But that's what a minimum is. The lowest possible value you can push an example. Ie an example of one class of cruiser is an example of 1 ship. So 629+ would be a true minimum since we don't know what numbers the other ships are produced in.
No. When estimating things, you first attempt to get multiple data points. Then you make estimates based on said data points, and then you combine all the estimates to get a reasonable range.
So for example if we are seeking N:
- Datapoint 1 gives N as 500 - 10 000
- Datapoint 2 gives N as 250 - 8 000
- Datapoint 3 gives N as 4 500 - 90 000
- Datapoint 4 gives N as 3 000 - 9 000
- Datapoint 5 gives N as 45 000 - 450 000
Then we can safely conclude that "N" lies somewhere in 4 500 - 8 000 range, with Datapoint 5 being an invalid range that can be dismissed as an anomaly.
What you are talking about is an
absolute minimum. But "absolute minimum" and "reasonable minimum" are not the same.
No it doesn't "require" it. Indeed if we take the Gothic war list as anything resembling representative it outnumbers almost everything by five or ten times.
Further we have the issue of scale. Lunar class is a mainstay, Super easy to build and yet in a seeming major conflict only 20 ships served In it. That suggests small fleet numbers.
That means literally nothing on its own, just like anything else taken alone means nothing. Just as an example, if we take the Singapore Squadron in 1941, it would be easy to conclude that half of the Royal Navy battleships are
King George V class. At that point however there were only three KGVs in service, out of a total of 15 or so battleships (so 1/5).
Imperium is an empire of million worlds. A million warships would be "small fleet numbers" for them.
Battlefleet Gothic is also the sight of the Gothic war, it likely is more fortified than. A random sector in bumfuck nowhere. It's numbers would be maximums, not minimum, in this example.
Except they aren't:
Each battlefleet normally consists of between 50 and 75 warships of varying size, although in some sectors this will be more or less, according to the importance of the sector and the number of enemies it must contend with.
Battlefleet Gothic itself may have anywhere between 60 and 100 warships, so it indeed
is "more fortified than a random sector in bumfuck nowhere". But difference isn't large.
No, what your suggesting will encourage bias in interpretation, intentional or otherwise, to try and make evidence fit.
We are far more likely to discern the writers intent by looking at each example in as much isolation as possible to try and see what it's trying to say with a clean slate as possible.
If you go in thinking the Lunar example has to fit with the sector quote you are going to force it too.
You have shown nothing of the kind. Further I am throwing nothing out. I am simply looking and doing my best to evaluate the evidence as it is presented.
I don't even disagree with your ship count in and of itself merely you labling it a minimum when it's clear your arguing for the most numerous fleet you feel you can get away with.
Looking at as wide range of somewhat-reliable data is the only way to
remove bias. If you decide to pick a single data point, how do you do it? Random chance? Lottery? Most people will simply pick what they like and discard everything else, which is the definition of bias.
And that is exactly what you are doing.
Not to mention, Warhammer 40k is broad enough that you can find support for literally
everything if you look hard enough. Want Imperial Navy in the dozens? Sure, why not. Want it in the billions? You can find evidence to support that as well. May be a
little bit more difficult to do... but by no means impossible.
For example: "Hundreds of billions of hands" serving in the Navy can go up to 900 billion. And if we take
this list, crew numbers are about a quarter of what I had used for crew sizes in my own estimates. So we have 3,43 million crewmembers per batch of 72 ships (4 BB, 4 BC, 20 CA, 4 CL, 40 FF). 900 billion / 3,43 million = 262 390 batches; times 72 ships = 18 892 080 warships.
But you can also interpret it as 200 billion, and use my own estimate of 13,72 million crewmembers per 72 ships, which results in 14 577 batches and 1 049 544 warships at the low end.
So which is it? Is it a million warships or 19 million warships? How do you know which number is more likely?
The only
possible solution is to look at whatever
other pieces of evidence there may be.
Which doesn't tell us much. Is 51% typical or 99%. Further we are explicitly told that your numbers will vary due to importance and threat. Up and down. So while it certainly means something I don't agree with your hyperfixiation on the word "typical/normally", I feel you are over stressing them at the expense of the rest of the example.
Further you kind of keep flipping on whether every sector has 75 ships or if they have been pulled to reinforce other, more important sectors. To put it simply if you are willing to accept the Imperium will have sectors below 50-75 for any reason you can't also demand every sector is at 50-75 to boost fleet numbers. You have opened the door on "typical sector" being malleable.
Imperium will have sectors below 50 - 75 for whatever reason.
Imperium will also have sectors above 50 - 75 for whatever reason. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the outliers will nullify each other and thus the most likely range of estimates for the Imperial Navy
It is not perfectly reliable result, I agree - possibility always exists that say 51% of sectors have 50 - 75 ships, and 39% have zero ships. But then possibility always exists that 60% of sectors have 50 - 75 ships, 10% have less than that, and remaining 30% have 200 ships on average with a few percent of sectors going into thousands.*
But it is the
most likely range. If we just ignore it, then there is no basis for calculating anything.
Just for fun and to ilustrate what I am talking about:
- Minimum:
- 200 worlds per sector
- "Million worlds" = 5 000 sectors
- 39% of sectors = 1 950 sectors
- 50 ships per sector = 97 500 warships
- TOTAL: 97 500 warships
- Maximum:
- 50 worlds per sector
- "Millions of worlds" = 19 million worlds = 380 000 sectors
- 60% of sectors = 228 000 sectors
- 70 ships average = 15 960 000 ships
- 30% of sectors = 114 000 sectors
- 200 ships average = 22 800 000 ships
- 5% of sectors = 19 000 sectors
- 2 000 ships average = 38 000 000 ships
- TOTAL: 76 760 000 warships
So the lowest possible estimate is 1/787 (0,127%) of the highest possible estimate. It is also 1/2,6 (39%) of my own lowest likely number (250 000 warships), while the highest possible estimate is 16 times (1 625%) my own highest likely number (4 723 000 warships). Interestingly, the number I decided to go with (1 080 000) is 4 times the lowest likely number but 1/4 the highest likely number, despite the fact that I had made
no conscious attempt to place it into middle ground between the two estimates.
And the fact that it is an imperfect estimate is what then requires us to use as wide possible a data range, and arrive at conclusion through synthesis of outcomes. Is it a perfect solution? No, but it is the best solution possible.
If you reject that, you may as well conclude that there is no point in discussing fiction and go read books on statistics. Except even these don't really have hard data.
I feel like you missed my point here. Namely sectors don't magically spawn ships. It's an administrative division and that's it. More sectors would mean less ships because the Imperium has finite resources and can't meet its demand.
Hence the inherent liability of your count sectors and multiply methodology.
That has nothing to do with anything. We are told how many worlds Imperium has and how many ships it typically has per sector. Any newly formed sectors would be within the statistical anomaly range.
the issue is more your questionable methodology and selective interpretation of those datapoints.
There is nothing much selective about it. I used multiple datapoints and included all interpretations that I felt didn't strain credulity. You might believe that I should have included absolutely unreasonable interpretations of the sort I discussed earlier in this post, but I don't see what good would be arrived at by doing that.
I would say 1.) Should be most consistent evidence. In this case what numbers are most typically seen in each individual example. 2.) "Sense" is relative to the actual facts. Ie if the most consistent example was a segmenta of less than a thousand then it would make sense for an Imperium to have less than 6000 ships.
1) Individual example of
what? For example, in Return of the Jedi, the Imperial fleet seen at Endor may well have been the entirety of the Imperial Navy concentrated in one place for all we know. Yet logic dictates that it must have been only a portion of the Navy.
2) Yet the most consistent example is
not a segmenta of less than a thousand. We have that one single example against multiple mutually independent examples supporting much larger numbers.
Which is is vague and open to interpretation dependent on your starting assumptions. It's a calculation, not a fleet number. We can go or lower depending on what variables we assume.
Which is why we use
all the data we have to arrive to some sort of internally consistent conclusion.
Another calculation, one that relies on the sector quote for figures if I'm not mistaken so its not even a separate datapoint.
It actually is a separate datapoint, because calculation has multiple potential points of failure and this checks a different one.
Going off a boastful statement from a character, not even establishing if he means just ships crews, entire naval personal or anyone who served in the last ten thousand years is hardly solid evidence of anything, let alone using a point system the author of that quote likely never even Considered.
Even if it is boastful, if he was wrong by an order of magnitude, boast would not really work because everybody could see through it.
And it is quite clear he is talking about ships' crews, just if you have any familiarity at all with naval terminology or with basic context. "Hands" quite explicity refers to personnel of the ship, that is, to sailors. Therefore, "hundreds of billions of hands" can only refer to ships' crews. And he is quite clearly talking in the present, so it cannot be "anyone who served in the last ten thousand years".
It tells us very little about the Imperium, merely the assumptions of the person making that calculation.
Which may be good or bad but largely unattached to the numbers coming out on the other side of the equation.
According to you, there is no point in discussing
anything at
any point. Because everything we do is based on
assumptions.
That really depends on numerous factors such as current losses and the importance of the sector(s) under attack at the moment. As even you agree sectors can be built under or over depending on need or what have you. Taking the 50-75 as the average requires a consistency the Imperium doesn't really have.
It also assumes things will "even' out when the resource strapped Imperium is likely to have more sectors under than over since their hat is they are constantly short of everything.
Check the quote: it says that sector fleet normally has 50 - 75 warships. Normally, as in,
typically,
usually or
on average. Some sectors may have fleets in thousands while others may be completely devoid of ships, but majority of sector fleets have somewhere between 50 and 75 warships.
For all practical purposes, a sector's battlefleet is the largest operational naval organisation, under the command of a Lord Admiral. Each battlefleet normally consists of between 50 and 75 warships of varying size, although in some sectors this will be more or less, according to the importance of the sector and the number of enemies it must contend with.
And no, Imperium is not "likely to have" more sectors under than over. That is not how either statistics or the English language work. The quote of 50 - 75 ships does not tell us how many ships Imperium
needs, or
wants to have. It merely tells us how many ships the Imperium
has in the average sector. And fact that the Imperium is resource strapped just means that 50 - 75 ships per sector fleet is
not enough.
For all we know,
Naumachia Imperialis calls for the Navy to provide each sector with a minimum of 500 warships, but 50 - 75 is the best they can manage. Or they may
want fewer ships than that (unlikely) but are forced to have said number.
I haven't dismissed any evidence. I took an example where the Imperium said one thing and then immediately in that same quote hedged it and treated it exactly for what it is. A vague, open ended statement that can almost anything you want.
The issue isn't that I'm discarding examples it's that I don't share your assumptions.
Yes, you are discarding examples and misrepresenting evidence. See for an example of latter just above.
You are desperately looking for vagueness beyond what there actually is.
Then quote actual examples of utilization. Show me an example from Warhammer. I would love to see it because I have a feeling that's not going to turn out as you expect.
But beating you chest that the GE hasn't fought a peer power proves nothing. That's no indication of how the two sides compares.
More likely, it is not going to turn out the way you expect. Imperium has never had an issue with producing supplies (except maybe for warships); logistical issues it has faced have to do with supplies actually
reaching the troops.
And even with warships, Lunar class cruiser can be produced over a
feral world:
The Lunar class cruiser forms the mainstay of Battlefleet Obscuras with over six hundred ships serving throughout the Segmentum and more than twenty ships fighting in the Gothic war. The uncomplicated design of this class ensures its enduring utility, enabling vessels to be built at hive and industrial worlds normally unable to muster the expertise to construct a capital ship. Perhaps the most remarkable example of this is the Lord Daros, constructed at the feral world of Unloth.
The primitive tribesmen dwelling there were influenced to mine and smelt metals which were the presented for 'sacrifice' at sky temples established by the planetary lord. The raw materials were then lifted into orbit at each vernal equinox. After a period of eleven years the tribes were rewarded for their effort with the sight of a bright new star moving across the heavens as the Lord Daros boosted outsystem to join Battlefleet Obscuras. - BFG Ships of Mars pg 13
Feral world, a.k.a.
prehistoric Earth, constructed a Lunar-class cruiser in 11 years.
And for the forge world:
While the prodigious output of a Mechanicus forgeworld can see a new cruiser put to space several times a year, this is only through economies of scale, as a single cruiser hull can take more than a decade to construct from the keel-up for even the best and most well supplied shipyards, and many smaller shipyards take decades and the resources of an entire world to construct a single such vessel. - BFG Battlefleet Bakka pg 8
The only question then becomes how many Forge Worlds are there. But since most sectors have at least one, and there are thousands of sectors in the Imperium, at minimum there are thousands of Forge Worlds. Absolute minimum (based solely on there being "thousands of sectors") would be 2 000 Forge Worlds, each putting a new cruiser to space "several times a year" (so 3 - 5 times a year), meaning production cap is
at least 6 000 cruisers per year. Using the actual minimum of 10 000 sectors and thus 10 000 Forge Worlds, we get number closer to 30 000 to 50 000 cruisers per year.
Of course, sectors may have multiple Forge Worlds. Calixis Sector is above average as it has 14 Forge Worlds, but even assuming average of 3 Forge Worlds per sector, maximum of 20 000 sectors would mean 60 000 Forge Worlds and thus capacity to produce up to 300 000 cruisers per year.
And these are warships, which they canonically have trouble producing. Of course, much of the industrial capacity is likely spent on maintaining the existing fleet... but the same would be true for the Galactic Empire.
I am not only aware of Imperium tech durability, I mentioned it earlier on this very subject. Now stop and think carefully. Everything the Imperium build lasts for centuries if not thousands of years unless it's blown up and what evidence we have says that isn't happening frequently and the Imperium is short manufactured supplies. In what universe does that suggest the Imperium has any industry worth speaking of?
Universe in which they are constantly at war. I do not know what you think about how weapons operate, but war is
hard on people and machines both. They get damaged, worn out and have to be maintained constantly. Even with modern ships, without problems with warp travel, you cannot deploy all of them.
And repairing and maintaining ships is going to take resources that could otherwise be used to build new ships. In order to maintain active warships, you need to do literally the same stuff you need to do to produce new ships. It is somewhat easier because you already have a ship to work with, but on large scale, it means that it eats into your theoretical production capability. Ships being repaired and maintained will take up resources and dock space both, thus reducing the number of ships that can be built.
Which is why your example of Galactic Empire building 25 000 Star Destroyers is ridiculous: they were retiring old assault cruisers ("Venators") and building new star destroyers. 1 for 1 replacement in de-facto peacetime is nothing special, and it does not imply the ability to replace the losses in wartime, much less to expand the fleet during the war.
And in terms of mass, even 25 000 Star Destroyers per year would be less than Imperium's minimum production capability.
Quote please because as I recall and the wiki supports, hive fleet leviathan change of tactics was because the Imperium defeated the previous, smaller, hive fleets who didn't disperse rather than itself coming in above the Galactic plane.
Warhammer 40k 8th Edition Rulebook, pg 52 - 53:
Learning at an exponential rate, Hive Fleet Leviathan could not be thwarted by the same strategy twice. Advancing steadily, their superior numbers cleared the sector of life before the xenos made planetfall upon Baal and her twin moons. The first nineteen waves, each larger than the last, were driven off at great loss to the Blood Angels and their successor allies. Five Chapter Masters fell in that bitter fighting, three in the Battle at the Dome of Angels alone. TheTyranids began the process of draining Baal and her moons, absorbing even the rad-poisoned deserts of Baal Secundus. With their defences in ruin and the moons stripped and broken, the remaining Space Marines retreated back to the rubble of the Blood Angels' sprawling fortress monastery. There,they prepared for a last stand as the next wave swept downwards. Doom, it seemed, had at last come to the Sons of Sanguinius.
It was then that the Great Rift cracked open the galaxy, and the withered Baal System was blasted by the aetheric storms. Although no further attack waves came from the Leviathan fleet, not a single Imperial defender remained alive upon the last moon, Baal Prime. On Baal itself there were already enough Tyranids there to destroy the Imperial troops many times over. Even with no chance of victory, Commander Dante led his troops, each fighting retreat seemingly more hopeless than the last. As the final perimeter was broken, the stars reappeared. Looking skywards, the Tyranids sought contact with their hive fleet, but it was gone, replaced by a newly arrived Imperial fleet.
Like an angel of vengeance came Roboute Guilliman and his crusade. After many more battles, Baal was finally cleared of the xenos threat. A great rebuilding of both world and Chapter was undertaken, for the Blood Angels and their successors were sorely needed elsewhere. What became of Leviathan is a mystery, although a clue was found upon the now-barren moon of Baal Prime. Xenos skulls were piled impossibly high in the much-reviled, eight-pillared symbol of one of the Blood Angels' most terrible and ancient nemeses: the Bloodthirster Ka'Bandha
And if you are going to use the wiki,
Lexicanum is a far better source.
No, the Imperium isn't dispersed from the milky way galaxy. Which is the context of our discussion, namely a Galactic war. Which the Tyranids don't seem capable of so far from peer powers it seems the Imperium is used to fighting more regional ones. So the idea the Imperium only wins by amassing from a broader scope then its current foe is still a valid interpretation.
Uh, the hell are you talking about here? Tyranids are definitely capable of a galactic war, far more so than the Orks for example (though Orks get a massive Waagh from time to time). Most other threats are indeed regional, but also highly dispersed.
By comparison, we have seen no evidence of the Empire being capable of a galactic-scale war at all. It spent all its time chasing a band of rebels around the galaxy and scaring demilitarized systems into submission. Republic did fight a war, but even so numbers were ridiculously small compared to the Imperium (even using a "million" units as actual military units,
this scene shows units as 9 x 10 clones + commander, so 1 100 000 units is 100 million and a change worth of clones). And implication is actually that "units" are actual clones, so you have 1 100 000 clones to wage an interstellar war.
Yes, absolutely true. I didn't think that was a secret, the Empire lost at Endor and wasted tons of resources on white elephant projects that were the deathstars.
They aren't the most competent force in the universe but that loss had little to do with their ship fleet actions.
No. But it does show how the brain bug of being constantly at war makes magically makes you a top tier combatant is not based on reality.
Now if you want to focus on the Imperium's actual performance by all means.
Point is that the Galactic Empire is neither prepared nor has ever
bothered to prepare for a galactic war.
Imperium had an equivalent to Endor when Horus invaded Terra... but unlike Palpatine, the Emperor actually had people who could take over management of the galaxy in his absence (surviving Primarchs, the
Senatorum Imperialis). Palpatine by contrast centralized all decision making with himself, disbanding the Imperial Senate in ANH, and even his "right-hand man" Vader was little more than an enforcer. Empire's military exists solely to protect Palpatine's position as a ruler. They have no need to prepare to fight external enemies: there are no external enemies
to fight. All the enemies are internal, and the military becomes a police force.
And this basic nature of the Galactic Empire's military has significant implications for its warmaking capability. Namely, that military is geared to prevent usurpation more than it is to win a war.
Now where have we heard this before...
In that regard, Somalia and other African militaries are more similar to Galactic Empire than they are to the Imperium.
Not being united kind of makes that outnumber humanity meaningless for our purposes. It isn't like they all will be fighting the Imperium at once after all.
Further a peer opponent would be someone roughly on par with the Imperium and the largest Ork empire is only in the thousands. If mere thousands of worlds can truly equal the entirely of the Imperium that suggests how weak the Imperium actually is.
No, it doesn't. It just means that the Imperium has to spread out as well. And you are making shit up again (to be more polite than your statement here frankly warrants). Ork Empires and Ork Waaghs! are two completely different things. Ork Empires were never a major threat to the current-day Imperium. But Ork Waagh! is a migration-turned-military-campaign on a galactic scale, and its nature means that it quickly snowballs in size. Even the smallest of Waagh!s can likely deploy more forces than a largest Ork Empire... because
if orks were numerous enough ta form a WAAAGH!!, dey wouldn't be wast'n time settl'n down 'n an empire, get it?
For example, Beast Waagh! deployed multiple Attack Moons (Death Star equivalents, basically a cross between Star Wars' Death Star and World Eaters), and even converted the world of Ullanor into a supersized Attack Moon (but never got to deploy it). It was a war on a truly galactic scale, something not seen since the Horus Heresy.
None of which were capable of threatening the entire galaxy at once so not really comparable to the GE and again leaning into the Imperium winning by being larger in scale than stellar industry or great fighting prowess.
And what is your proof that Galactic Empire is "capable of threatening the entire galaxy at once"?
And, 40k wonky scaling aside, quite small in relation to the Imperium. Like I said.
Like you said, but what you said is wrong. Dark Eldar aren't that small:
In the depths of the webway lies Commorragh, the lair of the
Dark Eldar; called the Dark City by those who fear to speak
its name. Commorragh is no mere metropolis, for it is to the
largest of Imperial Hives as a soaring mountain is to a mound
of termites. Its dimensions would be considered impossible if
they could be read by conventional means.
They are only small in relation to Imperium as a whole, but they may well be more numerous than e.g. Tau.
And who, whatever their true number, aren't interested in fighting a peer, Galactic war. So not that relevant to our discussion or establishing how strong the Imperium is.
I'll remind you, I cited all these factions myself in this thread, to you. You brought zero new information. Infact the only thing you added was your personal opinion of how awesome each faction is and how they are "beyond anything in Star Wars" while leaving out scale or any hard numbers.
You cited all these factions and acted as if Imperium can fight each faction on their own.
You fail at comprehending even things
you write.
I believe Star Wars Uprising makes the number canon for Disney as well.
OK.
Which ironically would be a lower limit on GE production rates since they presumably built other ships during the 20 odd years of their existence and they built two deathstars during the same time.
Even if you assume that they built all the Star Destroyers in a
single year, that would be 1 trillion tons in a single year. More likely is that construction was spread over a period of time, thus reducing the time needed.
Imperium's
minimum is 7 300 escorts, 2 960 cruisers and 71 battleship per year, or 206 billion tons per year if we use absolute minimum numbers
and tonnage. If we use their
maximum production, you get 200 000 cruisers per year, so 400 000 escorts and 2 000 battleships, for a total of 77
trillion tons per year. Something of a median would be using 10 000 Forge Worlds figure, for a total of 10 000 cruisers and cca 20 000 escorts and 100 battleships per year, for a total of 3,35 trillion tons per year.
And as I noted previously, that is a fraction of actual industrial capacity as they need to maintain existing fleet.
As for the Death Stars:
The Ramilies-class star fort Imperial Heart was a weapon built on the scale of a planetary moon, a behemoth of plasteel and ceramite. Six months earlier, wheezing tugs had dragged it from its ancient orbit about Holy Terra and pushed it through the hectic space lanes, past the gantry locks, scaffold-rigs and ore-barges of Mars, and out to Mandeville point 4HA.
The Endeavour of Will had one massive advantage over the Iron Warriors. Even with its weapons mostly dead and its garrison outnumbered, its sheer size made it a difficult fortress to break down. Between the Iron Warriors and the command centres at the heart of the star fort, the machine-spirit housing and datamedium vault, the bridge from which the whole star fort was controlled, were hundreds of kilometres of corridors, thousands of bulkheads and blast doors.
-Architect of Fate
Imperium has multiple of these, to the point they can afford do deploy three to protect a single Forge World:
Tithe-servant to Cadia, the forge world of Agripinaa was known as the Orb of a Thousand Scars, its inhabitants sealed within their hive complexes in order to protect them from the toxic atmospheres; eighty million industrial slaves sustained by the agri worlds of Yayor, Dentor and Ulthor.
It was a bastion of a planet, with its own battlefleet and a trio of Ramilies-class starforts in orbit about its surface of mines, factories, refineries and industrial complexes.
-Cadia Stands
I am aware you drew upon this quote. I am quoting it for context and to highlight your selective interpretation of it and questionable assumptions you use to arrive at a production rate.
Assuming thousands of forge worlds when you only have evidence for hundreds ect. In short your calculations suffer from "garbage in, garbage out" making them of little use for our discussion
They do not. You just have a highly selective approach to evidence, dismissing anything that doesn't fit your preconcieved notions.
Not at all. It mentions this segmenta is mostly empty in contrast to others so its "thousands of sectors" are emptier than everyone else. So how much would you like to bet the majority of those sectors are indeed empty of ships as well since there is nothing to guard or fight over?
Uh, reading comprehension much?
Sector consists of a certain number of settled systems. These may be concentrated in a single star cluster... or they may be spread over across the void. But how spread out planets are has absolutely no bearing on Imperial fleet numbers, as Imperium deploys a certain number of ships per sector.
Imperial sectors are like Byzantine themes. You have a certain amount of resources (planets) necessary to support an army (fleet), but different themes (sectors) will need different acreage (light years) to do so.
Look at this:
Armeniacs Theme has 15 000 troops, while the Thracesian Theme has 20 000 troops despite being a fraction of size.
So whether sector stretches over 5 or 50 light years is immaterial so long as it has a certain number of worlds.
Actually my point was how 200 ships were a huge loss that put a great strain on the entire segment. That the numbers, at least in the BFG, are relatively tiny and all examples drawn from it should keep it in mind.
Edit: Actually does the Imperium have 10,000 sectors as minimum?
The quote says "Each is responsible for the Imperial Navy's fighting forces across the thousands of sectors in their allotted quadrant of the galaxy, or in the case of the Lord High-Admiral Solar, the substantial volumes around Holy Terra itself"
Implying a distinction between Segumenta Solar and the other four who have thousands of sectors allotted across their quadrant. So The Imperium is likely closer to 8,000 sectors plus however Segumenta Solar is organized in. And of course the Segumenta Tempestus's "thousands" sectors are almost certainly under strength compared to the galactic average due to the sheer scarcity of matter so they likely don't have 2,000 sectors in terms of their sector fleet
90%+ of things I cite or base my estimates on come from the sourcebooks, including BFG.
And RE:Edit, you really are desperate to lowball the Imperium, aren't you?
Look at the map:
Segmentum Solar is about the same size as Segmentum Pacificus, and we know that it is the most densely settled human region in the galaxy. With sectors being determined by number of planets rather than volume of space, Segmentum Solar should have more sectors than Segmentum Pacificus at the very least, since their geographic size appears to be roughly similar.
The SSD and five of the other ISDs were Death squadron ,Vader's personal fleet. So unlikely to be attached to any particular sector fleet.
As for the rest at Endor I don't think it said where they came from. Could be all or part of a sector fleet or anything.
My point is that said fleet is the largest gathering of Imperial warships we ever see in Star Wars movies.
We have no evidence it was and evidence that suggests it's unlikely such as the larger fleet seen in ROTS to the 25,000 ISD number.
My point exactly. So why are you using one set of standards for the Galactic Empire and entirely another for the Imperium?
You might notice Warhammer isn't consistant with numbers.
Now which Tyranid codex is this from. Because I've found some variations of this such as the number being 1.46 rather than 1.5 and stated to be "space born creatures" which opens the possibility of it including transports analogies but potentially the drop pod spores the Tyranids use as well.
And of course this is only one example equally canon to my humorous example of a hive fleet numbered in the low thousands.
Yeah, it isn't. Neither is Star Wars.
It is from 4th Edition Codex. And even if we assume that it includes spores, at very least Tyranid hive fleet has
millions of actual spaceships ("Tyranids travel the galaxies and the voids between them in vast, drifting Hive fleets. These consist of millions of sentient craft.")
See my problem with this is you repeatedly claim there are no or few explicit numbers available then turn around make claims involving explicit numbers. We don't know every sector fleet has 45 ships in it or that the 600 Lunars are evenly broken down in the Obscurus segmentum. Maybe it is or maybe it isn't. We can't say for sure. So its one thing to say that's an estimate, even a conservative estimate, but its not really a minimum. Rather the only minimums are the explicit numbers given.
I do think its very obvious who ever plugged in 600 for the class number likely either wasn't thinking about the 50-75 per sector fleet or didn't have "thousands of sectors" in mind. Which is the problem with any of this deep analysis of fictional polities. Any example is more likely to be dictated by the needs of the plot or rule of cool than.
Hence why I tend to rely more on explicit numbers. the 10% of a "millions" strong merchant fleet or Chambers' fleet numbers or "hundreds" of Forgeworlds. Not to spite you or to try and whittle the Imperium down to "win" but rather, in my experience, IPs will at least pay lip service to official numbers far more so than they will to fan calculations and thus more representive of the "reality" of the IP.
Your problem is that you are apparently unfamiliar with the concept of synthesis.
No, there are no hard numbers. And there are some contradictory numbers. That doesn't mean we cannot arrive at a reasonable range of estimates by combining multiple pieces of information.
Have you ever solved a puzzle? It looks a bit like that.
Same goes for the Galactic Empire. We don't really have any good numbers for it as well. And while SW fans tend to gauge Imperial industrial capacity by Death Stars, truth is that Death Star is basically a plot device, not a weapon. It is Lucas' equivalent to One Ring, and absolutely no thought was given to its implications.
So the only real minimum number for the Galactic Empire is literally the two-dozen or so ships we see in Return of the Jedi. But we do know that it most likely wasn't the entire Imperial Navy, and there are statements which give greater numbers. So people tend to use these, because the absolute minimum number makes no sense.
This is merely a rehash/reboot of your same argument that suffice it to say I don't find anymore convincing than the first time.
What you are describing isn't a production rate. Rather you took the canon datapoint that a forgeworld can build "several" cruisers within a year due to sheer scale and building multiple ships at the same time and make not only the assumption they can do this year in, year out for perpetuity but every forge world/ civilized world in the Imperium is dedicated to shipbuilding and either aren't required to manufacture anything else or can meet their quota while fulfilling their ship construction.
At no point do you stop and consider why, if this is their production rate, the Imperium isn't drowning in cruisers considering they can and do last for millennia.
At no point in your analysis do you stop and actually address the Lunar quote that apparently Hive and "industrial worlds" frequently can't muster the expertise to construct any capitol ship but the Lunar class so its debatable how much they are contributing to ship production.
At no point do you address the only given number for forge worlds is apparently "hundreds" not thousands or tens of thousands.
And finally you keep linking back and citing yourself as supporting evidence for yourself. Like I would understand more if they had a ton of explicit or even implicit examples but it frequently seems less about presenting the evidence with minimal assumptions and more an exercise of what you can get away with assuming.
Edit:
I completely forgot, your calculation completely ignores the actual canon production rate we have for the Murder class cruiser, the previous "mainstay" of the Imperium fleet before the Lunar class, of a little over a hundred and twenty-five cruisers per thousand years.
And you are completely ignoring realities of naval production and logistics. No navy is ever going to be able to produce ships at the theoretically possible maximum rate, because resources and docks will also be taken up by maintenance of the existing fleet. So assuming the unchanging industrial and docking capacity, increasing the number of ships already in the fleet will cause reduction in usable shipbuilding capability.