26 fleets is a lot.
I doubt the 12th and 13th fleet would have more than a couple of corvettes.
I doubt this, well, that they'd have serious skeleton fleets. The GTVA needs an actual Fleet sized element in each system, because no one knows where on Earth the Shivans are going to come out from. I propose rather, that many of the ships we see are rotated from other Fleets into 3rd and 4th fleet in the retail campaign to keep the sorties from falling on the same guys and girls the whole time.
That way most GTVA members get valuable combat experience, and we minimize psychological casualties. I don't doubt that perhaps the 3rd and 4th were bolstered, but it's not they cobbled together a few cruisers and a corvette in each system and called it a Fleet to make the system's population feel better.
Why would the battlegroup/fleet composition vary so much between the two halves of the GTVA?
The Terrans even have more systems...
IMO, a Battle Group is organized differently to a Terran fleet. I think Battle Groups are commonly formed and disbanded. Perhaps a ship can be part of more than one Battle Group at a time.
Well, you can only really be part of one BG at one time. But it's likely ships were part of different BG's at different stages. I think
used the word BG in place of Fleet to avoid player confusion.
