Or, for a more dramatic explanation, it's a pretty solid trope for the remaining members of a unit to fight harder as opponents take out their buddies. Kind of like the Law of Conservation of Ninjitsu, cinematically we often see soldiers and dogfighters and stuff angrily pour on the fire and do better, not worse, after a few of their squadmates die.

Luke still took out the Death Star despite being the last X-Wing in the trench, right?

17 minutes ago, Critias said:

Or, for a more dramatic explanation, it's a pretty solid trope for the remaining members of a unit to fight harder as opponents take out their buddies. Kind of like the Law of Conservation of Ninjitsu, cinematically we often see soldiers and dogfighters and stuff angrily pour on the fire and do better, not worse, after a few of their squadmates die.

Luke still took out the Death Star despite being the last X-Wing in the trench, right?

I love the Ninjitsu Law of Conservation

I would say 3 fighters. Since there are three models and 3 hits kill a TIE Fighter squadron.

1 hour ago, Darth Tam said:

I don't really care about this type of issue, personally. I just push the ships around and roll dice. And make pew pew noises.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who makes pew pew noises.

Astonishing to think I'm a middle aged man.

31 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

I love the Ninjitsu Law of Conservation

I was unaware of it until now, and now I think it might be the best theorem I've ever heard.

Conservation of Ninjutsu

A law of the Universe, that states that there is a finite amount of ninjutsu available to each side during any given battle. If there are many ninjas, they are all awarded a fraction of the total ninjutsu, or 1/N where N is the number of ninjas present in the fight and 1 is the total power of ninjutsu.

This is the reason why hordes of ninja warriors will be dispatched relatively easily, whereas the lone ninja is almost unstoppable.

Practical applications of the law of Conservation of Ninjutsu:

Sir! There's an army of ninjas heading this way!

Don't worry, we can take them.

Oh wait... it seems they've given up, sir. There's only one guy.

**** IT, RUN!

3 hours ago, Muelmuel said:

Since we are back on this subject though, I will add fuel to the fire by asking this: for those stands representing more than 1 fighters, why does the firepower not decrease with casualties taken? I.e. if my tie fighter stand takes 2 damage, i should roll 2 less die next time i attack.

Could be sort of a model of 'morale' more than "literally this many units have been destroyed"? The Corellian Conflict campaign actually seems to support that interpretation, in that you "destroy" fighter squadrons ALL the time...yet they come back in the next game, just "scarred" - with a step of damage taken (unless they were repaired).

IE., you aren't LITERALLY killing an entire squadron of fighters when you deplete a stand's hit points...but you are rather rendering that squadron "no longer combat effective" either through some kills, damage to other fighters, or general morale failure. Outside of 'the game table' the full squadron may well still be there...'technically' chasing your ship...but it has dropped in effectiveness so much that there is no longer any risk of it doing damage to you, so it is irrelevant to the game and simply removed from the table.

So the reason it remains the same combat effectiveness until it's removed roughly speaks to that. It's a coherent, functional, unit...until it isn't. And what number of fighters were killed or were damaged or survived with too-many-close-calls...doesn't matter. The squadron simply isn't combat effective anymore, and it's removed from the table to keep record-keeping down.

Oh, good, the new forum software does double-posts...

18 hours ago, Deathseed said:

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who makes pew pew noises.

Astonishing to think I'm a middle aged man.

Not only do I make occasional pew pew noises, my friend's dad, who is middle aged, constantly makes them. Autothrusters, in X-Wing is his favourite. Every time it procs, he makes a "pssssssssh". It's great.

On 3/6/2017 at 1:21 PM, Eggzavier said:

I really don't understand why we keep having this argument.

Under both actual military doctrine and the old canon, a squadron is 12-24 fighters.

However, a squadron is made up of multiple 'flights' of 3-4 fighter craft.

Is there a problem with assuming that the bases each represent a 'flight'?

For example: Luke is leading a flight of the squadron, Wedge is leading a different flight, and Biggs is leading a third flight?

Thats how I see it.

This is the only reason I don't like the fact that the unique unnamed squadrons (ie. Rouge and Black Squadron) are "Unique". I can live with it but I'd be ok with a rule saying you can only have up to 4 of one of these squadrons in your fleet. But honestly it's not the biggest issue in the world and I'm really just nip piking at it.

29 minutes ago, Gunner070 said:

Thats how I see it.

This is the only reason I don't like the fact that the unique unnamed squadrons (ie. Rouge and Black Squadron) are "Unique". I can live with it but I'd be ok with a rule saying you can only have up to 4 of one of these squadrons in your fleet. But honestly it's not the biggest issue in the world and I'm really just nip piking at it.

Yea, I just figure it's a veteran wing of that Squadron, or even the leader of that squadron. So "Green Squadron" could represent Green Leader's flight, be it Arvel Crynyrd or Lt. Lulo or whomever you want it to be, pending the time period.

When I fly Rogue Squadron and Biggs and Luke and Wedge, I just assume those four flights are, collectively, Rogue Squadron.

I'm too lazy to read all the posts. So I apologise it I am redundant at any point.

All my info is from the rogue one ultimate visual guide.

Blue squadron is larger than the typical 12 fighter squadron. "Blue squadron, is a unit expanded well beyond the usual 12 ships of the same design". Mix of x wings, u wings and a few y wings reallocated from squadrons in other sectors. Blue leader(1),2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11,12 are clearly noted.

Unfortunately it doesn't say much about red, green or gold squadron as far as strength.

Spoilers from the Rogue One Novel ahead!

I haven't seen the film in its entirety, just snippets on youtube unfortunately, but according to the rogue one novel that I just finished reading Green squadron was present for the battle of Scarif. Now it seems they weren't included in the film but going by the novel thats an extra 4 stands of fighters for the rebellion given a squadron is 12 fighters.

Also another thing that stood out to me in the battle in the novel is that a rebel freighter being chased by TIEs was scraping the Scarif Planteary shield and ripping its hull apart. As there seems to be only one Freighter, the Ghost, could it be that the Ghost met its end above Scarif or are there more Freighters than were described in the novel, I see the GR-75s as transports rather than freighters but I suppose it could be one of them.

That won't be how they kill off the ghost, if they ever do. Its too anticlimactic an end for such valuable marketing material

On 3/6/2017 at 10:37 AM, Hedgehobbit said:

Firstly, a single CR90 stand in Armada represents several actual CR90s, so your fleet numbers are a bit off.

If this were true, it would be a flotilla.

On 3/12/2017 at 5:00 AM, D503 said:

That won't be how they kill off the ghost, if they ever do. Its too anticlimactic an end for such valuable marketing material

On the other hand, it would have been awesome for Rogue One to show the Ghost slipping under the planetary shield before it closed. I wouldn't mind that being the way Rebels ended, sharing the fate of the Rogue 1 crew.

On 3/11/2017 at 11:23 PM, Rune Taq said:

I'm too lazy to read all the posts. So I apologise it I am redundant at any point.

All my info is from the rogue one ultimate visual guide.

Blue squadron is larger than the typical 12 fighter squadron. "Blue squadron, is a unit expanded well beyond the usual 12 ships of the same design". Mix of x wings, u wings and a few y wings reallocated from squadrons in other sectors. Blue leader(1),2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11,12 are clearly noted.

Unfortunately it doesn't say much about red, green or gold squadron as far as strength.

Interesting, so this pretty much explicitly confirms, in new canon, that the standard Rebel Fighter Squadron is about 12 ships, which was certainly the norm established in all the Rogue Squadron stuff (novels, comics, video games) and fits the framework Decipher carved out in naming/identifying squadron members from film appearances.

Mixed squadrons doesn't seem to be anything new, though, as in Endor it's pretty clear that the original intention in RotJ was for mixed squadrons. We know that Red 2 and Red 3 are an A-Wing and a Y-Wing (as seen on film, and later confirmed in now-Legend sources). When Lando says "Red Group, Gold Group, all fighters follow me!" and then the superstructure is full of A-Wings, X-Wings, Y-Wings, and the Falcon we sort of have to assume that those As and Ys were parts of Red or Gold group, even though Legends had placed the As as Green Squadron and the Y as Gray Squadron members (why did they follow Lando? He didn't ask for all fighters to follow him, just all fighters in Red and Gold group). I suspect the original intention was that all those ships in the Death Star run were part of Red or Gold squad, meaning there were at least four ship types in those two squads. I also suspect that in RotJ when we see the Falcon flying through the Rebel fleet accompanied by four X-Wings, three B-Wings, three A-Wings, and three Y-Wings that these are meant to be Gold Group. When other group leaders check in, I don't think they're supposed to be in fighters right there next to Lando but rather are in their own squads somewhere else in the fleet.

2 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Interesting, so this pretty much explicitly confirms, in new canon, that the standard Rebel Fighter Squadron is about 12 ships, which was certainly the norm established in all the Rogue Squadron stuff (novels, comics, video games) and fits the framework Decipher carved out in naming/identifying squadron members from film appearances.

Mixed squadrons doesn't seem to be anything new, though, as in Endor it's pretty clear that the original intention in RotJ was for mixed squadrons. We know that Red 2 and Red 3 are an A-Wing and a Y-Wing (as seen on film, and later confirmed in now-Legend sources). When Lando says "Red Group, Gold Group, all fighters follow me!" and then the superstructure is full of A-Wings, X-Wings, Y-Wings, and the Falcon we sort of have to assume that those As and Ys were parts of Red or Gold group, even though Legends had placed the As as Green Squadron and the Y as Gray Squadron members (why did they follow Lando? He didn't ask for all fighters to follow him, just all fighters in Red and Gold group). I suspect the original intention was that all those ships in the Death Star run were part of Red or Gold squad, meaning there were at least four ship types in those two squads. I also suspect that in RotJ when we see the Falcon flying through the Rebel fleet accompanied by four X-Wings, three B-Wings, three A-Wings, and three Y-Wings that these are meant to be Gold Group. When other group leaders check in, I don't think they're supposed to be in fighters right there next to Lando but rather are in their own squads somewhere else in the fleet.

FWIW, a "Group" is a specific organization of an air force that is distinct from a squadron.

Top-level is a numbered Air Force (IE., 'First Air Force', 'Second Air Force', etc). An NAF will have several 'Wings' assigned to it (for example, the current '1st Fighter Wing', flying F-22s, is assigned to the 'Ninth Air Force'). A 'Wing' will have several 'Groups' assigned to it (IE., '1st Air Support Operations Group' or '1st Weather Group' or '23rd Fighter Group', etc). Each 'Group' will consist of a number of 'Squadrons'. And, of course, each 'Squadron' consists of a number of 'Flights'. (And within a 'Flight', you'll have 'Elements', which are commonly a pair of fighters - give or take - and not an official organizational level, as 'Elements' are build dynamically within a 'Flight' for each mission.)

tl;dr - 'Red Squadron' and 'Red Group' would not normally be assumed to be the same thing. It's entirely possible, based on modern 'numbering' precedent, that 'Red Group' could consist of a 'Red Squadron', 'Green Squadron', and 'Gold Squadron' without any conflict.

I'd like to point out the Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook calls out squadrons as 12 fighters....

Oh look, ANOTHER post pointing out that "groups" and "squadrons" are technically different in real-world armed forces.

True, but for thirty years all canon and legends material suggests that the terms are basically synonymous in Star Wars. Take perhaps the most famous squadron of all: Rogue Squadron. It's referred to as "Rogue Group" in the film (ESB) yet only has twelve well-documented ships as part of it, and in all the Legends stuff is classically referred to as the paradigmatic squadron, with its dozen clear members at any given time.

1 hour ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Oh look, ANOTHER post pointing out that "groups" and "squadrons" are technically different in real-world armed forces.

True, but for thirty years all canon and legends material suggests that the terms are basically synonymous in Star Wars. Take perhaps the most famous squadron of all: Rogue Squadron. It's referred to as "Rogue Group" in the film (ESB) yet only has twelve well-documented ships as part of it, and in all the Legends stuff is classically referred to as the paradigmatic squadron, with its dozen clear members at any given time.

No, I disagree. The old Legends material does talk about groups. A flight group was 3 squadrons. A wing was 6 squadrons. I want to say it was in Wedge's Gambit and the Bacta War. Pash Cracken led a flight group before and after he was in Rogue Squadron.

6 hours ago, xanderf said:

FWIW, a "Group" is a specific organization of an air force that is distinct from a squadron.

Top-level is a numbered Air Force (IE., 'First Air Force', 'Second Air Force', etc). An NAF will have several 'Wings' assigned to it (for example, the current '1st Fighter Wing', flying F-22s, is assigned to the 'Ninth Air Force'). A 'Wing' will have several 'Groups' assigned to it (IE., '1st Air Support Operations Group' or '1st Weather Group' or '23rd Fighter Group', etc). Each 'Group' will consist of a number of 'Squadrons'. And, of course, each 'Squadron' consists of a number of 'Flights'. (And within a 'Flight', you'll have 'Elements', which are commonly a pair of fighters - give or take - and not an official organizational level, as 'Elements' are build dynamically within a 'Flight' for each mission.)

tl;dr - 'Red Squadron' and 'Red Group' would not normally be assumed to be the same thing. It's entirely possible, based on modern 'numbering' precedent, that 'Red Group' could consist of a 'Red Squadron', 'Green Squadron', and 'Gold Squadron' without any conflict.

Enlightening. This makes everything so clear. Thank you!