How the HUGE Imperial Military Collapsed in Just ONE Year

when the second death star exploded over the forest moon of endor it brought a shocking chill over the entire system especially amongst imperial forces some say that they felt darth sidious die supposedly he had been using sith battle meditation and the sun emptiness everyone felt was because all of that dark side energy that filled him with purpose and fervor was now gone other imperials mentioned an invisible massive wave of dark energy that dissipated from his body upon expiration and that was the chill they were feeling of course these were all just superstitious beliefs and the resulting shock of seeing something that should have been indestructible get blown up into pieces in reality palpatine had died several minutes before wedge until he's x-wing and the millennium falcon even reached the reactor core of the death star the imperials who managed to escape the massive explosion soon began to question all sorts of things if the second death star could be destroyed then what else could these demonic rebels accomplish the durasteel bulkheads on an imperial class star disorder suddenly felt a bit thin the helmet and armor that the troopers wore in battle a bit more brittle at first a single star destroyer fled without even collecting its tie fighters then another entered hyperspace soon a general route began to occur thus began the beginning of the end of the empire as we knew it hello there friends welcome back to another episode of generation tank my name is alan the imperial remnant might seem identical in appearance and purpose to the galactic empire it has been featured heavily in the new mandaverse portion of star wars lore but this was a military and political force that was very much a shadow of the once glorious empire today we'll be taking a look at what happens to one of the largest military forces the galaxy has ever seen once its political popular economic and logistical support is removed this is the story of the imperial remnant [Music] cut off the head of the snake they say and the body will die the saying can be true in an autocratic system where the ruler has stayed in power long enough to destroy all opposition all possible alternatives for leadership and institutions that might share power with him but the problem is even when the head of the snake dies its body could still be full of venom and that could create a lot of havoc to everyone around it just because palpatine died didn't mean that overnight the empire was no longer a threat as a matter of fact it still greatly outnumbered the rebellion in manpowerships territory and war material this was one of the greatest fears the west had when the soviet union collapsed they had no idea where all of those nuclear weapons would go they were worried that many of those nuclear weapons would fall into the wrong hands or enter the black market and that's because autocratic systems are heavily focused on top-down leadership and once the top is removed chaos ensues in the empire there was a complete lack of accountability there were no checks and balances in place to watch over the government's actions this also meant that the laws and the constitution lacked any real power and were a second priority to the protection of the dictator's regime and so no one really respected these institutions that were supposed to say determine the line of secession sometimes of course ailing dictators will prepare a heir or some kind of leader that will take over their position once they die like kim jong-il did with kim jong-un but palpatine was a vindictive sith lord and so the only thing he left behind was a contingency plan which we'll talk about later but we definitely didn't have was a successor and so with the only true authority in the empire gone suddenly every general admiral and local governor was left alone without any direction and a lot of resources and military equipment and troops which of course leads to a new period of imperial history the rise of the imperial warlord the imperial remnant seems to indicate that a single consolidated military force was created out of the ashes of the empire but what actually happened was you had dozens of factions emerging over nights many of which were now fighting and competing for the same resources imperial governor every chalice once noted that the imperial class star destroyer was one of the most resource intensive ships in the galaxy this was a 1.6 kilometer vessel that was essentially a massive flying city it required around 40 000 crew to be operational and could carry up to an entire legion of storm troopers along with all of their vehicles and equipment there was also usually a wing of starfighters along with other transports and support vessels on board now essentials like consumables and hyper fuel could last the vessel for months if not years but other basic goods like toiletries or cleaning supplies or you know fresh produce have to be replaced on an almost daily basis then you add munitions like proton torpedoes energy packs for the stormtroopers rifles spare parts and bombs for starfighters these needed to be restocked continuously depending on use and after the battle of endor rebel alliance or new republic recruitment exploded and finally we had a conventional shooting war these star destroyers were finally being put up to the test in all fairness living up to the hype at least for the first few battles the rebels were slowly taking territories including important worlds with infrastructure that was essential for the imperial military for any of you guys whoever worked at a warehouse loading and unloading stuff into a truck and then shipping it to another place and loading that into another thing you know that having the right tools and infrastructure in place can really speed up this type of transport of goods in the galactic empire there are actually only a few shipyards in the galaxy that were outfitted and capable of refueling and re-equipping star destroyers in a timely fashion and so when shipyards like fondue were taken by the rebel alliance or even more worrying when the crown jewel shipyard of quat drive yards was taken these imperial star destroyers no longer could efficiently resupply or if they did resupply it would take much longer usually involving small shuttles that actually had to transport goods from the surface of planets into space when engineers on board were unable to fix or replace certain systems this led to the isd's reduced combat ability now smart imperial captains were able to use the isd's fearsome image to keep i don't know green rebel captains at a respectful distance but this only worked for a certain time soon more and more rebel captains began to realize that these star destroyers were quite vulnerable especially when they were undermanned and functioning with half of their weapons and placements also with the introduction of the starhawk class battleship suddenly the rebels had an advantage we began to see a shift on the battlefield no longer were the rebel alliance carrying out hit and run attacks and the empire could no longer carelessly speed into the middle of the battle asserting their dominance for the first time in the galactic civil war the rebels were staying around to fight and they were winning at the same time the imperials were growing more and more cautious now we oftentimes look at warfare in very simplistic terms we look at statistics or maybe blueprints but obviously these uh you know kind of infographics are not enough to really show us the whole entire picture take a look at this graphic right here this is a pretty shallow comparison between the ukrainian and russian military one of the key numbers here is that the ukrainians have only 200 000 active soldiers versus the russians 900 000 active soldiers it seems like the russian federation has a clear advantage so why aren't they winning when we take a look at that number nine hundred thousand active soldiers we don't really understand what that means how many of these individuals are combat ready soldiers how many of them are conscripts or support units in a modern army for every one combat soldier that can be anywhere from two to ten support units we're talking about logistics engineers mechanics medics even people cooking or more indirect combat roles like artillery units now if you take a look at the ukrainian side 200 000 active soldiers this might be a much more accurate assessment of their combat ability and that's because ukraine has its back against the wall and more importantly its civilians are actually filling in a lot of roles a lot of support roles they're either raising money for armor helmets and medical gear and driving that gear to the front like our friends at the army sos organization or maybe it's a babushka making borsk or wives making sandwiches for their husbands for their nightly patrol you also have it specialists using drones to scout areas you have farmers serving as engineers and recovering broken and damaged vehicles so in ukraine the whole civilian populace is fighting for survival this is total war in russia you have a populist that thinks this war is actually just a special military operation a lot of these people don't even know why they're there in the first place this can't be seen in a simple infographic the emperor faces a very similar uphill struggle while on paper the new republic has far less ships and also far less soldiers millions of civilians were either joining the fight or in some way trying to resist the empire the cruelty of despots like palpatine or puti require them to rule by fear once that fear is gone those who have remained quiet and neutral up until this point finally find the courage to rise up and fight now these individuals aren't the vanguard of course the courageous individuals who fight no matter how terrible the odds are but that's okay because these late comers will find courage and security in their numbers and these large numbers do matter a whole lot this is usually what turns the tide in a war like the one the rebel alliance is fighting against the empire and so while a fresh imperial class star destroyer or stormtrooper legion might still be able to defeat its new republic counterparts after four or five consecutive battles that imperial class star destroyer starts showing signs of wear and tear maybe there's some hull breaches that they can't fix anymore maybe some shield deflectors are permanently damaged the same thing goes for that stormtrooper legion it might have been fearsome in its first battle but now it's running low on anti-tank weapons and detonators and back to patches for its wounded this is again why infographics usually don't work there's so many factors that goes into real-life combat situations during the last year of world war ii as hitler's dependency on methamphetamines grew so did his obsession with super high tech weapons like the king tiger tank or the sdg-44 one of the first widely produced automatic guns chambering a rifle round they also built a moon base and of course they had one of the first operational jet fighter bombers the me262 fortunately the nazis were too high-tech for their own good and so during the last battle of the war in berlin they basically had to rely on old men and young boys armed with panzerfaust and bolt action rifles and at the same time the soviets and the americans were high-tech enough that they had weapons that could do some serious damage to the nazis more importantly they had the economic power to continue to supply their soldiers for the offensive as if things couldn't get worse for the imperials well then you had darth sidious contingency plan this included things like operation cinder which was designed to test the loyalty and resolve of the remaining imperial troops it was a scorched earth campaign that sought to destroy several worlds so that neither the empire nor the new republic could benefit from their resources from vardo's to burning con these were some of the most horrific and senseless battles of the entire galactic civil war they caused massive amounts of death and also rooted out the remaining imperials who still had some independence and goodness in their hearts the only individuals who remained in the empire now were the most cowardly or the most desperate or the most cruel by the time the imperial remnant arrived on jakku they were a shadow of the military force they once were the stormtroopers no longer kept their armor clean some had even gone tribal and started painting their helmets and worshipping gruesome deities of death and destruction i believe it was the constant sandstorms getting into everything that drove these last sane individuals completely mad the imperial fleet was in no better shape several ships were understaffed or using green cadets in officer roles because so many of the senior command had died they were also running short on tie fighters and pilots and worst of all galius racks the protege of palpatine and essentially attracted the imperial remnant here so that they could create a final showdown with the new republic his ultimate goal was to blow up the planet once the battle commenced and so ended the empire officially any successive imperial remnant group that would appear afterwards like moff gideon's faction would be even more extreme more desperate and more dangerous so there you have it guys that is the story of the imperial remnant let this be a cautionary tale for all of you military planners out there when you plan your military force make sure that it will be able to survive in the best of times and also the worst at times the empire like an imperial class star destroyer was essentially way too over leveraged and once they started losing territory shipyards they could no longer support the same quality of troops and quality of vehicles well guys i hope you enjoyed today's episode don't forget to subscribe and hit that notification bell down below so you don't miss out on the rest of our awesome content as usual my name is alan and my allegiance is to the republic to democracy you

Channel: Generation Tech

Views: 294,842

Keywords: generation tech, star wars

Id: 4uJ8h8vLZnQ

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 28 2022