In my mind i see these fighter squadrons as more of a flight of 3 fighters instead of 12. How do you see thrm. To me its seems as if FFG uses the word squadron just to describe fighters in general. Because when you look at it a full squadron of xwings wouldndo way more than 1 red die of damage to a SD and when you llok at the stats for the falcon it makes more since the 5 hull on the xwing flight compared to the 7 on the falcon. What do you think? How do you imangine them. Me ill be painting 4 stands for each squad of xwings also makes it easier to see wedge and luke in the same squad.

Squadron, especially in anything thats fiction related now a days is a catch all phrase for a group of fighters, even if their is cannon descriptions of what a Squadron is. Its usually all over the place. That said I see the fighters as just what they are so 3. I will also see the Rogues as individual ships though they have kept the fighters purposefully abstract as too allow for interpretation, which isnt bad

Honestly it is an abstract number. It is not suppose to be a solid number since a Tie Squadron is going to be bigger than a X-Wing squadron or a Tie bomber squadron.

So I don't really put too much thought behind it. I am also sure the Squadron size is going to change from source to source since the EU is such a mess with every author claiming something different.

Seriously, no one set standards before Lucus sold the rights. (He was the worst manager to be succesful. I don't think he even read a tenth of what was pushed across his desk.)

I see them as each fighter = 1 flight (4 fighters), 3 flights = a squadron (12 fighters).

In my mind i see these fighter squadrons as more of a flight of 3 fighters instead of 12. How do you see thrm. To me its seems as if FFG uses the word squadron just to describe fighters in general. Because when you look at it a full squadron of xwings wouldndo way more than 1 red die of damage to a SD and when you llok at the stats for the falcon it makes more since the 5 hull on the xwing flight compared to the 7 on the falcon. What do you think? How do you imangine them. Me ill be painting 4 stands for each squad of xwings also makes it easier to see wedge and luke in the same squad.

i think the sheer power of the weapon systems on a capital ship compared to a squadron of fighters is a good way to look at it

also the sheer size of scale too, likely that squadron blasters (even after punching through shields) are going to do not much more than small burn marks on a ship of that size. Even small torpedoes and missiles won't do much in the grand scheme of things as i'm sure you could imagine the immense thick armor plating that these capital ships have

we are talking about war ships after all, not shuttles

In the very good and rather consistent fluff of the x-wing series, it would take a whole squadron (12) firing 24 torpedoes simultaneously to bring down a shield facing of an enemy capital ship. Some would get through on the smaller targets, such as Vic's and Frigates, but it required a second volley to do damage on something like an ISD.

@Executor, the fighters lasers where practically useless against armoured capital ships. That's what torpedoes where for

does it matter?

Military Orginization for Airforce

The "Unit" of fighters in this game is called a squadron. In a majority of military organization that would mean 12-24 fighters, separated into flights, which are further separated into Elements. Concidering the Imperial Start destroyer has a Squadron value of 5, and most sources say it carries 72 Fighters, makes it seem more likely in this game a Squadron is around 12 Fighters, likely separated into 3-4 Flights, that would mean each physical fighter mini represents 3-4 fighters.

In the battle of yavin "Red Squadron" composed of 12 X-wings. Gold Squadron had at least 7 Y-wings (we are not going to figure blue, or green) which means Canon supports this idea

If you really want to be nitpicky you could say your entire 400 fleet in this game is actually a Task Force, not a fleet. Maybe even as low as a Naval squadron (two VSD)

Yes it matters to me hence my question. Im only asking how do you picture it. Its not a rules debate or anything just a simple how do you see them in your game. If the question offends you then you dont have to answer it.

I'm not too sure. Initially i pictured them as full squadrons, but now i'm less certain.....flights would make a lot of sense in some ways, but less so in others.

No need to over think this. Three ships per stand is probably the best compromise that FFG could get between cost and aesthetics. Squadron seems reasonable to me, but if some other scale works better for someone else, that's fine too.

I see them as each fighter = 1 flight (4 fighters), 3 flights = a squadron (12 fighters).

That's how I see them.

If a Tie Squad was just 3 Tie Fighters, they wouldn't really do anything to a capital ship. Right now they can at least do minimal damage.

I don't really think about it too much, and mostly view the squadrons as an abstract unit of fighters. i personally feel that the word squadron is being used in the game to simply refer to a particular group of fighters, not as a specific unit size in the order of battle.

I think this mostly has to do with thinking of them as representing an actual Squadron (I'll use the capital "S" to denote the order of battle unit), does not mesh with my first-hand military experience. Yes, Star Wars is not real life, and the real life it is modeled off of is more World War II than modern. However, in modern combat, it would be extremely rare (in fact, I don't think it has happened in the US since WW2) to see an entire Squadron flying in support of a single mission. Usually you're going to be looking at flights of 2 or 4 that have been task organized from the Squadron to a mission group to fill a particular role.

If an entire Squadron ever did deploy all at the same time in support of a single mission, they most definitely wouldn't be flying together in formation during the mission, focusing their efforts against a single target. Again, they would probably operate in flights of 2 or 4, maybe each supporting a different role in the mission, or covering different areas of the battle space if they were performing the same role.

Of course, there is plenty more that doesn't make sense in real life that works its way into fiction (like the concept of a Squadron Leader, where in real life the Squadron Commander is much more of a manager who hardly ever flies missions. Though this is the sad truth of most levels of leadership in all aspects of the modern military). That bit about the "fiction" is really what it all boils down to for me. I have to look at things abstractly, because the closer you try to apply realism to fiction, the more things begin to fall apart. Everything we know came from 3 original movies. They were trying to entertain us and tell a story. How many turbolasers does the Executor have? I don't know, it hardly fires a shot over two movies. And forget Star Wars space battles if you know anything about physics, specifically rocket science and orbital mechanics.

The 'squadron' label is going to get even more abstract when Wave 2 hits and we have a Millennium Falcon squadron and a Slave 1 squadron.

the correct number of fighters in each of Armada's squadrons is "enough"

until you get to 0 health, then it's "none"

Squadron is of course an abstract number, but I would agree that three sounds about right for what I see in the movies. The attack run you see against the SSD is done by 2 A-wings. Granted they weren't the only ones attacking it, but I would call that a understrengthed squadron. Also there are three models on the squadron model. That seems enough for me.

Yes, it is an abstract number, but I think the OP nevertheless has a valid question. The question is: what's your headcanon on this matter?

For my headcanon, I'm with those who are taking the term 'squadron' literally. In X-Wing, I know they use the word squad, but I never quite liked it. It sounds too infantry-esque to me. I prefer the terms wing>squadron>flight>element, the way that arctica2010 and kinnison mention, which coheres to the information in the old WEG Star Wars Sourcebook.

I see them as X hull and Y dice.

Yeah I picture the rouges and bounty hunters as a single ship.