Terran Federation Space Fleet

The Terran Federation Space Fleet (Japanese: 地球連邦宇宙艦隊, Hepburn: Chikyuu Renpou Uchuu Kantai) is the aerospace branch of the United Citizen Federation military responsible for space operations. The Federal Marine Corps, is the naval infantry detachment of the Fleet primarily serving as a security force onboard Federation ships and Defense Installations and as elite amphibious infantry.

The Federation Navy is one of the strongest naval powers in Citadel space. It is known to number at least fifty thousand ships. Its growing potential has drawn the attention of the Citadel Council.

While the Council is concerned about the possible outcome of an interstellar war between the Terran Federation and Batarian Hegemony, they are also keen to acquire the Federation Navy's peacekeeping potential, especially in unstable regions like the Skyllian Verge and the Attican Traverse. The Navy also makes humans an attractive prospect as one of the newest Citadel species.

Doctrines
The Fleet is a space combat force primarily charged with protecting human colonies, space stations, and borders. While the Navy is well known for its well designed defensive plans to guard Federation colonies, its strength is centered upon powerful fleets stationed at strategic bases that are capable of responding to any colony under attack in the matter of hours.

It is estimated that the Federation Navy possesses over 67,000 vessels by the time the Relay 314 Incident happened in 2359 AD, including hundreds of battleships, and was divided into five large scale regional Fleets: North, South, East, West, and Central Fleet, each under strategic command of a different Sky Marshall of their respective regions, and direct command of a fleet admiral.

Regional fleets are subdivided into numerous flotillas and sub fleets, each of which include a small number of heavily armored linebreaker capital ships supported by hundreds of smaller and more mobile destroyers and frigates. Its individual vessels range considerably in size and firepower, varying from corvettes (light armored fast attack ship used primarily for patrol and recon), to hundred-meter-long frigates to kilometer-long capital ships.

Fleet units are also supported by Tactical Aerospace Control fighters and dedicated interceptors deployed from most ships. The Naval Fighter corps are divided into different squadrons allocated to their ships.

Central Federation Fleet
The Central Fleet is the smallest fleet in Federation space. Anchored at Luna Base, the Central Fleet guards the ship lanes connecting to the Sol system and serves as a reactionary force able to respond to any attack across three different clusters. However half of its vessels are not actually combat capable craft, mostly made of obsolete training boats to train the next generation. It is under command of the Sky Marshall in-chief of the Terran High Command.

Eastern Federation Fleet
Commanded by Sky Marshall Ronald Lee Sanchez during the Petolemaiac War, the Eastern Fleet was responsible for the defense of Shanxi from Petolemaiac Raiders. It is the smallest of the fleets currently as there is no major threat in the region.

Western Federation Fleet
The Western Fleet is also known as the Sanctuary Fleet, as it is based at Sanctuary Station, HQ of the Federation Space Fleet. It is the second biggest fleet, second only to the northern fleet.

Southern Federation Fleet
The South Federation Fleet numbers at several fleets. Sky Marshall Richards Riverfield commanded the TFS Fremont during his tenure.

Northern Federation Fleet
The North Federation Fleet is the largest fleet at the moment as its in a campaign of defense against the Prophet of War. It was under command of Sky Marshall Hathaway during the later years of the Third Bug War.

Notable Federation Vessels
Terran ship types have specific naming conventions. Ship names are often invented by the crew by vote upon commission, however most ships must confine themselves to a single word for their ship, for example the Fremont, Nagasaki, or Jager. In times of emergency or production in the dozens a day, ships are given a numerical designation and immediately commissioned. The "TFS" designation given to Federation warships is an abbreviation of "Terran Federation Ship"; this was later changed to FSV abbreviation following the Federation integration to the Citadel Council to accommodate with Citadel standards as "Federal Space Vessel".

Military Vessels used by the Terran Federation were known to be heavily armored, with powerful main battery and excellent secondary and anti-air capabilities. Those that were built in the post-Shanxi Era were more than capable for their original designated task. While most Federation vessels are adequate at being multi-purpose to an extent, the real potential of the Federation ships are their ability to enter the firefight and using their superior rate of fire and survivability to wreak havoc on their enemies with hails of kinetic and laser bombardments.

The Federation Space Fleet inherits many traditions from its former blue-water navies. Over the years, the fledgling Terran Fleet had been experiencing a mixed bag of results against different extraterrestrial enemies, from the advanced Dolossean Star Empire to the Arachnid Swarm and the Petolemaic Insurgents. However, due to their focus on a “war economy”, changes were slow to implement and thus hampered their effectiveness and adaptations of the Federation Navy as a whole. While slightly behind their Petolemaic counterparts, the Federation quickly caught up by quantity and quality.

Every Terran warship was designed with superior fire control sensors and quick-firing guns compared to their peers. The industrial might of the Federation also allow it to build a large number of tested and proven designs, with vessels focused on standardization and modularities so the crew can be trained without having too many complicated specialization courses. Even after its losses in the Third Bug War, it was still firmly second in number of ships total in C-Space, and even exceeded its position past the Turians to first with the integration of the Quarian Migrant Fleet.

Dreadnoughts
Terran Battleships focus on armor schemes capable of taking incredible amount of punishment and remain still operational. While their guns are not as large and powerful as other C-space Dreadnoughts, they make up quality for quantity, having more guns with faster rates of fire, giving them an unmatched artillery salvo. In addition, they also have excellent AA defense in both long and close ranges that can discourage and shred enemy attack craft into pieces should they venture too close, this is a legacy design from the Bug wars where early bug tactics were to use numerous, almost infinite cheap drones.

The “all-or-nothing clam shell” armor layout and their powerful secondaries also made them more dangerous the closer they get, while early designs tend to be slow moving ships, the more advanced designs gained considerable mobility. While their maneuverability and mobility are much better, their large turning radius and cumbersome sizes make it harder to avoid enemy ordnance in combat maneuvers. Despite the fact they also possess advanced detection LADAR sensors to mitigate their disadvantages like their cruiser counterparts, it is still important for Terran Dreadnought battleships to have smaller escorts around.

Federation Battlecruisers were designed to be ships of the line, operating alongside their better armored Dreadnought counterparts as a faster response unit. Like the Petolemaics, the Federation envisioned their smaller Battlecruisers, and subsequently Fast Battleships to have armor comparable to Dreadnoughts to mitigate their numerical inferiority against enemies like the Arachnids.

Cruisers
Terran Cruisers are the definite quintessential example of “gun boat” design. From their main battery, secondaries, AA armaments. These vessels possessed powerful ballistic calibration system, combined with accurate fire control sensors and auto-loaders enabled them to lay down rains of fire with their shots at long ranges.In additions, these cruisers also have longer firing ranges than their counterparts, even rivalling some older Dreadnought battleships. These ships are also very well protected, making them a tough nut to crack before succumbing to damage.

The disadvantages to Terran cruisers are their larger sizes, high profiles, weaker torpedo and missile armaments, inferior maneuverability compared to ships of Turian or Petolemaic designs, and their relative rarity compared to their more numerous destroyer escorts. The smaller support craft capacity on these ships is also a problem, as cruiser captains have to deploy them conservatively to make an effective use of them in combat, as one cruiser can only deploy only one of the following types of support craft into combat within their confined hangar bay: bombers, fighters, or scouts.

Destroyers
Destroyers are fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warships intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or battle group, and defend them against smaller powerful short-range attackers like frigates. Federation destroyers are also geared towards artillery support and providing limited transport capability for planetary assaults.

Federation Destroyers were built around the “shoot and scoot” doctrines, eschewing the typical Terran durability for speed and versatility. These vessels have fast-firing guns combined with excellent low concealment due to their small profiles enable them to rain fire upon enemy ships with impunity while remaining under cover with infrared anti-laser smoke cloud generators or through the use of asteroids and debris.

In addition, these ships also possess excellent anti-aircraft suites and larger payload capacity which make them ideal for escort and fire support roles. However, their missile and torpedo ranges are inferior to foreign counterparts, as such, Terran DD captains often have to wear down the enemy ships with continuous rain of fire at mid-range before launching their ordnance against the opponents within the knife-fighting range.

Corvettes
Corvettes are the smallest class of spaceship considered to be a proper (or "qualified") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was often classified as transport and support crafts.

Federation corvettes are noted for their mobility, and size, but smaller than a light cruiser, capable of transporting a whole division of Mobile Infantry in cold storage, a limited number of gunships, fighters, or ground combat vehicles abroad.

During the early stages of the Second Bug War, these ships were used as carriers and transports accross the galaxy, their modular structures and reliability ensured many of the older generation corvette still remained in service and are constantly being upgraded, although they have been replaced in frontline roles by newer designs.

Carrier
Being one of the pioneers in the use of strike craft carriers, the Terran Federation Fleet was among the first to realize the full potentials of small attack crafts in naval combat. As such, they are one of the few naval powers in Citadel Space to have fully-developed carrier assets. While slightly behind the Petolemaics in the use of attack craft in naval combat, they were far quicker in building dedicated carriers, having only previously been barred from large scale usage of fighters due to material science constraints. Federation naval aviation is extremely adept at fighting enemy capital ships and besieging planets, with the options of both high explosive nuclear, and specialized shield disruptor/armor piercing ordnance available at their disposal, This coupled with large hangar capacities from even the smallest escort carrier design makes their CVs have a devastating impact on enemy warships

However, they still have several glaring drawbacks, they’re quite large, coupled with their longer maintenance durations required to get their strike craft ready, hamper their capabilities to truly dominate the battlefield, hence, despite being one of the potential future weapons of naval warfare, they, like all weapons of war, must coordinate with friendly warships to truly become a powerful asset of the fleet.