Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

[megaplayboy]

Anybody have a good source for traditional naval formation symbols, similar to the army "XXXX, plus box with oval inside it, equals tank army" symbology used on military maps?

I already am familiar with individual ship type designations.

Also wondering what people's thoughts are on translating this into the sphere of space fleets, armadas, etc., just to add a little flavor to military style sci-fi games/adventures.

[Old Man]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

I'd be interested to know if this even exists.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

The nearest I've found so far is that ships can be organized into divisions, squadrons, task forces and fleets, with fleets generally being the largest level organization, roughly equivalent to an army(and squadron being roughly equivalent to a land division).

There are also a few additional terms like group, flotilla(similar to squadron or task force), and of course armada(which is not really a formal term).

Presumably one could posit a "Fleet Group" as a unit above a fleet formation, to cover a group of fleets in the same region. And perhaps a "Sector Group" to designate, say, all ships in the Pacific(or, in this case, Alpha Quadrant).

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

one of the few sources of information gamingwise I have ever run accross was in the Megatraveller book "Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium" which had some basic squadron compositions.

 

in the Honor Harrington books for capital ships on several occasions they mentioned a division of 3 battleships or dreadnoughts etc

 

I tend to run more mixed squadrons in my fleets

 

heres an example:

 

!3th Battle Squadron[Heavy] Terran 9th Strike Fleet

1st Div:

1 SDN

3DN

 

2nd Div:

4 DN

 

3rd Div:

4 DN

 

Support Div:

2 Scout/Couriers

1 Supply/Tanker

 

this squadron is entirely composed of streamlined ships, and is capable of self refueling if needed.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

Hmm...okay, so a "division" of, say, 3-5 ships; a "squadron" of 3-5 divisions(i.e., 9-25 ships total); and a fleet of 3-5 squadrons(27-125 ships total)

 

A fleet group of 2-6 fleets(50 to 750 ships)

A sector group or sector fleet of 2-4 groups(up to 3000 ships)

 

plus maybe an armada/"starmada"/High Fleet/Grand Fleet up to 10x larger:eg:

[Old Man]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

The only thing of this nature I remember seeing is silhouettes of ships. IIRC, fleet units are iconized as the silhouette of the primary ship type with a notation for the name of the group. So a carrier battle group would be represented by a carrier silhouette subtitled "XIII CBG" or similar, while a destroyer squadron would be a destroyer silhouette subtitled "314th Squadron".

 

The only other iconography I can think of is by unit badge, but that's unwieldy and requires too much work for an RPG...

[Nyrath]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

Also wondering what people's thoughts are on translating this into the sphere of space fleets' date=' armadas, etc., just to add a little flavor to military style sci-fi games/adventures.[/quote']

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3t.html#shipgrid

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3z.html

 

Keep in mind that a "Fleet" is more of an administrative fiction than it is a bunch of ships. A ship officially belongs to a certain fleet. When a mission comes up, certain ships are detached from the fleet and become a Task Force. Once the mission is compete, the ships dissolve back into the fleet.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

Well, I have ... a cat, who really wants attention. He tries, folks, he tries. I've been with Ilene three... and a half years now. When we started, she had three cats. Now we still have three cats, but I have been offically designated "Figaro's human." It's the little things.

 

As I was saying before having the lap top screen flipped by Figaro's amore, I have basic designations for my land-based units in my Fantasy campaign. Unit Structure is divided as follows:

*

Battalion (3 Regiments, 3,000)

Regiment (4 Elements, 1,000)

Element (4 Combines, 240)

Combine (4 Squads, 80)

Squad (3-5 Lances, 20)

Lance (4-6 Soldiers)

*

Officer ranks are as follows:* Rank (Insignia/Command Position)

*

Grand Marshal (4 Phoenix/Area Commander, Northern Borders, Southern Fields, etc.)

Lord Marshal (3 Phoenix/Multiple Battalion Leader)

Vice Marshal (2 Phoenix/Battalion or Multiple Battalion Leader)

Marshal (1 Phoenix/Battalion Leader)

Lord Captain (3 slanted gold/Regiment Leader)

Captain (3 slanted silver/Element Leader or Regiment Second)

Commander (2 slanted gold/Element Leader or Field Commander)

Lt. Commander (2 slanted silver/Combine Leader or Element Second)

1st Lieutenant (1 slanted gold/Combine Leader)

2nd Lieutenant (1 slanted silver/Combine Second)

*

Mst. Sgt. At Arms (Double Diamond, 1 closed inside/NCO Commander)

Sgt. At Arms (4 closed/Combine Squad Commander)

Sr. Master Sgt. (3 closed high/Combine Squad Commander)

Master Sgt. (2 closed stacked/Squad Leader)

Sr. Shield Sgt. (1 closed high/Squad Leader)

Shield Sgt. (4 open/Lance Leader)

Sgt. (3 open high/Lance Leader)

Lance Corporal (2 open stacked)

Corporal (1 open high inside)

Private (Empty full open frame)

 

I posted the rank before, but by all means, make use of it if you like. I can do a swift aerial conversion as well, it'll be smaller numbers generally. Does this help?

[LoresLost]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

Most modern Naval action is based on Fleet, which is made up of taskforces and those taskforces have squadrons in them. Often a US taskforce is usually a carrier group (one CV/CVN, the air wing(which is 6 aviation squarons), a cruser squadron and several destroyer squdrons and support vessels) But other collections can and are used

 

I found this page http://www.strategypage.com/strategypagegamestore/leyte_gulf.asp

while looking for naval counters. And it is as I remember from long ago, Ships are usually individually reperesented in wargames (this is 'cause a destroyer is 100 + men bout company strength and a carrier is 1.5 - 2 bragades in man power)

[Mantis]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

The nearest I've found so far is that ships can be organized into divisions, squadrons, task forces and fleets, with fleets generally being the largest level organization, roughly equivalent to an army(and squadron being roughly equivalent to a land division).

There are also a few additional terms like group, flotilla(similar to squadron or task force), and of course armada(which is not really a formal term).

Presumably one could posit a "Fleet Group" as a unit above a fleet formation, to cover a group of fleets in the same region. And perhaps a "Sector Group" to designate, say, all ships in the Pacific(or, in this case, Alpha Quadrant).

You may be confusing yourself by looking at different navies' terminology. While land forces tend towards the same structure with the same designations for the same scale units, naval and air forces have a greater tendency to diverge.

 

For example, from your list, "squadron" is a term from the US Navy, but "flotilla" is a Royal Navy term. Both apply only to small ships (Destroyers and below). 6-8 DD who always operate together in the USN are a squadron - "DesRon" - but are called a Flotilla in the Royal Navy. The equivalent terms for cruisers operating together is Division, IIRR, and if you go higher than that you get "Fleet units" - Battlecruisers on up - around which a Task Force or equivalent is formed (the RN version is just "Force" followed by a letter, e.g. "Force X", but the USN uses numbers, e.g. "Task Force 17"). Heavy units can also be formed into homogenous Squadrons (a number of RN Battlecruiser Squadrons fought at Jutland, for example). And I think the title of numbered fleet (e.g. 6th Fleet is the Mediterranean, I think) is a post-WWII invention and refers to a geographical area, rather than to ships. IIRR, the USN had only three fleets at the start of WWII: Atlantic, Pacific (West Coast and Hawaii), and Far East (Phillipines).

 

Formation symbols are often just the flag of the rank of the Admiral (or senior officer for smaller groups) leading the formation. Unlike army or air force formations, which tend to have a fixed complement, all navies form ad-hoc groups of whatever ships are available to do whatever is required, so it is impossible to come up with a standard symbol to represent any unit - an Army Division is always a certain size, but a Task Force could be anything from a handful of ships to scores of them.

 

That's just stuff I've picked up from wargaming without paying much attention (note: it's all from memory so I can't vouch for correctness). I have a number of books on various air-naval battles with full Orders of Battle for each sides' fleets, including all component units - I'll copy one or two out and post them here later (if I get time!) so you can work from some real-life examples.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

When the Carl Vinson was deployed to the Gulf, it was as the core of a "strike group". This consisted of the Chucky V herself, a few frigates and destroyers (to include our supply ship), and some subs which were presumably out there somewhere, but we never saw.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

A bit more on the Traveller take on this subject: taken from the Megatraveller Rebellion Sourcebook and Imperial Squadrons, both used with permission

 

each subsector has a numbered fleet and a reserve fleet

each fleet containing from 2-10 squadrons amounting to from 50-200 ships

total, the reserve fleets are also organized the same way but with older still useful ships.

 

Each Sector also has a named fleet which range in size from 2 numbered fleets to 20 numbered fleets

 

The Imperial Navy uses 5 standard squadron types

Battle Squadron[batron]

Cruiser Squadron[Cruron]

Scout Squadron[scoutron]

Tanker Squadron[Tankron]

Assault Squadron[Assaultron]

 

Regular Squadrons are assigned to the numbered and named regular fleets and are based at naval bases throughout the Imperium

 

Colonial Squadrons are assigned to numbered reserve fleets and are based at worlds that have the personnel and technology to support them, these require Tech Level 9+ and Population 4+

 

Scoutrons tend to be the most diverse as far as the types of ships assigned

 

The Imoperium maintains 1 Naval Depot per sector except for the in the Spinward Marches, the Spinward Marches are supported from the Depot in Deneb Sector.

 

a couple of notes in various sources talk about Batrons of Tigress and Voroshilef class ships having 6 or 8 ships in the squadron, but not if there are any other ships assigned to the squadron for support

[tkdguy]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Navy

 

This page has some general information, with links to other articles

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_symbology

 

This one is made for the Army, but I guess it can be adapted for the Navy.

[Mantis]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

Here's two sample Orders of Battle from WWII (Battle of Coral Sea, and Battle of Eastern Solomons) with the unit designations and component ships.

[Nyrath]

Re: Fleet designations--ship types, formation symbols , etc.

 

I asked my resident Naval expert about naval symbols, and he had this to say:

 

The traditional NTDS (Naval Tactical Display System) symbols are presented in a graphic towards the bottom of this page:

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/litesmth/wargamingconz/harpoon.html

 

Note that those symbols are hollow. There's a new, expanded set of filled symbol, defined by MIL-STD 2525, which I think is currently in revision C:

http://nmso.navy.mil/file_download.cfm/FILE_N_1000508.pdf?RID=REF_N_1000180&FID=FILE_N_1000508&FILENAME=FILE_N_1000508.pdf

http://www.ucf.ics.uci.edu/~jerenk/doc/ics-199/2525b.pdf

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/army/docs/fm101-5-1/f545con.htm

 

Note that this set also includes land symbols.

 

You might also see reference to STANAG 4420. That's the NATO standard, which I suspect matches the NTDS symbology.

 

On a related topic, there is discussion of some of these elements wrt the TADMUS (Tactical Decisionmaking Under Stress) project at:

http://www-tadmus.spawar.navy.mil/TADMUS_DSS.pdf