How large is a fleet and who gets to be in it?

[Justice]

A couple of SF organizational questions:

1) How large of a fleet/ stff etc would normally be assigned to a space station during a wartime situation. Basically how many ships could i expect to have at a strategic station that holds major importance and will have ships dedicated to its defense.

2) Im thinking about sending a group if ships on a long-term exploration mission. Something on the order of 5-6 years with minimal contact with SF. No a voyager clone, but something planned out and prepared. How many ships would be reasonable (im planning on having several go for resupplying and also to give the players mutiple roles to fill) and what classes would be deemed appropriate?

[pesterfield]

I'm not sure about 1 so I'll just deal with question 2.

A good number from one of David Weber's books is six pure science/scout vessels, backed up by whatever your universe uses for a light carrier battle group.

That lets you present a peaceful image on first contact, but if things go wrong the calvary can easily be called in.

[toadkiller]

As far as # 2, I'm doing something similar and using: 1 explorer, 2 light cruisers, and 2 small scout/science ships, along with a handful of runabouts for "PC missions". A bit more back up than the "lone starship" but not so much that the players can risk a fight in someone else's home space.

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TK

[Phantom]

Not knowing the complete strength of SF, I would have to say that if your station is in a major flash point of a war a taskforce of anywhere from ten to twenty vessels, plus aux.'s would be a good guess. Though all the ships would not be at the station all the times...some would be out patrolling the front and on other duties. It depends on which theory you subscrbe to...A hugh SF...or something smaller. Myself, I think that SF is quite small, relatively speaking, all though the DW SF was always trying to scrap up one more ship to hold the line.

I liked the battle shots, visually, that were in the, but never agreed with the number of SF ships in them. The CG artists use the cut & paste options way too much. The loss of 39 ships at Wolf 359 was a staggering blow to SF...Now all of a sudden they have ships coming out of the wood work?

Anyway, it is your game.

[qerlin]

WE've had fleets running from a 50 ship task force up to 300 ship wing. I figure the number depends on the job the fleet has. Like a standing fleet would probably have smaller numbers than a mobile fleet; and mobile fleets would break into divisions or wings to spread their presence.

[Phantom]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by qerlin:
WE've had fleets running from a 50 ship task force up to 300 ship wing. I figure the number depends on the job the fleet has. Like a standing fleet would probably have smaller numbers than a mobile fleet; and mobile fleets would break into divisions or wings to spread their presence.</font>

Demonstrates my point fairly well. Qerlin seems to believe that SF is a "hugh" organization, which is fime. I on the other hand don't see SF having the resources for a 300 ship wing. Even the Romulans, who use ship centuries, can't always come up with many ships at times.

It just depends how you want to run your game.

[Antonsb214]

Usually the fleets of Starfleet operate in small groups (up to 6) to form squadrons. Squadrons form into fleets, in Starfleet Battles, fleets usually had 20-40 ships in them. A battle group in the modern navy usually has about a dozen ships, this is formed around a flagship(CV, or BB), escorted by cruisers(CA,CL), with a screen of picket ships(DDs, DEs).

[Justice]

ok, ill redirect my original post a bit since the ideaass have helped me flesh some things out.

Im plannignto send my PC group, which currently has 3 ships that we rotate between depending on the mission, likes of the players etc,which allows everyone, including me to play multiple roles. We have been fleshing out a possible new sector of space to explore and im thinking of running it as an unsupported exploration, meaning they are still within a few months of Starfleet suport but wont have anyone else to bail them out in any immediate crises except the fleet they take with them.

Here's my task, if you were an Admiral assigned to the most choice exploration assignment, leading this group on such a mission, what would you try to requisition in terms of ships and/or personnel. I'd like so good rationales for thee selections before i put my fleet/crews togther since ill be adding numerous ships that the players have never encountered before but will obviously interact with if the situation arises. If it makes it simpler, you could use the Battlestar Galactica idea as a starting point.

Justice

[Antonsb214]

A Galaxy or Sovereign class as flagship.
Intrepid or Nova class as scouts.
Maybe a Sovereign, Galaxy, and an Intrepid class trio would be enough. State of the art systems and upgrades for a Galaxy class would put it on more equal footing with Sovereign class. Intrepid good for scouting, Galaxy as back-up (more firepower), and Sovereign to make any adversaries re-think their plans. All ships are Explorers. May have civilians on Galaxy class; Scientists, technicians, etc.

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"Retreat?! Hell, we just got here!"

[SIR SIG]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Antonsb214:
A Galaxy or Sovereign class as flagship.
Intrepid or Nova class as scouts.
Maybe a Sovereign, Galaxy, and an Intrepid class trio would be enough. State of the art systems and upgrades for a Galaxy class would put it on more equal footing with Sovereign class. Intrepid good for scouting, Galaxy as back-up (more firepower), and Sovereign to make any adversaries re-think their plans. All ships are Explorers. May have civilians on Galaxy class; Scientists, technicians, etc.

</font>

Thats kinda like putting all your eggs in one basket!

Remember as of 2375, there is like 2 Sovereigns and maybe 12 Galaxies.

I'd say a Intrepid, Excelsior, and a 4 nacelle ship. Plus an assortment of Danube and Talon ships.

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'...The Borg have stopped at deck 10...'
'...Deflector Control, no vital systems...'

Not a vital system! What the heck do you think stops the ship going 'poof' every time it goes to warp?

- ST:First Contact; Lt Hawk

[qerlin]

Nebula's a good choice.

[Fortunae]

I think when addressing this topic you have to consider what sort of fleet you are talking about, as well as it's location of deployment. According to the LUG Price of Freedom book, there are two types of fleets. Mobile and Static. Considering the sheer size of the Federation and its borders you have to consider the population base to draw from, but also the extremely strict standards employed by Starfleet. Did you ever consider that it takes a Betelgeusean coming from his or her homeworld like 2.5 years of standard warp speed travel to *Get* to Earth and the Academy? Talk about pressure not to fail out.

But back to the topic: Static fleets are usually assigned to protect key areas, and also include the smaller "sector" fleets. Extroplating a bit, I will make an assumption (Dangerous) that the task group at Wolf 359 was about two fleets worth, though perhaps not all the ships from either of those fleets. 40 ships able to respond in a timely manner to an attack on the "Core Systems". My guess is that a static fleet deployment is probably something like:
1 Explorer Class vessel, 4 cruisers of various types, 4-5 frigates, and then 10 other vessels of various specialities based on the needs of the area. The Explorer class vessel might actually be an older model, particularly in areas where there is little real trouble expected. This model would be used for Static fleets that respond to a broad area, like multiple sectors, as opposed to a Sector Fleet.

Sectors fleets, usually based around supporting a Starbase or a few outposts are probably even smaller, and I would guess sport at most a couple of Nebula or comparable craft as their big guns. An example might be: Two Nebulas, two or three refit Excelsiors, a couple of Oberth or similar size and mission profile vessels and two to four Saber's or similar sized vessels (if not Saber's then I would swap Frigates instead of Light Cruisers) depending on the size and strategic importance of the base.
In that example, I would presume this was a border sector as well, even less ships in areas far from any borders or with a very small Federation presence; too small and they are probably just supported by a Static Area support fleet or by vessels detached from a Mobile Fleet.

Moving on to Mobile Fleets, once again I think you need to focus on the "mission objectives" of this fleet. The 19th Fleet that the D was in focused heavily on Exploration/Contact and Threat response and if the episodes were any guide, basically cruised the borders from the beta quadrent edge of the Romulan/Klingon/Federation borders all the way out to the Cardassian DMZ. Of course, this is an *insane* amount of space to cover, realistically one trip down and back up should be several years and a full tour -- but TV never ever worried about internal consistancy as far as that goes so it's no surprise. Realitically, there should be enough mobile fleets to alot two per Major Power border and one per every other area of exploration or contestation.

In such far traveling mobile fleets, the make up should consist primarily of vessels that can handle long term isolation from other Federation support services, and that can handle a wide variety of encounters -- thus they should be Explorers and Cruisers almost exclusively with exceptions being made as per the above guideline.

The other type of Mobile Fleet would be a Strategic Response type... Fleets that can be sent to whatever area is being heavily contested or seeing alot of action, even in peace time, such fleets would break off smaller sections to deal with things like Piracy or Peace Keeping missions between minor powers. Such fleets probably have at best a single Explorer Class heavy hitter, or a single Heavy Cruiser, with the bulk of their vessels being Light Cruisers, Frigates and Escorts.

Okay, and from all of this you must additionalyl factor in the Need Psychology of the Federation at that time. Depending on when you set your game the philosophy of fleet deployment will be different. Pre-Borg contact, Pre-Dominion war you should see fewer vessels but of a larger size with more crew riding in one basket. The nature of the Dominion war in particular highlights the priority of many smaller vessels with small crew requirements.

As an example of this, look at the Saber class Light Cruiser...crew of 45. With a crew so small starfleet can reasonably give these ships to Lt. Commanders or Commanders instead of full captains...you only need to be an Ensign to be bridge certified for such a small ship. This means they can field more of these even with the strict entry and training requirements for Starfleet Academy.

For the "crew cost" of an Explorer you can staff 10 of these...and 10 Sabers in a battle can be more effective than one Nebula or one Akira. Certainly these vessels are as impressive for "Showing the Flag" or as capable for prolonged solo operation or exploration, but they are strong enough to require a concentration of opposing force to challenge, and they are *fast* as well.

So all that said, and it being mostly my personal opinion, I would say that there is no easy answer. You as the narrator need to give the nature of the fleet itself consideration to discern the size and vessel contigents in any fleet you may wish to use.

Hope that was more helpful than boring. Peace.

[SIR SIG]

Well thats if you subsribe fully to the 20 odd fleets idea from PoF.

That simply isn't enough ships, only about 600 odd in peace time.

But they may have pumped them out for the War and recomissioned old ships


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'...The Borg have stopped at deck 10...'
'...Deflector Control, no vital systems...'

Not a vital system! What the heck do you think stops the ship going 'poof' every time it goes to warp?

- ST:First Contact; Lt Hawk

[JALU3]

I will agree with that . . . furthermore . . . even though those huge battlefleets are rather unrealistic when in less than ten years time 39 ships were considered a HUGE fleet . . . they are still canon. Thus a fleet has to be a large number. I would say in the Post DW era around 50 to 75 ships at most . . . for a HUGE battle fleet could be comprised of several fleets.

But also think of the Federation like the US . . . a HUGE industial jugernot . . . prior to WWII the US had a pitiful military . . . however, if the need araised they were able to pump out the most . . . and more often then not . . . the best. Furthermore . . . something like this would promp them to find new ways to staff this larger armed force . . . thus things like ROTC were created.

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"See Everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little." -Pope John XXIII

[SIR SIG]

You can write off the 39 of 40 ships as just a local core fleet or just everything in the area that could get there on time much like in Redemption!

The fleets in DS9 were at the smallest 112 and at the largest 313. An average of 212 ships. And then there were atleast 10 of these! Circa 2120 active ships for DW!

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'...The Borg have stopped at deck 10...'
'...Deflector Control, no vital systems...'

Not a vital system! What the heck do you think stops the ship going 'poof' every time it goes to warp?

- ST:First Contact; Lt Hawk