just another day wasting away in margaritaville trying to figure out how the actual fuck the Grand Army of the Republic is organized. send assistance i am shaking sobbing crying in a corner

So, the GAR is a mess as we all know. It doesn’t really make sense but I untangled some of it so here ya go. Pictures of what I figured out are at the bottom.

So there are 10 systems armies, led by the Jedi council. Of the other 2 council members, Shaak ti is on Kamino overseeing the clones, and there is one other council member, possibly Yoda, who isn’t directly over a group. That one is up for debate though.

Each army has 2 sectors, likely one led again by a council member, (jedi high general) and the other led by a senior jedi master. Each sector has 4 corps (so 8 corps an army) with each corp being led by a Marshall commander and Jedi General. These generals are probably mostly masters, with some knights as needed. My personal thought is that the high jedi generals are in command of the system army, one half of the sector, and one corps. Then depending on the master, they may be in direct control of one legion, regiment, OR battalion. (We never hear of regiments but assume they are there). My argument for this is that Obi-wan, Mace, and Plo Koon seem to have smaller groups that they lead personally for stealth missions and they attach to the groups they are assisting, but seem to be outside of all other command structures.

Again, the show doesn’t quite make sense because we want to see characters we know which means we see council members working together more than we probably should, but whatever. Moving on.

Legions are generally the lowest grouping led directly by a Jedi (and a senior clone commander), probably mostly knights, but a good chunk of masters too. I gotta think that at first it was based on jedi rank, then the council started fine tuning based on actual skill level at leading soldiers. Regiments are led by junior clone commanders and Jedi commanders/padawans when possible. Padawans are much more outside the structure though, because they spend most of their time with their master. They are likely to not be in direct control day to day, but are placed in the needed command per battle or siege.

Battalions work the same way, but are technically led by battalion commanders, which are made of companies which are led by captains. I’m not going any smaller but you get the idea. Everything from sector army down is made of 4 of the lower thing, so in the whole GAR there are a grand total of 10 system armies, 80 corps, 320 legions, 1280 regiments, 5120 battalions, and 20480 companies.

Which brings me to naming. Honestly the numbers are probably arbitrary, and don’t repeat other than the 10 system armies. (The 7th sky Corps is in the 3rd system army). Everything smaller than a legion (possibly a battalion) probably has a name not number (torrent company) but if you did use numbers, repetition would no longer be a problem because you would divide by legion first, then the unit you are naming-at least on official records. The one caveat is Obi-wan’s battalion, which is probably special cause it’s hooked to a high general. Again, battalions probably have numbers, but since you aren’t going to be mixing system armies often (or ever except that the show does) repetition in numbers isn’t actually an issue, especially if any repetition is in different unit sizes, battalion to legion. Plus battalions will have a secondary name, like attack battalion, which could also help. If there are difference numbers may repeat within those.

There are 400-430 jedi generals at any given time, with extra jedi either floating to give assistance, do spy work (quinlan vos), or fill other needed roles like medical and keeping the temple running.

Unlike your average earth army, officers are in the thick of the fighting, meaning that the higher ranked officers will coordinate whatever they are leading, but will generally personally lead smaller units because Jedi are most effective in the center of the action. Senior padawans were probably almost all knighted within a few months of the clone wars starting because they needed more generals, which is how Anakin ended up with a legion.

For the most part jedi work alone or in pairs, so the high generals will give their units places to be and general objectives and then let them go. There is less oversight unless large planetary assaults like Umbara are needed. A system army will be spread out wide because there are only 10 armies to cover the galaxy, even taking into account separatist space. So corps or legions of the same sector might be spread out on different planets. Along with this, there are not other branches of the military. So each sector army is going to be made of ground units, space/pilot units, etc. Some units are clean up or occupation units that come in after the fact, though we really only see the attack units because of our main characters.

The title/rank Commander is used for multiple ranks, but Cody is the highest rank clone in the GAR, or at least one of them. He is a Marshall commander, over a corps, so there are likely 80 of them, but on top of that he works directly with a high general, making him even higher in the command structure even if not officially. He’s gotta help with the sector and system armies sometimes honestly. Cody seems to directly lead his battalion (no battalion commander) but deals with logistics for the whole corps.

High jedi generals are gonna pick a unit size that works for them like I mentioned above. Obi-wan often runs stealth or speed missions, unless he is working directly with Anakin. But even then they are the pair sent in to tricky situations with basically no back up. The GAR uses them when they need something done with the least amount of men. Some generals that are used in big assaults or blockades are going to use bigger units as their personal unit. We see Mace Windu have a battalion, but also lightning squadron within that for truly messy situations. Mace and Obi-wan also likely guide the other Jedi High Generals (the open circle armada fits in here somehow? Honestly idk) in battle strategy and keeping all the armies cohesive and out of each other’s way.

Oh and also the coruscant guard are outside the 10 system armies, led directly by palpatine (who is technically the commander and chief of the whole GAR which is why the council always has to listen to him) and led by 4 clone commanders, Fox seems to be the most senior, either by rank or self sacrifice, we aren’t really sure. They protect the planet and primarily the senators.

I pulled all this info from wookipedia, the couple of great GAR posts I have on my blog from other people, and puzzle work, or just personal headcanons.