hierarchy was designed around the whims of one absolute authority figure who figured he'd already won and everything from this point would be smooth sailing.
kind of hillarious that most Rebel heroes are also imperial defectors or know tactics very well from the empire. Ackbar learned from tarkin as a slave, basically every rebel ace was a tie Pilot, the leaders were imperial Senators etc.
This, the rebel fleet was a total joke, for most of the war they had nothing but outdated light cruisers and corvettes with the occasional stolen imperial ship or two. The only thing it had going for it was it’s starfighter corps.
@@empirednw6624 also the buttload of intel they had on them , most of the time inside jobs that destroys the facillities , basically they are a spy Network first, a movement second, a starfighter corps third and a fleet fourth and then maybe an army fifth.
I do think this analysis was flawed, but it's a completely understandable flaw; the flaw that I saw was that Templin was drawin its conclusions from a very few number of sources, those few bein the movies and some of the shows (mainly the Clone Wars show), but here's where it's understandable, Star Wars as a franchise has existed for almost 45 years and there's two distinct version of the same thing and the actual in universe history of Star Wars goes back to almost 50,000 years, The Templin Institute was tryin to save themselves a massive headache by not trying to find every scrap of lore they can find on the fleets they were lookin at which is completely understandable. So while this was looked through a narrow lens, it's a lens that I think most of us will take for our own sanity sake.
I don't know if The Grand Republic deserves the "Good" for winning the Clone Wars. They didn't win due to superior fleet tactics/starships, whether they had them or not. The Grand Republic won the Clone Wars, because the dude running both side sent his apprentice to murder the entire leadership of the CIS military then surrender on their behalf.
tactically though, the clone troopers and republic navy was pretty good at what it did. As were the droids, because the dude running both sides needed an effective military to start off his empire with.
I loved and agreed with most of your analysis. An Institute as revered and inter-dimensionally accredited as the Templin, however, should get a copy editor such as I to make certain important words such as “SepAratist” are spelled correctly before the video is posted. LOL!! Great work! I enjoyed the video
Enjoyed the video but disagreed with the Imperial/Rebel operating forces and control assessments. Empire had clean slate to build a galaxy spanning patrol force with no peer threats. Primary targets would be starfighters, freighters, gunships, and small capitals. They chose overly massive anti-capital destroyers and disposable fighters lacking hyper drives- rebels and smugglers repeatedly evaded both. That focus also lacked numbers to fulfill policing, so they were filled the gaps w/ obsolete Arquetins and Gozantis that were repeatedly defeated. The rebel purpose was guerilla warfare - they utilized strong hyperspace capable fighters and swift corvettes alongside medium rapid response fleets. They made up for crew and resource deficits with droids and smaller vessels. Ad hoc rebel forces repeatedly achieved their objectives. Heck, the rebels managed to pull together a fleet for a critical objective over Scariff faster than the Empire could… former has “poor,” area control and the latter has “excellent?” Given their known objectives, the Empire demonstrably, canonically failed in force composition and area control. An “excellent” force with their goal would have numerous medium capitals paired with corvettes, interdictors, and hyperspace capable fighters alongside a small core of fleet destroyers; instead, they inverted that paradigm. I'm not sure how a force incapable of fulfilling its primary function can be rated as anything better than "fair." You can absolutely blame leadership and the Tarkin Doctrine for their choices, but that doesn’t change the fact that their force composition and area control were somewhere between ok and terrible.
I might be wrong about this, but from what I could tell, the Republic's strategic and tactical levels were both run largely by the Jedi. Palpatine as Chancellor didn't do much beyond giving them the green light to do their thing. Now, Palpatine as the shadowy master of the Confederacy was much more hands on, and often gave direct orders to the captains of relevant ships. In essence, the leadership of the Republic was fighting through the fog of war, but the leadership of the Confederacy was explicitly guided by an all seeing eye. I think this is the only reason the war dragged on so long. The Confederacy had access to information it really should not have had, and the Republic was not given the same boon (considering the point of the war was to spread, disorganize, and tire the Jedi order, who were in charge on strategic and tactical levels.) It feels weird to say that if the Chancellor (the highest technical office of military leadership) was removed, the Republic's leadership would be excellent. But consider that every other level of strategic and tactical office actually ran well and in concert with one another. This is opposed to the confederacy, empire, and first order, who all had strategic and tactical levels of office constantly infighting for glory or loyalty. Mofs fighting among themselves and distrustful of Vader, Inquisitors willingly killing one another for a promotion, Hux, Kylo, and Snoke fighting against one another, distrustful subordinates loyal only out of fear, and so on. On most operational levels, many other of the naval superpowers had leadership issues. For the republic, the problem was pretty much solely on the Chancellor.
The Empire won the Clone Wars but not because they were excellent! Palpatine’s plan was designed that they win. I’m for the CIS/Separatists being excellent.
The new canon New Republic fleet is exactly why I preferred the Legends fleet. In the decades post-endor the NR constantly captured and re-deployed Imperial star destroyers, and iirc expanded their existing cruiser forces. They still lacked in standardization, but they kept the excellent leadership and complemented it with additional power projection and, most importantly, diversity. That diversity of doctrine and ship design is really what saved them in the Yuuzhan Vong invasions. It's hard to plan against an opponent that could field anything from super star destroyers to jedi hit squads and from Hapan battle dragons to Mandalorian supercommandos. Not to mention the HUGE variety of smaller fighters.
And here's the reason why the Alliance to Restore the Republic and the Galactic Empire are always the first two factions people think of when they remember Star Wars.
The reason the cis did as well as they did was essentially “perfect information” they had the commander and chief of the side they were combatting feeding them information. They only did as well as they did because Palpatine wanted them too.
You say that the Republic Navy had no Star dreadnought but that couldn’t be further from the truth. They had the Mandator series. Granted, they had to refit them into Mandator II’s to make them useful but they had them nonetheless. They also had battlecruisers in the Maelstrom, Praetor, and Secutor classes, which could theoretically fulfill that role as well. There was also the fact that the Republic was vastly outnumbered yet was still able to hold its own against the CIS Then there’s the Empire. Yes in the majority of engagements they could retake and potentially hold any system they wanted, but there were some exceptions. Most notably is Mon Calamari, which successfully threw off Imperial rule and remained free throughout the Galactic Civil War. There was also the Lothal campaign in Disney canon that also saw Imperial rule overthrown and never returned. The Empire wasn’t this “monolithic territory holder” y’all make it out to be One important thing to note is that half of the factions on this list have the x-factor of Palpatine’s machinations. First off, the Clone Wars was essentially a “hoax”, as it was really just Palpatine enacting a form of coup to take over the galaxy. Therefore, the various factors regarding each side were manipulated by him, designed to more or less introduce a stalemate, ensuring no one side gained a significant advantage over the other. As for the Empire, it was designed to fall without Palpatine in charge, no matter if he died from natural causes or some external factor like assassination. There is one faction that you left out: the New Republic/Galactic Alliance (NR/GA) from Legends. I would like an analysis on them in the context of this video plz. Personally, I think operating forces as excellent. Yes they started off with the same fleet as the Rebel Alliance, but it evolved with the times, introducing a standardization of professional warship classes (exemplified with the New Class Modernization Program, the Mediator class battle cruiser and the Viscount class “star defender”) that could go toe to toe with any of their opponents (obvious exceptions to super weapons and Vong Worldships). This extends to power projection as well, with the NR conquering a significant portion of the galaxy in military campaigns. Area Denial/Area Control, I rate good, as they lost systems in battle (especially in the Vong War) but at the same time there were many cases where they were able to repel attackers. Leadership is also ranked as good. On the one hand, they had some pretty competent military leaders in folks like Ackbar and Antilles as well as excellent naval doctrine that had evolved from hit and run tactics of the Rebel Alliance to the various realities of war which the New Republic faced, such as adapting to the changing circumstances of the Dark Empire Crisis and its aftermath as well as the Vong War. The institution of the numbered fleet system greatly helped with command and control of the vast territory under NR control. On the flip side, there were quite a few times where politics interfered with military operations, a great example being a significant portion of the Vong War as well as the Second Galactic Civil War, although because of these reasons I am tempted to give it a fair rating
Was initially shocked by the CIS fleet getting lower rankings than the Republic Navy which was only able to ever win through Jedi heroics but the final tally was well adjudicated
I would argue that the Rebel Fleet's Power Projection be bumped a notch higher. They couldn't HOLD an area, but they did frequently hit the Empire a lot harder than anyone was expecting. Hit and run the attacks may have been, but without power, the hit doesn't matter. Harassment and raids are only effective if they actually accomplish something, and the Rebellion was at least a constant thorn in the side of the Empire to the point that significant resources were allocated to rooting them out. The could not project their power for long or over wide areas, but they way they managed to focus what they had against a target is not to be dismissed. This is especially true after the Battle of Fresia and the acquisition of X-Wings gave their starfighter pilots a much harder punch. To say that the rebel's monopoly on that advanced design was a huge boon to the rebellion's efforts is an understatement. I would even argue that without X-wings the Empire likely would have won. But on another note, I think you should examine the Legends New Republic fleet and GFFA Fleet on this same scale. Yeah the Canon New Republic was dumb and useless, but so is everything Canon at this point. Lets see how the Navy with Nebula Class Star Destroyers stacks up. Or the one with Scythe-Class Battle Cruisers. Maybe even toss in the Fel Empire Fleet for fun.
Let us know everything we got wrong on Twitter! Or, alternatively, admit that we're perfect in every way. twitter.com/TemplinEdu
I'm no longer on that platform, so I did it in the comments to this video.
The video was great....right up until you said the Rebels are the best because they beat the Empire. Come on man, that was a 100% plot win and nothing more. The Battle of Endor was a disaster for the Rebels, with them only winning 'cause they had the main characters. Crappy intel, ground team was ambushed, their fleet couldn't escape. If Palps wasn't trying to annoy Luke into being evil, it wouldn't even be a battle at all.
Needed the Old Republic and Sith Empire forces in this.
@@HanaTheSloth The Old Republic is so much further on the power scaling that is wouldn't be a fair or even fun comparison. The Planet Prison, Silencer fleet, and don't even get me started on the Eternal Empire. It's all just too much for the other eras to match.
Seconded. Anakin Skywalker may have been a better Admiral than any Separatist Admiral, but the average Separatist Admiral seems to have been as good as or even better than the average Republic Admiral.
I think the key to both the failings and successes of the republic, CIS and Empire is Palpatine. If he were removed from the equation I think they will be very different organizations. Thrawn proved that in spades during his campaign.
True. Palpatine purposefully mismanaged and manipulated events during the Clone Wars to bring about the downfall of the Republic, and Dooku did the same on his behalf in the C.I.S. to keep the "balance". The Empire suffered under Palpatine's rigid rule of fear. Tarkin's doctrine also crippled the balance of the Galactic Navy, favoring only Capital Ships with little or no support vessels. Too many of the First Order's leaders were 'selected' by Palpatine and therefore flawed.
The old time travel theory... "What if Hitler was assassinated? WW2 would have had a different result." etc.
As stated by The Templin Institute in the beginning of the video, leadership plays a much higher role than raw capabilities of the fleets, as exemplified by the Rebel Alliance.
A good example: with Palpatine’s death, he literally commanded his own forces to commit scorched earth on its own border and loyal systems.
Any other galactic empire could be expected to recover from a defeat in a single fleet engagement… but Palpatine ensured half the empire was on fire from its own attacks
@@gzer0x I still hate that piece of Disney lore. I doubt a significant portion of the Imperial Navy/armed forces would follow it (and even less would follow it once the scale became even a little bit clear). The lower enlisted/lower ranked officers/most officers because they actually believed they where the "good guys", and scorching Loyal worlds for no reason ain't good by any sane persons standards. And the vast majority of officers would be too busy making power grabs.
@@hanzzel6086 If Disney said it, then I'm discarding it. Disney has no care for the lore, so they should not be considered its custodians.
@@hanzzel6086 yeah but like… thats the point? that’s also possible irl and the main weakness of the empire in all canons. They’re all enlisted folks on a massive ship with thousands of personnel, firing at a target reduced to ones and zeroes, targets a million miles away. The soldiers of the empire simply know they are doing their job and rely on orders from above, they want to rely on orders from above, but those commanders ar hand picked by a… well, a hecking lich.
I would say that the X factor for the Separatists is that their navy was, by and large, extremely cost effective. Utilizing droids cut down on required man power for basically everything that didn't require a critical eye. Most fighters were mass produced droid fighters designed for a purpose, most ships were retrofitted from standardized carriers and cargo freighters, and they had numerous manufacturing facilities across the Galaxy. It wasn't quality that was giving them an edge. Just like with their ground forces, they utilized quantity to get results. Every soldier was expendable since another 5,000,000 were already in production, every ship lost was much less costly given the minimal amount of crew, and thus skill, lost, and there was always more to come.
Palps was also manipulating the Republic to keep the war going for a while.
Well he was manipulating both sides.
Your mileage may vary on whether that helped or hindered the CIS more (the latter I suppose since CIS was intended to lose but it is possible that if left alone Republic might have been able to do better and CIS be unable to match it as well).
@@gokbay3057 Do you think the Banking Clan's position could've also helped the CIS? Since passing more orders, laws etc for more spending on Republic forces could've hindered them?
@@onevest69 That's another thing they had going for them. A lot of influential figures and contacts to help them get more credits and materials.
Additionally, they had quality when they needed it, Droidekas and Trifighters were demons of their respective battlefields, and the Trifighter still has a legitimate claim to being the greatest starfighter of all time, easily surpassing the X-Wing in capability and contending with the likes of the TIE Defender for significantly less cost. There are other examples as well, but Palpatine's manipulation killed their best "game changers" in the cradle.
@@gokbay3057 The CIS had to be held back more frequently. Palps was often leaking information to get their most promising prospects destroyed before production, and their competent leaders killed.
In truth both the Old Republic and the Confederacy were the only true naval powers within the Galaxy that revolutionize combat doctrines, created inventions that shape the Galaxy to come, and it was the Clone Wars that many of the factions on this list that they learned their lessons from.
The CIS is a really unforgettable faction in Star Wars history in terms of its government, its army, and its starships.
Good point mate
Don't forget the Sith Empire of the Old Republic. :p The Sith Empire managed to fight a Galactic War with a vastly minimal number of ships compared to their foe purely through utilizing ironically Rebellion like strategies.
@@Jenn-lq9yugrills warfare wasn't invented by either the sith or rebel alliance, but by the early early humans
I strongly disagree with the assessment on the CIS's "Area Denial". Blockades were a core tenant of their doctrine, and were repeatedly shown to inflict heavy losses on Republic assets. The only instances I can think of where the blockades were shown to be broken were all through the intervention of a handful of specific Jedi using unorthodox strategies, often resulting in the sacrifice of at least one Venator, or in one instance exploiting a prototype cloaking device. These are exceptions, not the rule.
The rest of your assessments I generally agree with.
Eh. He really shows a lack of understanding imo. Saying that most of the CIS ships were repurposed Civilian vessels is just wrong. The Lucrehulk was the only repurposed warship. They did have others, but were only used in supporting roles not meant for heavy combat. 90% of the mainline fleet were actual dedicated warships like the Providence, Munificent, Recusant, and Sabat. Not to mention he also doesn't take into accound the strike craft of the CIS, arguably their best asset in space due to their vast numbers and the fact most ships could carry quite a bit without the need for dedicated carriers
@@dman8115 he also ignored how the CIS has by far the largest arsenal since they could shit out so many new droid models that constantly take the republic by suprise in the clone wars.
And don't forget that the last major campaign of the war was literally called the Outer Rim Sieges.
@@wilburforce8046 I think the main reason the cis did as well as they did was quantity outweighing the quality of the republic forces. It's very difficult for a fleet of high quality ships to defeat a fleet over triple their size in combat. For most of the clone wars, it was shown that most major fleets if the republic only had 3-5 carriers supported by their escort ships, while separatist fleets had 2-3 heavy warships supported by 5-10 escort ships each. In terms of quality of leadership and assets, the republic far outweighs the cis forces, but when you have to face such high amounts of troops it gets more and more difficult. Take the outer rim sieges for example, to break a blockade or take an area you have under siege, it normally takes 3-5 times the forces to take the fortified position, which when the defenders can shit out millions more droids in a week, becomes very hard for the attackers to break.
@@fala5764 yes and the CiS didn’t have that advantage by accident, it was their entire doctrine. And unlike the empire they didn’t use humans so they didn’t have to deal with half the logistics. Despite having less then half the resources and money the empire had on hand their army was about as large if not larger. This video gave the CiS not nearly enough credit. I mean the first order consistently gets clapped by just a squadron of x wings and was never shown doing anything remotely impressive on screen, yet this video gives them a better score.
Also while the clones obviously outmatch droids they did have to upgrade their vehicles after the CiS made some better models.
The most important ship introduced by the imperial starfleet that filled a gap in the republic fleet weren’t the dreadnoughts, it was the Interdictor.
Which the Empire, Thrawn aside, failed to use to even a tenth of its potential. Yet another reason leadership is the most important.
@@achillesa5894 Tarkin having soo much influence, crippled the imperial military.
Considering the fact that the Republic started the star destroyer tradition of Victory, Venator and Imperator(ISD with out hanger ) and the Mandator star dreadnought line ALONGWITH starfighters like Vhwings(pre-Tie) ,and Arc 170&headhunters(pre X-Wing) and the Incredible Y-Wings
I Agree that Interdictors and Special Forces(Conpnor, ISB ships suck as the Inferno squad corvus ,Imperial storm commandos escort cruisers ,stealth ties ,tie defenders ,onagers ,inquistors,Eclipse ,torpedo spheres , ) and Super weapons are what the empire brought
I mean, the interdictor is built on a dreadnought hull.
its either the interdictor or the lancer class frigate that is the perfect counter to a bulk of the rebellions fleet: fighters and bombers
honestly, given their reliance on battle droids (and the sheer scale of that industrial operation) the Confederacy had an enormous numerical advantage that, had they been led properly, would have meant their victory. Holding might have been a different matter, but they are the only galactic power that could meaningfully employ ground invasions in numbers that would matter, and bulk up their starship crews such that they could have conceivably gone for a quantity over quality approach and flooded the galaxy. though i dont think its *just* sith sabotage and egomania in their leadership that are responsible for their failure to employ this advantage effectively, as the Galaxy has indicated that droid manufacturers and the populace at large are in fact, paranoid about a potential AI uprising that a CIS victory might well have made possible. an uprising that may *still be* possible what with the enormous amount of materiel the CIS built and eventually left derelict. space is hard on electronics, and a gamma ray in the wrong place, another droid with force-connective lubricant, or a careless salvager might obviate the shutdown commands keeping them inert.
Or some warlords could use the remnants of droid army for waging local wars
@@justepourlacheruncom8393 the Rebellion has a few droids working with them (gotta be weird for the rebel clones)
I completely agree, the confederacy absolutly missed its strategic opportunity window when the republic had no army. They were both overconfident in their capabilities, and not confident enough to strike the earth of the republic and seize the advantgae. They were defeated by an army that did'nt exist three year before. For me the republic army should take the second place, to grow in strengh so fast is the mark of remarquable intellectual capabilities, their army was perfectly adapted to the task and they were able to achieve victory in a war on a galactic scale in only three years.
That's an argument for the Jedi, who somehow managed to contain vastly numerically superior forces with an army that was fresh off the training grounds. Remember, there's only 10,000 Jedi, and usually they number like two or three in any given battle. And the clones under them, too.
@@Aspiringamoeba1997 and that's despite having neither the training or mental conditioning (or the organizational infrastructure) required for military commanders
one *BIG* problem between cis and republic is the fact, that they are controled by ONE single person who told the cis AND republic command how and where to attack or withdraw directly or indirectly.
Just imagined Palpy accidentally holograming himself as Sidius to Republic leaders. xD
New Republic ironically has similar problem. Rebellion has excellent command, because only competent commanders were capable to survive until empire and well, defect from Empire as many of them were ex-Imperials. But New Republic lack united vision. People fight for Rebellion because they hate Empire (or wanted to reform it). But then when Empire colipase, so did the rebellion. Most of competent commanders went rogue, retired or were ousted (Leia). And new leadership form from computed politicians like Fey'lya, who weren't better then Empire. With aging Mon Mothma ironically turning into what she wanted to defeat. Isolated totalitarian leader. What result in ex-Imperial sentiment and fifth column (largely because New Republic inherit tons of Imperial infrastructure), creating First Order (or Darth Caedus fleet in Legends). Who in the end were largely Imperial cosplayers.
Come to think of it, the Clone Wars "behind the scenes" was kinda like the Pixar short "Geri's Game", where the titular old man Geri plays himself at chess. (incidentally, Geri shows up in Toy Story 2 to restore Woody)
@@Nicitel94 I'm fairly certain he did exactly that in a Robot Chicken Bit; When the Jedi Council freaked out he started pretend holding himself hostage and fighting back.
@@lonelystrategos The CIS still needed Palpatine's expertise inorder to launch the Battle of Coruscant. The war would become a war of attrition, and while the Separtists had the numerical advantage, they couldn't sustain the war as long as the much larger more resource intensive Republic.
I generally agree however I would like to point out some things.
Just like the CIS lost battles due to Palpatine's manipulations, the GAR won them out of them same reason. And since the entire Clone Wars were just Palpatine's schemes, it kind of screws the perspective.
The Rebel Alliance generally understood what type of war it fought, however it also made some big blunders. Rights after the destructions of the Death Star, it started a Mid Rim Offensive which however quickly turned into Mid Rim Retreat since the Empire had infinitely more men and ships than the Alliance. After that they returned back to the guerilla war and with some exceptions (e.g. Hoth) remained in it until Endor.
The New Republic followed the same line of thinking as pre-Clone Wars Galactic Republic meaning that the central military was very small and the planets/systems were supposed to take care of themselves.
Anyway it's funny that Palpatine was de facto supreme commander of 4 out of 6 of those fleets 😀
I think it’s unfair to say the CIS had poor leadership as they had the only truly experienced generals and admirals as the republic military leadership was just deployed (ie. clones) or had only in book experience. The CIS on the other hand had leaders who saw and won battles the best example being Grievious as he lead the entire CIS military like when he lead his native Kaleesh species against the Huk which he practically won if it wasn’t for the intervention of the republic, he was the mastermind for that Coursant raid. The only reason we see them as poor is because Dooku and Palpatine sent them to battles and campaigns they knew they would lose. The CIS also had one of if not the best tactical leaders in the super tactical droid I would rate them at least fair or average.
The Coruscant raid was a Palpatine plot. Operation Durge's Lance, however, was a Grievous original.
I can only agree on that
Yeah that thing your missing about the CIS and Clone war fleets is that the republic was outnumbered on a scale of at least 10 to 1 most of its battles. They were much higher quality but they had to slowly widdle down the massive numbers the CIS used agaisnt them to get close to winning
They were only outnumbered on the ground. As far as I've read their navies were roughly equal.
@@jeffbrewer1580 not really, no matter how many ship the republic could make this would always be constrained by the amount of clones to man the ships whilst in comparison the separatists could keep printing out ships due to the fact that they could easily man said ships in seconds with droids. Alongside that the separatists fighters were also usually ranked as better than the republics due to being in a much larger abundance and also being pretty high quality and only really loosing these fighters due to Jedi pilots.
Also using the battle of Geonosis is a terrible representation of the republic’s capabilities in general, that battle was won by a miracle. They deployed most of their forces onto a flat terrain with an enemy that outnumbered them 100 to 1. Not to mention the peacekeeper magic zealots that haven’t seen much militaristic combat at all lead the clones into gaining significantly more casualties then there ever should’ve been.
@@PizzaSteve-101 To be fair, though, many of the Separatist ships were caught on the ground, so there's an argument to be made for rushing them down, especially considering that the Acclamators available were pretty limited in naval combat capacity. The Jedi's strategy on that battle wasn't wrong, and frankly speaking, given how much a lot of the clones liked their commanders, and how many clones ended up still alive against those numbers, the magic zealots did pretty alright.
@@jeffbrewer1580 not really, the munificents were much more easy to spam out and just 3 were able to overwhelm a venator, and the munificents came in HUGE numbers.
I am glad the EU Legends New Republic didn't disband 90% of their Navy and used them to fight off all major threats they have faced.
They couldn’t disband their navy anyway, the empire and its splinter groups still existed and many of those splinter groups were still at war with the new republic.
And designed some pretty decebt ships at the same time, transitioning from modified and salvaged/captured Vessels to purpose built ones.
After a period of having to continze using and building the old designs, given that a war was still going on and designing, building and crewing a ship takes time.
The first 6-7 years of the New Republic's existence were basically a near constant high intensity war which on at least two occasions turned into a struggle for survival.
The first new designs turned up around 12-13 ABY, so about 8 years, which is reasobably realistic, given both 1930s and WW2 ship procurement.
It's almost like the creators of the Expanded Universe knew something about Warfare, unlike the Disney/KKK muppets.
It's
Honestly I don't understand why the channel didn't just go with the NR of legends and discounted the first order. I mean he admits he had to speculate on almost everything given how Disney did zero worldbuilding.
I would love to see nebula star destroyers, mc90s, star defenders, corona frigates, bothan assault cruisers, endurance carriers, K-wings, E-wings, and upgraded ships and starfighters from the rebellion being ranked.
Something to understand about the Canon New Republic is that they want to warn and "teach" people about the dangers of thinking oppositely to TCW era politicians. While TCW Senate was a bunch of pompous warmongers who advocated for a militaristic dictatorship, the NR Senate was meek, drunk on victory, limited governing experience, constantly in fear of what people thought of them, overly trusting and forgiving. NR in the EU is a competent, almost fantasy outcome for a bunch of country bumpkins who just got done blowing up government stiffs with dynamite. They're very enjoyable to watch, but they don't give us a lesson. You can agree or disagree with whether or not Canon NR was successful in its lessons compared to Lucas and is TCW Republic, I'm just trying to explain the objective.
One thing I think is unfair with regards to the Republic is the total level of transparency between it and the CIS, thru Palpatine. Palpatine was playing both sides. He deliberately shared sensitive information whenever it suited the Sith plan. He outright told them about the Separtists on Utapau. Sure, the Commandos were able to verify it, but that kind of a play is simply unheard of in the upper echelons of war. So saying the Republic dragged on the war they should've been able to win easily is kind of unfair when Palpatine is deliberately sabotaging them to prolong the war. Same with the CIS.
The byproduct of the CIS's scrambled navy was that most of their purpose-built warships were the best the galaxy could provide. Each of them was doubly sieved, first through the megacorps, and then by the CIS itself. They weren't designed specifically to fit together, but even in today's armies, nothing is. All systems are chosen so that they fit best instead.
plus they actually used them together to get SOME balance. the republic just spammed 1 type of ship 99.99999999999999999% of the time. like when do we actually ever see their escourts? basically never.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 By some degree that's actually fine tbh as the more standardized the production the easier it is to just completely roll them out in huge numbers
@@buddermonger2000 that's also a huge problem, if the enemy figured out a counter and employ them effectively then your entire military is compromised and be forced to diversify anyway or lose the war.
@@robbieaulia6462 There's only so much you can counter tbh. Effective countermeasures to all systems exist. It's about how many there are in one battle and if you can fight said countermeasures. It's never so simple as "we have full counter you'll never win"
@@matthiuskoenig3378we saw them in the films, but TCW is garbage and throws canon around like a bag of dirt so I'm guessing that's where you get that idea from
Just because the Rebels won it doesn't mean they suddenly had resources.
There were surviving Imperial holdouts that weren't part of fronts to prepare the First Order or Final Order, so they couldn't just liquidate Imperial assets, at least, not very fast.
Add to it, the New Republic knee jerked HARD in the opposite of the Empire, mostly by spreading out governmental decision making and by mostly ratcheting down military assets and spending by a fair margin. NR went so hard in the other direction it neutered itself.
@@stumpy1146they didn't ratchet it down they completely abolished it, the only ships they had were old rebellion assets or planetary defense fleets. The new republic is like what would happen if a child was in charge and thought the rebellion era was cool and wanted to be a cool rebel general fighting as an underdog
In Legends, the New Republic adopted much of the Empire's equipment and infrastructure. While they largely stuck with their excellent fighters from the rebellion era, they incorporated many captured star destroyers into their navy. A far more pragmatic choice than in Disney canon. (Also, way cooler)
The writers weren't brain dead, unlike the Disney employees.
I find the New Republic in Disney canon fascinating but in a reactionary way, like the citizens, and thusly the politicians(mainly Mon Mothma), of the New Republic seeing any kind of centralized military as a threat to the people of the New Republic. I find it interesting because the New Republic in Disney canon is trying to please everyone and it failed to please anyone.
Because this is what every revolutionary government would do. You may reduce the former regimes military expances but you wouldn't trash all of it immediatly. Maybe slowly phase it out over the next decades while introducind new, modern ships.
@dawoifee or just look at most Eastern European militaries, chock full of Soviet designed equipment for about 2 decades until domestically produced and NATO hardware replaced it overtime.
@@JCDenton3 Exactly.
The First Battle of Geonosis was a mess. The Republic just threw their clones at the droid army which resulted in a slaughter.
The ARMY (much more the Jedi leadership) was a mess yes but the navy did an incredible job delivering Thousand of clones almost unnoticed into Geonosis.
The battle was a mess because the leaders got to lead the army for there first battle, literally hours before the battle, the first year of the clone wars is not comparable to even the second year of the war
Is that cannon? Whenever I hear that it seems more like from the Karen Travis republic commandos books, which are legends to my knowledge.
If that’s any version of canon, everyone that approved it needs to be banned from writing ANYTHING military-related ever again. The clones would have had a LOT of training, training that doesn’t just disappear because they’ve got new commanders, all of which would have quickly been encountering the senior officers that previously commanded those formations and would then be their XOs or chiefs of staff, assuming the Jedi took any real command to begin with. You don’t make the Jedi look stupid by saying that the clones took heavy casualties making stupid decisions on day 1. You make the clones look stupid when you do that.
I mean...this was the first major war in the galaxy in like forever. And it immediatly started with a planetary invasion of a huge scale. As was done before in history the jedi were made generals on the spott but unlike in times long gone jedi werent exactly trained in military matters anymore.
Add to that the republics believe that wiht a full on frontal assault they could quickly overwhelm the suprised seperatists and capture their leadership that could end the war right there it is a logical mess.
I know a lot of it has to do with budget requirements for movies and shows....but I always feel that Navy sizes and fleet battles in Star Wars are too small in scale considering the size of the Galaxy and the resources available....with the Battles of Coruscant and Exegol being something close to the appropriate size.
Maynot be a fair comparison but once I got used to the scale of Warhammer 40k...I feel Star Wars and even Star Trek should be a considerable larger.
The Reinmagined series you guys did does an excellent job of correcting that.
Not even 40K is that exempt from that. The Battle of Armageddon had less soldiers than WW2. Sci-fi authors have no sense of scale.
@@starwarsnerd100 that's definitely a notable point....I was told that particular battle needs to have an extra zero or two to represent the numbers needed for it it be as climatic as it was.
The thing is that's really only true for land battles, in space the ship numbers is pretty reasoable, and 40k is terrible with its numbers, they say less then 1 million soldiers fought in the seige of terra, meanwhile in starwars, the battle of courscant was fought from surprise, and had literally thousands of ships from both sides taking part, which would place it to be far larger scale then a battle that was supposed to be the biggest thing the imperium has ever done, under a sneak attack
Space is vast though, and you need to hold back a massive amount of naval power to patrol that space.
Star Wars is also terrible in terms of numbers for ground battles and much worse than 40k.
CIS because they had the coolest sounding engines
And their donut ships
@@sugdolomar Can’t forgot the donut ships
Also the sounds it makes when their droid fighters launch its concussion missles with a cool looking blue light trail behind it
Can't argue with that logic.
Nice, though it would be nice to also have some Legends factions for comparison... Yuuzhan Vong, Imperial Remnant Fleet, Galactic Alliance Navy, Legends version of New Republic Navy (that, unlike the NR Navy from the continuity under Disney, was far larger and battle-ready... and it operated pretty interesting roster of ships including an Executor-class Star Dreadnought and several Star Defenders) and so on...
Yeah, Legends New Republic probably would've wiped the floor with the First Order.
@@TruePacifist201 They probably would, but I was more interested in how would Templin analyse their power...
@@TruePacifist201 Just send the 5th Fleet with some Endurance and Nebula Class and be back before dinner.
@@TruePacifist201 The K-Wing the bomber that the TLJ bombers gf tells it not to worry about
Actually the New Republic had two Executors, although both had long bouts of sitting around doing not much.
I know it's closely tied with leadership, but I feel like some more consideration for the individual admirals commanding the fleets would have been worthwhile. The republic had pretty average admirals none of which are noteworthy, the CIS however did have some noteworthy admirals such as Grievous, even if they weren't the best either. The big ones that stick out to me however are Thrawn of the Empire and Hux. Thrawn was by far the most capable admiral seen in Star Wars, and the Empire dedicating him to the outer rim during the rebellion is another example of their bad leadership. Hux on the other hand is so incompetent that it's laughable, and yet he still managed to fight the new republic
Grievous was incompetent, too. If we're talking Legends, yeah, he was very skilled. But Clone Wars? Guy was a buffoon. Lost the Malevolence. Lost to Gungans.
@@dr.boring7022 True, but I said notable, not competent
@@Selenkate Fair enough.
Thing is, the famous admirals and leaders we see in most of Star Wars media are the minority. Remember, a fleet has thousands of admirals directing its operations, and even if say 2 or 3 are prodigies in the field of battle, that still leaves thousands more whose skill vary greatly. Not every imperial admiral is Thrawn, and not every separatist admiral is trench.
@@dr.boring7022 He is Thrawn level competent in Legends.
Think the Separatists had the most varied and every ship filled a role.
don't forget the best logistics of all the mentioned fleets. they had been building their ships for years to even decades. so plenty of spare parts, all the mechanical kinks worked out [so very reliable and easy to repair] and production efficiency at high capacity, vs the untested newly designed, rushed to production republic designs, the overly hodgepodge new republic and rebels.
only the empire gives them a run for their money here, but still lose out due to fully organic crews being much more wasteful logistically. AND the CIS ships can all carry more than their counterparts in supplies.
professionals discuss logstics and the CIS has the best here.
so not only do they have the most balanced fleets in practice, not only are they the easiest to mass produce allowing for the biggest fleets for a given industry, but they are also the easiest to keep running even behind enemy lines.
their only weakness is leadership.
Giving the Rebels top slot makes sense when you consider their situation versus everyone else's. Every other faction could have chosen differently what kinds of ship they built and used (even the Confederacy) but the Rebels were mostly stuck with what they could steal, retrofit, or resurrect. Only in starfighters did they have anything cutting edge but they were only able to produce them in limited numbers meaning every single one was precious. And yet they still won.
This channel scratches all the itches I didn't know I had. Thanks for another video
Its truly the Home of nerds
The CIS Navy was superior to most fleets on this list at least on paper. Their ships were better equipped and designed, they had an superior armament, so was the Providence Dreadnought equipped with over 100 torpedo launchers and a variety of conventional weapons and the Munificent frigate was equipped with a vast variety of smaller turbolaser and laser canons (46) and a massive twin Turbolaser cannon capable of piercing the shields of an grade 3 battle station. The usage of droids resultat in an much leasser Personal costs. Most of the CIS ships only needed an Crew of 900 Droids and could carry an entire Invasion force allone. Additionally was the droid fighter compliment far supirior to those of any navy in this list, especially the TRI fighter. I know that the CIS looks week in most shows but that is due to the plot armor.
I think on paper, the Empire has the best Navy just on size alone. But, I do believe the CIS has the best Navy. CIS has a great fleet composition and arguably the Best capital Ships. The leadership for most factions is screwed up because of Palpatine. How do you judge the CIS and the Republic’s military leadership when Palpatine controls both sides and controls the outcome of the war?
And that droids are quantity over quality.
@@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts Not all. No name clones died in mass to super battle droids and commandos.
@@kieferkarpfen6897both are true but they cant have 100% of b2's
I think they are supporting each others
I see one fundamental problem with the Clone Wars for any navy comparison. That both sides of the conflict were manipulated for Palpatine's interest, to destroy the Jedi Order, the Republic, and democracy itself. So any strategic decision was based on that, so there's no telling from the course of the war which side had the better navy and who would have won the conflict on fair terms.
The Rebel Fleet is a great example of the phrase: 'It is through limitations that creativity can truly shine'
also a lot of intel and espionage helps
if it wasnt for plot armor and abit more competency than the empire, the rebels would have been crushed, though its mostly plot armor
I'm pretty sure the Malevolence's failure at commerce raiding was inspired by Germany's attempt with the Bismark.
The only change I would maybe make here would ranking the Republic above the CIS as Palpatine meddled with its operations just as much as he did the Separatists. For example, during the Clone Wars, Palpatine leaked the location of Nute Gunray to the Separatists in order to mount a rescue operation and the fact they ultimately won the war. But maybe that’s my bias towards the clone army showing, as the CIS was an incredibly effective navy during the war regardless, and whilst it’s leadership was handicapped in some areas, in others it was given free reign, and where it had free reign, it generally did well, as we’ve seen Droid Fleets ambush and annihilate republic fleets multiple times during the war, whilst the same cannot be said for the Republic. It should also be noted despite his failure to protect the Malevolence, Grievous was an effective commander, as he singlehandedly annihilated Kenobi’s fleet in season 5 with Kenobi forced to scuttle his flagship to cover his escape. He also managed to ambush a Venator during season 4, and achieve the same result, and taking the Jedi in charge prisoner. And to top it all off, Grievous headed the attack on Coruscant and kidnapped the Chancellor.
I'd argue that the CIS had overall higher stats than the Republic. Their army being almost entirety made of droids and their ships being sourced from countless comemrcial ships alongside their wartime produced ships. This already existing source pool of ships and infinite droids are their disposal meant they could far out project the Republic and their mere few million clones.
The lukrehulk is an ideal vessel for a navy. It could function as an orbital command station for the occupation of a planet, a cargo logistics hub for a fleet, and a carrier for hundreds upon hundreds of vulture and tri fighter droids which absolutely mulched the Republic's clone pilots when Jedi aces weren't present. Furthermore, without a clever maneuvering or a far superior assaulting force, it was very hard for Republic Venators to gain orbital supremacy over a planet locked down by a Lukrehulk with some supporting CIS warships.
So overall, their operating forces should be at least good, they should have excellent projection, and area denial could reasonably be called good.
Considering that both sides of the Clone Wars were controlled by a single person it's difficult to accurately rank their Navies. Furthermore giving a *"Poor"* grade on the Imperial Navy's leadership, just because they lost the Galactic Civil War, is biased and fails to take into account people like Grand Admiral Thrawn who in his campaign nearly brought the New Republic to it's knees.
Unfortunately the success of Thrawn you bring up is from Legends and this is a canon only breakdown
@@justintaylor2235 and how does that take away his strategic and tactical genius?
@@dimenzed Lets be real, people like Thrawn, Vader, Daala, etc. were exceptions to the general rule on imperial leadership. Palpatine was going for what was in essence a glorified dictatorship and as the institute said, went for a hitler style social darwinism. Promoting officers based on loyalty rather than merit (Thrawn being another exception here) as well as promoting infighting and sabotage to prevent others from massing enough power to challenge him.
Palpatine vastly underestimated the threat the rebel alliance posed and the tarkin doctrine and the general makeup of the imperial navy may be good in standard line battles, but in a guerilla war against a stateless opponent its more of a hinderance and fear just serves to alienate more of your constituents.
So yes, i agree with the assessment that the imperial navy's leadership was extremely incompetent and with the exception of some leaders (see above) could never fully grasp the war they were fighting. Nor were they flexible enough to adapt to the fact they were fighting a stateless faction rather than a full fleged government/faction like the CIS.
@@keeganfox1864 Thrawn is a pretty significant exception if you ask me, to the point where he singlehandedly almost undid everything that the Alliance previously achieved.
@@dimenzed That is true, but for context sake the majority of the actions you speak of that he did took place during the sadly non-canon Legends continuity during the New Republic era. The imperial navy as it is talked about during the video is during the height of their power, Thrawn would fit more into the warlords/imperial remnant period
10:10 - "To deploy such a warship as a glorified commerce raider..."
RIP Bismarck.
I would argue the Rebellion's power projection was more average or even good. Their Starfighter corps were notably equiped with Hyper Drives meaning they can strike anywhere. Having limited assets and almost all those assets being able to appear anywhere their needed its impressive.
They can hit and run, but can never hold due to lack of manpower. The pilots also need to eat and sleep (unlike Vader, who has to be fed through a tube).
The fact that the rebels got delt a pile of drier lint, a few paperclips, a lock with no key, and pile of cat poop and somehow managed to win is awe inspiring in and of itself.
I would argue that the Republic Navy and Separatist leadership was only as capable as Palpatine allowed them to be, feeding information, misinformation and issuing orders designed to put either side at a disadvantage. I think you are absolutely right about the Imperail Fleet logic, Thrawn was wholy capable but even he was stunted by stupidity, arrogance, and pride of those who thought themselves his better. Had Thrawn been given more control and greater resources and not been betrayed again even his betrayal shows how greed just outweighed logic in the Empire, but had he been given more control and resources the Empire would have been ready for almost anything non force related. So good rankings I totally see what you mean about the rebel fleet and the Empire again just not realizing what kind of war they were fighting
Galactic Empire definitely wins, in my opinion, but can I just give a shout-out to my New Republic and their awesome Starhawk Battlecruisers? They've become my favorite new ships since they were described in Aftermath, and let's just say I lost my sh*t when they finally got a model.😊
But ultimately New Republic failed to utilize that ship properly. Sure they used it to dismantle the rest of the Empire, but after that the New Republic just keeled over itself.
@@Lahiss Oh, for sure, but I'm one of those fans who likes that the canon New Republic was flawed and made mistakes. Obviously I would've preferred a war between the First Order and the NR but I'm okay with what we got. Plus, there's still stories after Exegol that are yet to be told! I'm hoping the Republic comes back, humbled and stronger for it.
@@owenparris7490 i'll take the EU's post Endor era and Thrawn's campaign against the New Republic any day.
@@dimenzed Something like that might still happen with the shows, and I'm here for it! I just hope whatever happens doesn't conflict too much with the post-Jakku books like Bloodlines, which was amazing, by the way.
@@owenparris7490 it's the whole treatment of the post Endor era by Disney's canon that i dislike. The EU handles that era so much better. The EU Thrawn trilogy are some of the best Star Wars books ever written.
It would have been interesting to see how the Empire of the Hand stacks up on this comparison :)
I agree that the rebel alliance takes the top slot and the New Republic+First Order belong on the bottom given how quickly they folded under pressure.
However, the Republic, CIS, and Imperial navies are hard to rank. The CIS and Republic navies arguably achieved their objective, entangle the galaxy in a prolonged war which resulted in the erosion of democracy and installation of Palpatine as the uncontested ruler of the newly created Empire.
On the other hand, while the Imperial Navy was basically uncontested on a firepower level for 23 years, they decisively lost the only major conflict they engaged in. And once the Galactic civil war transitioned to a peer-peer conflict they never gained the initiative and ultimately only survived because of sheer inertia.
You gotta remember that the Empire was designed to fall if Palpatine was killed. Combine that with intense dislike towards the Empire in most of the galaxy, and you've got chaos and attacks happening in every system. No navy would be able to stay afloat in that situation.
Just in case anyone was wondering. If the points were added up with a 1-5 ranking this is how it ends up:
1. Imperial Starfleet - 16
2. Republic Starfleet - 14
3. First Order Navy - 13
4. Separatist Navy - 10
5. Rebel Fleet - 8
6. New Republic Defense Fleet - 7
I'd like to see ranking the galactic ground armies of Star Wars. Following a similar pattern, but mainly with troops, ground vehicles, siege, etc.
The alliance had terrible ground forces for the most part. Their army command was so decentralized that you would have some sectors with well equipped and trained soldiers, while others had to rely on farmer frontier militia that had almost no training and support.
"The key to fighting a superior opponent is using their strength against them" Rebel leadership understood this
Defending the empires leadership it had a few diamonds in the rough like Maximilon veers and grand admril Thrawn ad they were both excellent strategists.
Great leadership makes the difference in any military as they know their strengths, limitations and effectiveness of their forces.
History shows this well but a good example would be the American Civil war and see the difference to Union forces after a leadership change in the military had happened.
1. When the Templin assessed the Empire as Excellent in three out of four categories, I couldn't help but hear the Imperial March playing in my head.
2. The New Republic could've easily adopted modernizations of Clone-Wars-era ships (whether Republic or Separatist) to give their fleet a bigger boost than just maintaining upgraded Rebellion vintage.
3. As someone still loyal to the old Legends canon (Disney's "Canon" is an imposter for all I care), I'd like to see how the New Republic and the First Order compare to their Legends Counterparts, the Galactic Alliance, Imperial Remnant, and One Sith.
4. I'd dispute putting the Rebellion ahead of the Empire in this list, as the one that got Excellent in three out of four categories should be considered better than the one that was Excellent in only one.
So, if I may clarify, even though you admit yourselves that the Rebel Fleet is objectively the worst, it gets first place because it won? Taking plot armour into consideration when ranking factions isn't the kind of thing I've come to expect from your channel.
Aside from that, great video.
Actually, when you think about it, it wasn't just plot armor. The Rebel navy did indeed have a thorough grasp of the war they were supposed to by fighting, and while I can't agree with all of their decisions, this makes their victory at least plausible. If we were asking who made the most affective use of the resources available to them and not who was the most powerful, it the rebellion would indeed be first place, and the Empire second, for the reasons stated in the video. That said, it can certainly be stated that if we change what is valued, our ranking system will also change
@@xxxxxx-uh5pu The Rebellion won bc of plot armour dude. It won bc George Lucas wanted a story where the good guys win. The Rebellion only won major battles bc George Lucas wanted them to win, like at both Deathstars.
@@louiswinterhoff334 First, your right about the battles. The Rebellion was a hit-and-run faction, and it even mentions this a few times in the intro blurbs on the original movies. Their fleet was effective in this role, especially the surprisingly well built fighters. The empire, on the other hand, was objectively ill-built for this kind of fighting and failed to adapt to it. The thing is that it is hard to make a movie about death by a thousand cuts.
Second, plot armor has a name in star wars, and they call it the force. From the beginning, these stories had a strong element of mysticism, so the old testament or the Iliad are basically better depictions of realism in Star Wars. If the force is with them and not with you, logic can not save you because the force, like Cthulu, is beyond mortal effort, understanding, and potential. Only a fool would rely on their gods to fight for them, but often this is because they are confusing the role of master and servant.
Last, it is often reasonable to say something in film is improbable, but impossible should be reserved for the out-right physics braking. The ridiculously improbable happens with predictable regularity, because that's just how statistics works. 1/1,000 odds mean nothing after 1,000,000 opportunities, and little after 10,000 opportunities. The clever use statistics, fools rely on them and are inevitably betrayed.
The separatists had a superior navy because they had more diverse combat roles. The venator star destroyer was meant to be a carrier. When up against droid fighters and a navy that fills each role well despite not being designed initially to go together the weakness of not having a dedicated ship of the line designed for that role shows. Often times the venator was only deployed with other venators as well making this weakness even more glaring.
Isn’t the imperial star fleets ranking more of an on paper thing. All of the heavy lifting was the Republic navy VS the separatist fleet. All the elements that define it as what it is we’re in place after the clone wars had been done.
The Institute's rankings are respectable, but I think it's a missed opportunity to not look at things numerically.
With poor corresponding to 0 points, average to 1 point, fair to 2, points, good to 3 points, and excellent to 4 points, the alternative rankings are as follows.
Empire: 12
Republic: 11
First Order: 8
Separatists: 6
New Republic: 6
Rebels: 4
I think these rankings are more in-line with the overall story, but impartial enough to inform on various hypothetical wars, campaigns, and engagements.
If the rebel fleet wasn’t protected by plot armor the empire would have stomped them
Ikr, most of their fleet was ancient rusting surplus.
EU/Legends New Republic: Retained a powerful navy post-Endor.
New Canon New Republic: Eventually scrapped most of its navy post-Endor.
So basically, everything before 21:30 is “the cards each navy was dealt”, and everything after is “evaluating how each hand was played”.
I really love these Military/Political ranking videos and I really like the decision to abstract the final rankings rather than destroying all nuance by assigning numbers to each rank, I'd love to see more of these style videos for any Alternate World, but specifically one on 40k would be cool.
The CIS has a very good navy, there ships are cheap, outside of there cargo freighters they are mass produced, but those freighters are able to keep an entire planetary invasion stocked on supplies, they are kick ass, in there roll, and you talk a lot about the malevolent, and it was a powerful ship, but it had to be a raider, using it in open battle would result in massive friendly fire, and would be unable to deal with a fleet without the surprise of them dealing with the EMP for the first time, as they'd simply flank around it, maybe losing a few veneers for a ship worth 100 at a minimum
Cargo ships converted to war ships will never be as a good as a purpose build one
@@user-sy6ky6ed2efalse. it depends on the designers/etc, especially in a sci-fi universe with shields in an era with 1000 years of only minor naval engagements created by style-over-substance civilians.
the lucrehulk (the ONLY converted cargo ship in frontline CIS service, the other 3 main ships are all pure military ships) carried more fighters than any purpose built ship of the clone wars (literally 10 times more), had greater shields (literally enough to stop entire fleets singlehandedly). its weakness was speed and inefficient fire arcs, but most ships have inefficient fire-arcs in star wars. the only exceptions are 2 of the other 2 ships used by the CIS...
I love navy stuff and star wars, I also love the templin institute! This is my heaven!
Nevermind you put the republic starfleet at 4th
The Empire was only successful due because of the Clone Wars. AoD/AoC and Force Projection was effortless because it was non-existent. Who was there to challenge them? No one. It took nearly twenty years for them to even get into a decent fight. Even then, most were hit-run attacks with two major fleet battles under their belt. You're right about the Leadership, though. Sycophants and backstabbers, all of them.
@@deriznohappehquite The Republic and CIS gave birth to the Empire. While the Republic was more competent overall, it really was virtually non-existent for most of those thousand years. Both the Republic Navy and the Empire success was due to Palpatine. He lied and schemed to make the war footing for the Republic and through that, the Empire. The Republic barely had a military, much less a navy, for a thousand years.
I like how at least 4 of these factions were led by the same guy.
This just proves to me that if somehow Thrawn had been in charge of the empire, NOTHING could have stopped it.
Man your little speech about the malevolence just made me realize that the malevolence is just Star Wars Bismarck. I can’t believe I didn’t see it until now.
To be fair for the CIS. Their leaders like that one nemodian in the ryloth campaign was able to successfully ambush the republic and would have won if Anakin didn't commit a war crime and admiral trench was an amazing strategist.
Excellent video. Only point I'd challenge is the Separatist's Operating Forces, the 'X Factor' you were looking for.
The Separatists had the backing of some of the largest ships/weapons/droids manufacturers in the galaxy. What's important is that these manufacturers were placed in standardized roles. For example all droids aside from Droideka and select others were made by Baktoid, all ships by only 2 massive companies, etc. Even more organized than how the US contracted corporations like Boeing during WWII.
By assigning galactic-level arms companies to specific roles and utilizing a type of army that takes maximum advantage of manufacturing ability, that is how the Separatists managed to stand toe-to-toe with the Republic.
Hence I think their Operating Forces should be at least Average if not Good.
I was hoping to see some imperial warlords on the list or even something like the Fel Empire.
Disney is desperately trying to make us all forget that.
The CIS would’ve stood a higher chance of winning the Clone Wars if Palpatine (Lord Sideous) wasn’t in the picture. The CIS was a major part in Palpatine’s plan to dominate the galaxy, but there were those within the CIS who were actually fighting for what the CIS was claiming to do. Palpatine and his inner Sith circle knew the CIS was designed to fail, but the rest of the CIS were unaware of this and were fighting for their independence.
Before watching, CIS is my pick
Maybe but they got put in a blunt on the end
I agree as well. They have such a wide array of vessels. Many of which are specialist vessels to fill a singular role.
They also manage not to fall into the trap the rest of the factions do. Thats is that their super-capital ships have been mass produced.
The CIS just have the best designed fleet with multiple ships filling a set role in the fleet. Every other faction besides the rebellion relies too much just on one type ship.
I like this, I feel it reflects both how the people behind designing these fleets wanted it too along with how it was from outside perspective.
If we're talking exclusively about how cool the designs look, I think the First Order or CIS win easily.
If we're talking the actual efficiency of their navies, it's a hard thing to measure. The First Order should be a clear-cut winner based on what we know of their ships, officers, and overall accomplishments, but we have no real examples of their fleets in action, and the few examples we do have don't line-up with what we know in the lore.
If we dive into Legends, I'd say the Eternal Alliance would have the best Navy by a complete landslide.
the first order leadership was so bad they made ozzel look like thrawn in comparison
@@laisphinto6372 As I said, what we see in the movies does not line up with what we know in the lore.
In the lore, The First Order was formed from the very, very best of the Empire. The best officers, the best ships, the best soldiers, everyone Palpatine trusted above all. However, the movies show a very politically oriented power-struggle between incompetent officers and cowardly generals.
Which would be fine if the movies actually acknowledged that, yet it's all banished to novels and deleted scenes.
I'd highly recommend reading the 2017 Phasma novel, if you haven't already. It's an incredibly interesting look into why the First Order's leadership is the way it is.
@@tTaseric i rather not i already hated the first order in the movies no need to fuel my anger by reading how they could be actually great
The CIS could probably use a bit more investigating. While the republic fleet was all new, we see very few different kinds of vessels in service, the majority being Acclimator Assault ships and Venator, both of which are multipurpose, by necessity.
In the CIS fleet however, you have droids at every level, like buzz droids sabotaging enemy ships from the outside. Most of their larger ships only had a small skeleton crew of organics, the unfortunate losses making a less harsh blow to the overall force. Despite their forces coming from megacorps in peacetime, they were already had some combat experience, as the freighters were armed against pirates or enforcers sent to bully worlds into paying debts they were overdue on. The psychological side of the war also played a part in their power projection. Grevious's flagship had such a reputation that it's presence in a system could broach a surrender from the locals. It's sister ship was used to capitalize on that, while the Invisible Hand could be deployed where it was more needed.
In my opinion the strongest is the Galactic Empire and Second is the Galactic Republic.
I agree as was said at the start of the video leadership affects everything and I love this stuff good job
Keep in mind that at least Legends-wise, the Jedi ARE considered the premier military experts, having been the spearhead of the forces that beat back the Sith and maintaining most of those martial traditions. Jedi commanders were often well-liked by their troopers, and were quite successful in preserving a force that was outnumbered badly on the ground against forces, that, while inferior, held immense numerical advantages. Moreover, the Jedi were capable of slotting themselves into a desperate shortage of capable commanders in almost every theater, being excellent front-line fighters, good squad commanders, and strong strategists all at once.
The problem is the Jedi's reliance on the Force. If your strategic and tactical acumen is used in conjunction with a connection to the universe around you, and that connection is muddled by the dark side, as it was during the war, your abilities in command will also degrade. It's this problem that the Jedi failed to overcome, though they even came close on several occasions.
People bash on the Jedi a lot, since they lost out against the Sith, but to be honest, they're pretty effective for what was essentially a group of monks with laser sticks.
I liked everything, except your conclusion. You had these different criteria to judge the fleets on, among which was the quality of their hardware, area control and power projection, but in your conclusion you completely dismiss these factors and rank the Rebel fleet as best "because of what they were able to do with their limited resources". Which makes Leadership the only relevant category, because their entire success depended on recognizing that the Imperial apparatus was kept in place entirely by 1 person: Palpatine. Cut off the head of the snake and they win, the fact that they managed to do this was of course largely down to the obsession of Palpatine with Luke Skywalker and the lingering paternal feelings of Anakin.
To rate the Rebel Fleet as superior because of the reason stated is to ignore the nature of the conflict and what led to their victory, which was largely independent of the quality of the Fleet as a whole, it is result oriented.
As a thought-experiment, imagine the following: Luke Skywalker didn't exist, in his place was another human with the same capabilities, but not Anakin Skywalker's son and not force-sensitive. Would the Rebel Fleet have come out victorious? No, of course not, even if they would manage many of the same successes in battles without a force-sensitive pilot (who got guided by a telepathic master Jedi-spirit) among their ranks then the Emperor would have crushed the Rebels and never have allowed anyone to come close enough to him to kill him, nor would Darth Vader. And it isn't like the Rebel Fleet planned for Luke to do all this from the start, their Leadership and psychological knowledge of the Emperor and Darth Vader wasn't THAT good...
We can only surmise that the Rebel Fleet was, as you said, exceptional at making do with what they had, but they would have lost to the Imperial Fleet. The war was won by factors that had little to nothing to do with the fleets engaged in the war and all to do with personal abilities and psychologies of 3 key figures: Luke, Anakin and Palpatine...
Nice.
I find it funny that you can tell who won their conflict based on their leadership score
The Republic is on paper superior to the CIS, it was the behind the scenes machinations of Palpatine that led to the effectiveness of the CIS.
I would argue the exact opposite since palpatine could never let the CIS win too much, since he needed to advertise how good his empire idea was.
Good rankings. Especially with the New Republic. You could argue that they took down a crap ton of Super Star Destroyers, but then you'd have to point out the fact that the majority of Super Star Destroyer losses were due to sabotage and on a few occasions, destroyed by other dreadnaughts.
I get why the New Republic was so afraid of becoming a new Empire, but they learned the completely wrong lessons from it.
Instead of using rag tag capital ships and changing their capital more than their underwear to appeal to locals, they should've created laws to prevent someone like Palpatine from gaming the system or established a more federalist power structure to prevent the high levels of corruption that drove people towards the CIS.
The New Republic was too occupied with *appearing* like they eliminated the flaws of both the old Republic and the Empire instead of *actually addressing and fixing* these mistakes.
Same is true for the First Order whose take away from seeing the Empire lose two Deathstars was to build even more Planet Killers in a vain attempt to make it impossible to destroy them all by sheer numbers.
I think you meant rag tag lol. Had to read it a few times
My rank:
- Galactic Empire
- Galactic Republic
- Rebel Fleet
- Confederacy of Independant Systems
- First Order
- New Republic
I’d say the republic ultimately ones out given how long they lasted
If they were exclusively ranking the fleets, I'd say that was stupid. But they put the Rebel Alliance on top, when the Rebel fleet is literally the worst out of them all (save maybe the new republic).
Yeah, the republic fleet is definitely the best
Worth mentioning with some of these factions is that their navies were not always their main priority. Obviously nobody pays for a fleet of warships only to blindly throw them into hopeless fights, but there is a world of difference between having the means to potentially achieve something and possessing the drive to meaningfully do so. The administration and overall leadership of the wider CIS for example were heavily disconnected from the actions of their military, relying on Dooku to manage such arrangements and having to trust in the reports he brought back. The Empire, on the other hand, was basically a fleet of warships that also ruled planets when they had the spare time in their busy schedules, their navy was everything to their leadership and thus had an immense amount of resource priority, to the detriment of their ground forces.
The CIS holding its own against the Republic seems impossible until you consider that the goal of the Separatist Navy was primarily ideological, sowing panic and chaos throughout the Republic rather than being designed to fight pitched battles specifically. Meanwhile, for all the assets and talent that the Empire possessed it mattered little when every institution and hierarchy was designed around the whims of one absolute authority figure who figured he'd already won and everything from this point would be smooth sailing.
I disagree with the rebel fleet being the best. Plot armor is not a reasonable basis for success.
kind of hillarious that most Rebel heroes are also imperial defectors or know tactics very well from the empire. Ackbar learned from tarkin as a slave, basically every rebel ace was a tie Pilot, the leaders were imperial Senators etc.
The Imperials had better resources and ships (with the exception of starfighters) but their commanders were idiots.
This, the rebel fleet was a total joke, for most of the war they had nothing but outdated light cruisers and corvettes with the occasional stolen imperial ship or two. The only thing it had going for it was it’s starfighter corps.
@@0816M3RC because writers failed to write smart villains.
@@empirednw6624 also the buttload of intel they had on them , most of the time inside jobs that destroys the facillities , basically they are a spy Network first, a movement second, a starfighter corps third and a fleet fourth and then maybe an army fifth.
I do think this analysis was flawed, but it's a completely understandable flaw; the flaw that I saw was that Templin was drawin its conclusions from a very few number of sources, those few bein the movies and some of the shows (mainly the Clone Wars show), but here's where it's understandable, Star Wars as a franchise has existed for almost 45 years and there's two distinct version of the same thing and the actual in universe history of Star Wars goes back to almost 50,000 years, The Templin Institute was tryin to save themselves a massive headache by not trying to find every scrap of lore they can find on the fleets they were lookin at which is completely understandable. So while this was looked through a narrow lens, it's a lens that I think most of us will take for our own sanity sake.
I don't know if The Grand Republic deserves the "Good" for winning the Clone Wars.
They didn't win due to superior fleet tactics/starships, whether they had them or not.
The Grand Republic won the Clone Wars, because the dude running both side sent his apprentice to murder the entire leadership of the CIS military then surrender on their behalf.
tactically though, the clone troopers and republic navy was pretty good at what it did. As were the droids, because the dude running both sides needed an effective military to start off his empire with.
Very interesting. The final ranking was made according to the discrepancy between actual means and actual achievements.
Feels kind of bad to add the First Order Navy on here, considering how badly written they are
I loved and agreed with most of your analysis. An Institute as revered and inter-dimensionally accredited as the Templin, however, should get a copy editor such as I to make certain important words such as “SepAratist” are spelled correctly before the video is posted. LOL!! Great work! I enjoyed the video
Enjoyed the video but disagreed with the Imperial/Rebel operating forces and control assessments. Empire had clean slate to build a galaxy spanning patrol force with no peer threats. Primary targets would be starfighters, freighters, gunships, and small capitals. They chose overly massive anti-capital destroyers and disposable fighters lacking hyper drives- rebels and smugglers repeatedly evaded both. That focus also lacked numbers to fulfill policing, so they were filled the gaps w/ obsolete Arquetins and Gozantis that were repeatedly defeated.
The rebel purpose was guerilla warfare - they utilized strong hyperspace capable fighters and swift corvettes alongside medium rapid response fleets. They made up for crew and resource deficits with droids and smaller vessels. Ad hoc rebel forces repeatedly achieved their objectives. Heck, the rebels managed to pull together a fleet for a critical objective over Scariff faster than the Empire could… former has “poor,” area control and the latter has “excellent?”
Given their known objectives, the Empire demonstrably, canonically failed in force composition and area control. An “excellent” force with their goal would have numerous medium capitals paired with corvettes, interdictors, and hyperspace capable fighters alongside a small core of fleet destroyers; instead, they inverted that paradigm. I'm not sure how a force incapable of fulfilling its primary function can be rated as anything better than "fair." You can absolutely blame leadership and the Tarkin Doctrine for their choices, but that doesn’t change the fact that their force composition and area control were somewhere between ok and terrible.
I might be wrong about this, but from what I could tell, the Republic's strategic and tactical levels were both run largely by the Jedi. Palpatine as Chancellor didn't do much beyond giving them the green light to do their thing. Now, Palpatine as the shadowy master of the Confederacy was much more hands on, and often gave direct orders to the captains of relevant ships. In essence, the leadership of the Republic was fighting through the fog of war, but the leadership of the Confederacy was explicitly guided by an all seeing eye. I think this is the only reason the war dragged on so long. The Confederacy had access to information it really should not have had, and the Republic was not given the same boon (considering the point of the war was to spread, disorganize, and tire the Jedi order, who were in charge on strategic and tactical levels.)
It feels weird to say that if the Chancellor (the highest technical office of military leadership) was removed, the Republic's leadership would be excellent. But consider that every other level of strategic and tactical office actually ran well and in concert with one another. This is opposed to the confederacy, empire, and first order, who all had strategic and tactical levels of office constantly infighting for glory or loyalty. Mofs fighting among themselves and distrustful of Vader, Inquisitors willingly killing one another for a promotion, Hux, Kylo, and Snoke fighting against one another, distrustful subordinates loyal only out of fear, and so on. On most operational levels, many other of the naval superpowers had leadership issues. For the republic, the problem was pretty much solely on the Chancellor.
The Empire won the Clone Wars but not because they were excellent! Palpatine’s plan was designed that they win.
I’m for the CIS/Separatists being excellent.
Your videos are true Art, of the best quality, Kudos, and thank you.
Did you just forget that the separatist navy was capable to siege Coruscant only becouse the planet defences were off?
they really need to remove the off button
The new canon New Republic fleet is exactly why I preferred the Legends fleet. In the decades post-endor the NR constantly captured and re-deployed Imperial star destroyers, and iirc expanded their existing cruiser forces. They still lacked in standardization, but they kept the excellent leadership and complemented it with additional power projection and, most importantly, diversity. That diversity of doctrine and ship design is really what saved them in the Yuuzhan Vong invasions. It's hard to plan against an opponent that could field anything from super star destroyers to jedi hit squads and from Hapan battle dragons to Mandalorian supercommandos. Not to mention the HUGE variety of smaller fighters.
I would have loved to see this done with Legends instead of Disney. Or both. The New Republic in Legends was pretty decent.
@Man with hair I can disprove your statement in two words: I care.
I’d love to see you do this with other alternate worlds, maybe Mass Effect next.
And here's the reason why the Alliance to Restore the Republic and the Galactic Empire are always the first two factions people think of when they remember Star Wars.
No it’s the clone wars
For a sequel of this video, we should see ground forces / army
The reason the cis did as well as they did was essentially “perfect information” they had the commander and chief of the side they were combatting feeding them information. They only did as well as they did because Palpatine wanted them too.
You say that the Republic Navy had no Star dreadnought but that couldn’t be further from the truth. They had the Mandator series. Granted, they had to refit them into Mandator II’s to make them useful but they had them nonetheless. They also had battlecruisers in the Maelstrom, Praetor, and Secutor classes, which could theoretically fulfill that role as well. There was also the fact that the Republic was vastly outnumbered yet was still able to hold its own against the CIS
Then there’s the Empire. Yes in the majority of engagements they could retake and potentially hold any system they wanted, but there were some exceptions. Most notably is Mon Calamari, which successfully threw off Imperial rule and remained free throughout the Galactic Civil War. There was also the Lothal campaign in Disney canon that also saw Imperial rule overthrown and never returned. The Empire wasn’t this “monolithic territory holder” y’all make it out to be
One important thing to note is that half of the factions on this list have the x-factor of Palpatine’s machinations. First off, the Clone Wars was essentially a “hoax”, as it was really just Palpatine enacting a form of coup to take over the galaxy. Therefore, the various factors regarding each side were manipulated by him, designed to more or less introduce a stalemate, ensuring no one side gained a significant advantage over the other. As for the Empire, it was designed to fall without Palpatine in charge, no matter if he died from natural causes or some external factor like assassination.
There is one faction that you left out: the New Republic/Galactic Alliance (NR/GA) from Legends. I would like an analysis on them in the context of this video plz. Personally, I think operating forces as excellent. Yes they started off with the same fleet as the Rebel Alliance, but it evolved with the times, introducing a standardization of professional warship classes (exemplified with the New Class Modernization Program, the Mediator class battle cruiser and the Viscount class “star defender”) that could go toe to toe with any of their opponents (obvious exceptions to super weapons and Vong Worldships). This extends to power projection as well, with the NR conquering a significant portion of the galaxy in military campaigns. Area Denial/Area Control, I rate good, as they lost systems in battle (especially in the Vong War) but at the same time there were many cases where they were able to repel attackers. Leadership is also ranked as good. On the one hand, they had some pretty competent military leaders in folks like Ackbar and Antilles as well as excellent naval doctrine that had evolved from hit and run tactics of the Rebel Alliance to the various realities of war which the New Republic faced, such as adapting to the changing circumstances of the Dark Empire Crisis and its aftermath as well as the Vong War. The institution of the numbered fleet system greatly helped with command and control of the vast territory under NR control. On the flip side, there were quite a few times where politics interfered with military operations, a great example being a significant portion of the Vong War as well as the Second Galactic Civil War, although because of these reasons I am tempted to give it a fair rating
Was initially shocked by the CIS fleet getting lower rankings than the Republic Navy which was only able to ever win through Jedi heroics but the final tally was well adjudicated
2:30 “If you judge a hit-and-fade admiral by their ability to fight in attrition warfare, they’ll spend their whole career thinking they’re stupid.”
The rebel resistance might be considered in terms of the amount of ships they killed with their one mon cal cruiser in a lightspeed ram
I think most people prefer to pretend that the lightspeed ram never happened
@@chipsdubbo4861 I wish that was the case lol
I would argue that the Rebel Fleet's Power Projection be bumped a notch higher. They couldn't HOLD an area, but they did frequently hit the Empire a lot harder than anyone was expecting. Hit and run the attacks may have been, but without power, the hit doesn't matter. Harassment and raids are only effective if they actually accomplish something, and the Rebellion was at least a constant thorn in the side of the Empire to the point that significant resources were allocated to rooting them out. The could not project their power for long or over wide areas, but they way they managed to focus what they had against a target is not to be dismissed.
This is especially true after the Battle of Fresia and the acquisition of X-Wings gave their starfighter pilots a much harder punch. To say that the rebel's monopoly on that advanced design was a huge boon to the rebellion's efforts is an understatement. I would even argue that without X-wings the Empire likely would have won.
But on another note, I think you should examine the Legends New Republic fleet and GFFA Fleet on this same scale. Yeah the Canon New Republic was dumb and useless, but so is everything Canon at this point. Lets see how the Navy with Nebula Class Star Destroyers stacks up. Or the one with Scythe-Class Battle Cruisers. Maybe even toss in the Fel Empire Fleet for fun.