I wish people would go through their heads that this game is abstract, and squadrons are not necessarily 12 ships. That piece of information has not been shared anywhere and is a small piece of fluff that not everybody even agrees with. Let it go.

While I agree entirely, I'm curious as to what prompted your post.

I wish people would go through their heads that this game is abstract, and squadrons are not necessarily 12 ships. That piece of information has not been shared anywhere and is a small piece of fluff that not everybody even agrees with. Let it go.

Okay.

I've literally seen maybe two people even suggest this number, so I'm not sure what you're responding to.

The consensus is that squadrons are *more than the three fighters shown*. The actual figure is irrelevant.

Nothing too specific prompted it, except that I see this pop up here and there and it is just so frustrating that any human can look at a game that is naturally as abstract as this, and then get their panties in SUCH a twist about something as dumb as "a squadron is 12 ships, and 12 ships should have x y and z!"

But they're not necessarily not twelve

Yeah, it's an abstract that's really more or less derived from each player's rationalization, rather than a fixed set ratio. There is no absolute answer, what you use to justify your answer is justification enough for each individual.

Squadrons are what you make them; if that value corresponds to 12 fighters and 1-3 large ships, sure. If they correspond to the literal 3 fighters on the stand and 1 large ship, that's great too

Me, I like TIE fighter, so you can guess the approximate scale that I enjoy and choose to mentally visualize.

I have for a long time been on the side that squadrons are 3 fighters in this game. That explains why when a squadron of Tie bombers goes up against a cr90 it will probably only take down 1 shield. Additionally this number fits better with the rogues and villains ships. Otherwise, Slave1is better at attacking capital ships than 12 B-wings.

Eh, I already caught some Flak for what I said in the latest Gozanti thread in my Message Inbox... So I figure this is at least partly directed at that, although not directly.

Yeah 3 seems right to me as well

Yeah. I tend to think that each base has how many ships are on the stand. Eg, 3 TIEs/X/Y/B/A-wings, one Firespray, a single CR90 etc.

Don't know where people are pulling 12 from

Yeah. I tend to think that each base has how many ships are on the stand. Eg, 3 TIEs/X/Y/B/A-wings, one Firespray, a single CR90 etc.

Don't know where people are pulling 12 from

Because "Squadron".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squadron_(aviation)

A squadron in air force, army aviation, or naval aviation is mainly a unit comprising a number of military aircraftand their aircrews, usually of the same type, typically with 12 to 24 aircraft, sometimes divided into three or fourflights, depending on aircraft type and air force.

and for the In-Lore:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Squadron

A squadron was any group of coordinated aerial or space warships. They could be made up of Starfighters, Bombers, Gunships, andCapital ships. Squadrons could be permanent or temporary and were used for a variety of missions. The most common make up for starfighter squadrons was 12 ships.

On that note, I don't think they're necessarily 12 ships. I don't think they're necessarily 3 ships...

But I do understand that a certain terminology was used, and that Terminology resonates with me, being the fact that I was in the RAAF for a period of time...

I do agree that there is a certain amount of abstraction - but because of that abstraction, there is no way to be certain that things are one way or another... And people are all too willing to state, definitively, one way or another, that that is the way things are.

I'm always surprised about the random things people will choose to 'argue' about on the internet. Especially when such things have almost no impact on anyone's real lives. We are an odd species sometimes.

Because calling them "flights" or "sections" wouldn't have the same gravitas

I'm always surprised about the random things people will choose to 'argue' about on the internet. Especially when such things have almost no impact on anyone's real lives. We are an odd species sometimes.

Because some people love to rain on other people's parades?

I find myself firmly in the "why do we even care" boat.

I don't even know what you're talking about.

Squadrons are not 12 ships? In use? Effectiveness? Can you explain?

A squadron is roughly 12 starfighters. Source: common sense.

Based on the name and a stat of 1. How many YT1300's are on that R&V stand? It is the 'squadron phase', but that doesn't indicate numeric parity or paper strength even if that were the case, only relative combat ability of an 'amorphous unit'. It's the selected identifier for starfighters/bombers/transports/small relatively maneuverable ship; otherwise, why can't I activate a squadron of capital ships in the squadron phase? It's clearly a squadron by definition (ahem, not a serious question, naturally. All I'm getting at is terminology alone isn't the only deciding factor). .

Internal justifications aren't wrong, they just aren't absolute relative to someone else.

the term for "group of fighters" is usually said as "squadron". When you're putting together an X-Wing list, most say "squadron" even though your assembly of fighters is nowhere near 12.

If pressed, I'd say each playing piece is a Flight Group.

Officially flight groups are around 4 fighters each, but they can occasionally be more. The term was given to any amount of fighters assigned to the same group in the TIE Fighter computer game. When the instructor says, "Your flight group..." it could refer to as high as 8 fighters active in the field. Whenever reinforcements were drawn, they were drawn from the same flight group.

Though I'm also in the 'why do we care' group, because Armada is not a simulation and doesn't make any presumptions that it is. I think this only matters to players who want to try making Armada into a simulator, either through campaign needs or to serve in arguing why fighters should be more or less powerful than they are.

Oh come on. Is this really the best thing you have to do on a weekend?

the term for "group of fighters" is usually said as "squadron". When you're putting together an X-Wing list, most say "squadron" even though your assembly of fighters is nowhere near 12.

Does anyone playing X-Wing actually say "squadron"? I've heard them referred to as "Squads", which I've found annoying. I've always thought of "squads" as being an infantry term, rather than something referring to a group of (star)fighters.

While I'm happy to let people appeal their own headcanon on this, I do like to think of a squadron being an organizational unit in the Imperial Navy for starfighters/bombers. Why? Because that's what it says in the Sourcebook for the old West End Games RPG, which was very influential for my understanding of Star Wars.

As Imperial starfighters have a rather high mortality rate, I imagine that between missions, squadrons frequently drop below 12 fighters/bombers until they receive replacements.

With the Rebellion, because they're a rag-tag insurgency, a squadron is whatever they can scrape together to operate in concert with one another.

For Armada, I do make the assumption that each base represents a number of up to twelve. But that's just my own headcanon, which I don't tend to share over a match. It's nice and abstract. I have a harder time with it in X-Wing, because I do like to have 'squads' that have an appropriate organizational unit, but that's hard to do while keeping your squads effective.

Oh come on. Is this really the best thing you have to do on a weekend?

Yup! Don't judge!

Oh come on. Is this really the best thing you have to do on a weekend?

Yup! Don't judge!

You are right, apologies. Different people like different things.

meine gott!

I did not know what I did not know until your knowing grew my knowing!

vielendanke!!

I care because I paint. In fact, I've been painting my Rebel squadrons tonight. So, in order to proceed, I needed to make a personal decision on what exactly each stand represents. I'm going with 1 stand = 1 flight of 3 fighters, 4 flights = 1 squadron.

For my eye, that will just look better with Red Squadron having 12 X-Wings next to the Millenium Falcon. I also considered a figure ratio of 1:2 with each stand representing a flight of 6 fighters, that would allow painting 2 stands for Red Squadron with Luke leading one of them and Wedge the other.

The game mechanics get very mooshie on the subject. The ISD's have Squadron Command capacity for 4 'Squadrons', yet the typical complement for an ISD is a Fighter Wing of 6 Squadrons, plus a large complement of Shuttles, Transports, Blastboats, etc. So direct fighter command capacity is more limited than their full carrying capacity.

I don't care.

Which is to say that I don't care what other people think because it doesn't matter.

A squadron is ~12 to me. I love the X Wing series books too much, so there it is.

How does that interact with the stats of a squadron vs capital ships or R&V? Don't care. Everything in the game is abstraction. There is no way that a Correlian Corvettes can pump out roughly half the damage that a Victory Star Destroyer can. That figure is monstrously skewed. Ok, but how much should I care? Basically none. It's about game balance, which also explains why the Corvette is so huge.

How does a whole squadron of the Empire's best Interceptor pilots deal barely more damage to other squadrons than a single Firespray? Mechanics for a miniature wargame. That's it.

A squadron is definitely, absolutely (approximately) 12 fighters. Anyone who wants to disagree for any reason they like is more than welcome to, because despite my very firm belief, it doesn't matter at all, and is still entirely subjective.