Seeing as I grew up believing that anything that didn't appear on screen isn't canon, a proper Imperial fleet for me consist of ISDs and their fighter screens. Now, if we're talking Rebels, I'll need a Mon Cal cruiser or three, some Corellian Corvettes, at least one Nebulon B, many medium Transports, and tons of different fighters. And just to break my own rules, add in some Assault Frigate mk1s to taste. (**** you Zahn!)

Given that battles in Armada usually are patrol fleets patrolling in star systems and conducting minor missions such as assaulting stations and the like we should not look at complete system wide fleets or squadrons.

ISD are actually very rarely show up in smaller skirmishes such as the one depicted in a typical 400-600p game, the reason being the cost of deploying them for such menial tasks.

From most of the source material most of the legwork during the height of the Imperial time was conducted by heavy cruisers and Star Destroyers such as the Victory and the Gladiator.

The Victory one was not really a deep space combat vehicle but rather a precision tool for assaulting fixed installations, they also carried too little Tie-fighter escort to operate alone. They are often escorted by either fleet carriers and/or larger cruisers such as the Gladiator or the Nebulon-B frigate.

A typical patrol group would be commanded by a Victory-I with say two Gladiator, two Arquitens and some minor ships such as Raiders and Gozanties for support.

Say...

1x Victory I (carry 2 Tie squadrons, 1 Lambda squadron and 1 assault boat squadron)

2x Gladiators (carry 4 Tie squadrons and one combined assault boat squadron)

2x Arquitens

3x Raiders (or other corvette type ships)

1x Gozanti Flotilla (carry 1 Tie squadron)

1x Tie-interceptor squadron

5x Tie-fighter squadrons

1x Tie-bomber squadron

1x Lambda group

2x Assault boat squadron (could represent the Firespray in the game)

This would be a typical small mission assault group.

A deep space patrol fleet geared toward general space domination could look like this

2x Victory II* (carry 4 Tie squadrons, 2 Lambda squadron and 2 assault boat squadron)

1x Fleet Carrier (4-6 Tie squadrons, 1 Lambda squadrons, 2 assault boat squadrons)

3x Light Cruisers (Arquitens)

4x Corvettes (such as the Raider)

8-10 Tie squadrons of various kinds.

3 Lambda groups

4 Assault boat squadrons (different villain elements in the game)

*Victory II had the same speed and maneuverability in battle as most heavy cruisers which made them good as general patrol ships but they were not nearly as common as the Victory I.

Rebels forces were not really gathered in the same way as Imperial forces. They could never really muster large forces in one place nor was that their intention and they avoided big battles because they could never really contend with the Empire in that way. In this respect I think the game reflects engagements pretty well. I'm sure that engagement with the Rebels and Imperial forces were mostly on a smaller scale like raids, ambushes and in case of the Empire rapid assaults on rebel outposts. By the time the Empire mustered a lager fleet the Rebels would be gone and many Rebel "bases" where just a bunch of ships in orbit of a planet somewhere with some token facilities on the surface. The Rebels had very limited resources and needed to be very picky on what forces they brought to any confrontation. The strength of the Rebels was that they decided when and where to actually fight.

The Rebels would rarely risk their larger ships such as the Mon Calamari cruisers, they were too important acting as bases and headquarters for their logistical side. Most raids and assaults would be carried out by heavy cruisers, frigates and corvettes with the fighter squadrons expecting to do most of the heavy lifting.

The Empire relied more on capital ships since they did allot of invasions to subdue and control planets and stations. The Rebels did not need to do any of that, they gained political support through negotiations and diplomacy (most of the time at least). They would only strike with ground troops for strategic reasons.

The Empire mostly used their Tie forces as a screen to protect their ships and was not the primary arm to attack with. One of the reasons they lacked a hyper drive.

I am very interested in this thematic approach. I would really like it if people included sources when talking about imperial fleet compositions.

You can find most of it online today such as Wookieepedia but otherwise there are a couple of source books but most "Legendary" sources come from books, games and the various TV series. You find most of these source books quoted in Wookieepedia.

If you look for cannon material there simply are not enough substantial material to go on, the Star Wars movies do not really show any average type of either the Imperial or Rebel forces, they are more extreme or thematic versions of them.

Here is a link to the Imperial Navy on Wookieepedia http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Navy/Legends

1 hour ago, Kikaze said:

I am very interested in this thematic approach. I would really like it if people included sources when talking about imperial fleet compositions.

My fleets posted above aren't very thematic, excepting the ships and an approximate definition of Navy as seen here: Navy and Fleets (the definitions are somewhat redundant)

However, in the above linked thread (re-linked here) I did create thematic fleets, and in so doing I used sources from Wookiepedia. It should be noted that all information is taken from Legends, as the new canon hasn't gotten into fleet construction yet*.

For the Tactical Organization of both fleets, I referenced these:
Imperial Navy Tactical Organization
Alliance Fleet Tactical Organization

The Imperial Organization may seem confusing, but it basically boils down to the fact that the basic fleet is a Line of Battle, further referenced in the Navy Order of Battle page. I primarily used the Line of Battle page.

For ships classes, they were kind of arbitrarily defined. The rebel ships have their type in their name, but for the Imperials I defined them as:
Capital Ships**:
ISD (and all ships bigger than it)

Heavy Cruiser:
VSD
Interdictor (this classification is largely based on size)

Medium Cruiser:
GSD

Light Cruiser:
Arquitens

Light Carrier:
Quasar

Corvette:
Raider

'Flottila':
Gozanti

Further ship classifications can be found here.

In the above link you'll find my steps used to create an Alliance fleet. Those steps were based off of the Alliance Tactical Organization posted above, and the use of the 14th Roving Line as a base.

An Imperial Fleet wouldn't be too different. A heavy attack line could be 1 VSD, 2 GSDs, 4 Arqs (all cruisers), and a fleet could be made into a combo of multiple lines, with say an ISD line (1 ISD) thrown in every 3 lines or so.

I'd suggest either doing the above or using the Alliance Tactical Organization to define lines (3 Squadrons), and then replacing the ship-types (as I did in my previous posts) to get an Imperial Battle Group, which is essentially the standard 'Fleet' everybody (but my massive one above) is referring to.

*[Potential Spoilers about Thrawn, nothing major, but still]Thrawn, when promoted to Admiral, commands 3 Arquetins and an ISD, so that could be the basic 'Battle Line' of the Empire, if you will.

**I know there's a lot of debate about this classification, don't worry, it's merely used in this case to conform with Wookiepedia designations so as not to confuse anybody looking at my links, then my results.