Mr Bean:They noticed 30 ships in 25,000 woah the rebels had a huge intel advantage over the empire.
If the rebels could track his ships that well then I will admit his us eof so little forces makes sme sense (thats the reason I originally thought he had so few ships there but then I learned the empire had 25,000 ISDs so a few hundred shouldnt be misssed, I didnt account for the rebels having such good intel).
The way I heard it the space forces got hammered because without Papy doing Jedi mind control they fell apart - not exactly great statement for the empires abilities (I got that from one of the thrawn books but I cant remeber which one).
First off you overstate how hard it is to take 50k People
You know how easy it is to find out where a Ship is?
A great deal of SW ships are set up as Plantary Defenses and Sector Fleets, When you have 100 Ships here and 100 ships there its easy to count, By nessity those ships have to go to planets to Resupply at planets. What do planets have? People, millions to billions to trillions of people, Any of which could with a Telescope count ships in Orbit and with PUBLIC ACCESS(On some planets) to a Sensor picture of the space area.
Think about it this way
50k On an ISD any of which, Inculding Droids are spys you know where the ship is
If you manage to get a single Spy on a planet of Billions you know if any ships are there also if you have a family memeber of any of the crewers you know if thier ship is on speical assigment because you stop getting Holo-calls and letters from them or they even out-right tell you
You vastly-overstate the diffuclty of tracking ships and from numerous EU sources we know that there are Rebels(sometimes larges groups) on everything from Jerkwater planets like Tatooine to Courscant there are rebels around. Furthermore how many covert droids could you build and have go around? And Slicing? Those ships have to be resupplyied and regularly meet with other ships to pick-up odds and ends, Just because a Ship CAN Carry supplies for a year without stoping does it mean they always do? And what about thier Escourts? Don't they need supplies faster? Meaning they have to go to planets and filepaper-work, scehdualing what-not
Second Heir to the Empire is the book your thinking off and after the Emperor died they lost thier *rush for all intents and purpsoses where like a Drug additct right after it wears off and they go through With-draw, the fact they did not sit still moan, complain and throw up speaks greatly of thier Traning
Remeber Papy was driving them, motivating them and when they lost that they suddely lost thier drive and went through Withdraw