I posted the production notes for Blood & Chrome that were up on Facebook a few days ago, and have finally had time to compare them to notes on how a battlestar group might look I drew up a few years ago. So here’s my take on a miniseries-period battlestar group (BSG.)
Going with the idea that there are 12 “main battlestars” or “heavy battlestars” (I’m using the former term), one to do CAP on each colony and the surrounding shipping space, this would be the usual wartime battlestar group. Figure they’re rarely more than half strength, with half their number on temporary or detached duty.
COMPOSITION, BATTLESTAR GROUP
A combat-ready battlestar group consists of a main battlestar (Mercury, Minerva, or Columbia-class) and its attendant air group, 2 light battlestars (Erynis [Valkyrie] or Berzerk-class) and their air groups, 2 support escorts of Vanguard-class — one hospital, one an aerospatial assault unit, 4 assaultstars (Cygnus or the older Orion-class), 2 replenishment tyliers (pronounced til-i-ers; replenshiment oilers in the wet navy carry fuel, but also other supplies. They would be the refinery ships from the series), a combat support vessel (a repair ship like the Flatop from the series), and two victualing ships (basing on Blood & Chrome, these are the Celestra-style freighters.)
Assuming the support vessels are mostly civilian/merchant marine, that’s roughly 10 ships a BSG or 120 capital ships…which seems about right with Starbuck’s comment about the initial losses in the miniseries.
Considering how expensive and time-consuming peace time construction of these ships would be, I think 120-150 ships is about right.
Next off — nomenclature. I figure a battlestar is always a “group” (BSG), as per the patches in that they have an air group aboard. Any ships attached to, say, Galactica might have their own ship patch — say an escort named Diomedes is attached for longer than temporary duty to Galactica — the patch would read “Battlestar Diomedes” (or whatever you want to call your escorts; I call ’em gunstars if they’re cannon heavy, assaultstars if they’re missile heavy) and the bottom of the patch would be BSG-75, even if Diomedes herself was BSG-12, say. On her own, she’s BSG-12. (Hey, you have to keep the guys that make uniform patches in business…)
Any “battlestar” with an air group of any size is a BSG, otherwise, it’s just BS (that would be the assaultstars and gunstars.) Support ships would have registrations like DD (for the escorts like Vanguard [I’m going off of the numbering on the model for that particular ship; do whatever you feel like), RT for the tyliers, CSV for the combat support ships, and SV for the victualers.
Figure the battlestar groups during peacetime are broken up and doing missions throughout colonial space — light battlestars doing interdiction work, hospital ships aiding in disaster and humanitarian support. Escorts would also be doing policing, but would also cover the hospital ships and civilian contractor vessels doing deep space exploration, etc.
The Black Campbell 
9 December, 2012 at 15:57
I’ll have to dig up the post I did over on Wolf’s for the specific numbers to back me up, but the whole “120 battlestars” number is terribly tiny, even if it just applied to ships like Galactica, Pegasus, and Valkyrie. Using contemporary demographics, the Fleet would have something in the neighborhood of ~860 battlestars, and several thousand other ships.
9 December, 2012 at 21:25
Difference being these are mile-long gigantic spacecraft (at their largest) that would use more material and manpower to build that we have an analogue for. 800 or more would be cost and materials prohibitive, even using asteroids. But this academic — if you want thousands of ships, have at.
10 December, 2012 at 12:20
Given 12 settled worlds, four solar systems, and several asteroid belts just in the core worlds, I think there are more than enough resources, especially given what we’ve seen of the mobile production technology available to the Colonies.
With 20 billion people, the Fleet should have a roster of about 33,333,333 members, with 2/3ds being active and the remainder in the reserves. This is based on the demographics of the US as extrapolated to Colonial population numbers.
The total CDF numbers would be about 100,000,000 active and about that number in reserve (this includes the Fleet numbers mentioned earlier).
If you have numbers as small as you’re suggesting, then the CDF should be able to cherry pick the very best, brightest, most physically fit, and mentally stable applicants and still turn away several million each month.
I’m not saying I want a bigger fleet, but I am saying that the population and economic power within just the 12 Colonies requires the fleet to be larger than what you’re speculating. Remove the fact that we have 12 worlds scattered in one giant system and view them as if they were each in their own system, then count in all the other smaller colonized/settled worlds (we know they have them from B&C), and larger numbers aren’t that far off the mark.
17 December, 2012 at 14:44
I would have to wonder about the numbering idea. We never see Galactica being under any sort of escort, if she is in viper squadrons can change, escorts can be reassigned, but a battlestar is the core of the fleet. Galactica’s pennet is 75, instead of 12 being the twelfth battlestar or whatever commissioned in the colonies. She is born the 75th ship of group 75 to lead 75 to victory.
Point two; assaultstars- I thought these things were what carried battalions of marines into the fray of battle… They are ASSAULTing afterall and invasionstar just sounds goofy.
17 December, 2012 at 16:14
The more Drexler talks, the more I’m convinced that he’s an idiot.
I agree with the Assaultstar comments, Brock. I’ve used that term to refer to the Colonial gator freighters since I started writing.