7.10.15

Clone Army faces up to budget squeeze

As the largest component of the Clone Defence Forces the Clone Army generally feels any budget strain more than the other services and hence will feel the effect of the 15 billion zark plus programme to buy Dino worm drives and fully upgrade the Soulaki fleet.

The Clone Army say they will not cut any troops or equipment (on top of existing planned "downsizing") but that new weapon procurement will be slowed down. J89FSU and J55ZDM2 production has been slowed to minimum rate and will likely remain this way until 2119. Tapir production has also slowed though was not at a high rate anyway due to delays in the development in the next generation J5HD model. Artillery will take a hit though. The Clones have nearly 60000 J107 self-propelled guns on their books though only a fifth are in service, it it likely nearly 20000 will be removed from inventory and sold for scrap (the condition of many of these is rather poor as they have been stored in the open air since the Clone Wars).