I managed to extrapolate a preliminary list of what might be in a typical Terran or NTF fleet and a Vasudan battlegroup.
This is hardly an exact list, but it's the best thing I could come up with. Judging by briefing and debriefing texts mentioning "major victories against the NTF" when only a destroyer and a couple of cruisers are revealed to have been destroyed, I figured that the number of warships in any given battlegroup couldn't be more than a few dozen. I also noticed in the GVA Setekh and GTA Charybdis tech database entries that a "wing of Setekhs is assigned to every vasudan battle group" while "a squadron of Charybdis ships are assigned to every Terran fleet."
I managed to figure out a while ago (from the Colossus cutscene in FS2) that a wing is equal to four ships and a squadron equals three wings (thus a squadron equals 12 ships). From this info, we have
-quality proof that there are 4 Setekhs in every Vasudan battle group while a Terran fleet has 12 Chaybdis ships. Having only a dozen or less AWACS ships in a battle group seems to point to a similar number of warships: this basically means that there are only going to be dozens of warships in a battle group, rather than hundreds. The "major victories" debriefing comments likewise points to a relatively small number of warships.
I haven't been able to come up with exact numbers for a typical complement of a battle group, but it's reasonable to assume that since fighters, bombers and even AWACS cap ships are organized in wings and squadrons, it's reasonable to assume that the rest of the battle group capships would follow this method of organization. And so...
"Typical" Terran fleet organization:
(Note: I say "typical," because in wartime, ships get destroyed or created or re-assigned to different theatres of war as the situation warrants, etc., etc., so specific numbers in a battle group are usually in flux.)
One wing of 4 destroyers (Additional Notes: one of these destroyers will be designated as the flagship/command ship of the fleet. Also, Hecates are relatively new in the GTVA arsenal as they were only starting to be deployed in the year 2367, so there shouldn't be more than one Hecate in a given Terran fleet, if any Hecates are present in that fleet at all. If no Hecates are present, then the 4 destroyers will all be Orion-class.)
One squadron of 12 corvettes
Two squadrons of 24 cruisers (any mixture of Leviathan, Fenris and Aeolus classes is possible)
One squadron of 12 Charybdis-class AWACS ships
Unknown # of support ships (including Hippocrates-class medical ships, Zephryus-class gas miners assorted freighters, etc.). My guess is there are enough of these ships "as are needed."
4 or less GTI Arcadia installations per system where the fleet is based. Arcadias are REALLY big and expensive to build and the tech database said that each Terran system has "at least one Arcadia," so I figure there can't be more than a few of these in every system. The number of Arcadias will vary from system to system, as they are used by both civilian and military personnel. Regardless, however, one of these Arcadias will be referred to as the Fleet Headquarters (i.e. 3rd Fleet HQ in Capella).
Neo-Terran fleets will follow a similar set-up as above but will NOT have the squadron of Charybdis AWACS ships. When they first appear in the SOC mission, Commander Snipes refers to them as "the new AWACS ship." This implies that the NTF didn't have them as the Rebellion had already been going on for 18 months. Also, if the NTF had AWACS ships with the same jamming technology, they could have realized that an AWACS ship was jamming transmissions while the SOC was hijacking the Sunder transport. Since Snipes refers to it as "new," and the NTF Rebellion had already been going on for a while, it seems to imply that it was just created, which means the NTF would be unable to acquire such new technology, as the GTVA would do its utmost to prevent such a useful technology from falling into NTF hands. (Besides, we never saw any AWACS ships flying for the NTF.) So no AWACS squadron for the NTF fleets.
"Typical" Vasudan battle group organization:
One wing of 4 destroyers (Additional Notes: As with the Terran fleets, one of these destroyers will be designated as the flagship/command ship of the battle group. Also, even though Hatshepsuts are relatively new as they were only starting to be deployed around the year 2360, the Typhon database entry implies that Hatshepsuts are more numerous than Typhons as the Typhons have been more extensively replaced. Since the tech database also says that Typhons were
less compatible with beam weaponry than Orions were, this makes sense. I figure in a typical destroyer wing, there would be 2 or 3 Hatshepsuts and either 2 or 1 corresponding Typhons.)
One squadron of 12 corvettes
Two squadrons of 24 cruisers (any mixture of Mentu and Aten classes is possible)
One wing of 4 Setekh-class AWACS ships
Unknown # of support ships, including Hippocrates-class medical ships (there aren't any Vasudan med ships), Anuket-class gas miners, assorted freighters, etc. My guess is there are enough of these ships "as are needed."
4 or less Vasudan installations per system where the battle group is based. (I prefer the Cairo MOD over the Karnak MOD, myself...
) Like Arcadias, Vasudan installations are REALLY big and expensive to build, so I figure there can't be more than a few of these in every system. The number of Vasudan installations will vary from system to system, as they are used by both civilian and military personnel. Regardless, however, one of these installations will be referred to as the Battle Group Headquarters (i.e. 13th Battle Group HQ in Deneb).
I think I'll post this on FRED Zone, too.
Hope this helps.
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FRED Zone's Grammar editor/ FS history moderator
Former member of TCA
Member in good standing of 99th Skulls
Honorary member of TCS and UGC
"I created your civilization...now I will destroy it!"
--Ra, the Sun God[This message has been edited by Su-tehp (edited 01-21-2002).]
