There are a bounty of insufficiencies in the novel and movie that are grist for our posting mill. The size of the Corleone family is one of them. We read and see the family with, principally, only two capos. Sonny has a regime, but after his death his regime personnel are distributed among Tessio's and Clemenza's regimes. So, we're back to two. That seems improbable. If, as Sonny states, the Corleone family can match the other families gun for gun, then he's talking about 1,000 men (I don't buy one Board members's argument that those 1,000 guns would include associates recruited just for that purpose). If the Corleone strength is that great, then only two capos would be an administrative nightmare for Tessio and Clemenza.
Yeah, two Capos with 500 guys each would mean they'd have literally no fuckin free time.
I get the sense that Tessio and Clemenza were given very long leashes even before Vito retired. Think of it like the Holy Roman Empire in a sense. Whatever Vito said was LAW. Vito says no drugs - no drugs. Vito says Carlo or someone can't join the family - they're out. Vito wants someone dead - they're dead. But...Tessio and Clemenza could do what they wanted outside of that rubric and as long as they're kicking up money. So basically you might have guys like Frankie basically being the equivalent of a Capo with a crew of guys reporting to Clemenza, but having the official rank of Soldier.
Also, Fredo is said to have his own people in GF II. Which makes that three official "crews".
I think the Godfather family was divided something like:
BOSS
Underboss (a floating position that depended mainly on who was more influential at the moment - Sonny was basically acting Underboss before Vito was shot it seems)
Consigliere
Capos (Sonny, Tessio, Clemenza, Fredo; later Rocco, Al and Frankie)
Sub Capos (Frankie, Al Neri; later Willie Cicci)
Soldiers/Buttons (Willie Cicci, Al, Rocco, etc)
Associates (anyone who owed the Don a favor/Judges/Politicians/hired thugs)
Basically a massive layer of insulation between THE DON, and the lowest level guys. I mean, Willie Cicci alludes to never having really interacted with Michael as a Button, and yet he was a made guy, a soldier. As Willie put it "The family had a lotta buffas"
