Federation Commander

I was wondering, did the Federation ever try to put together a fast raiding squadron? Using a DNL for a flagship, adding the NCF and maybe a CF or two, plus the DDF? If such a squadron was only hypothetical, would a CS be able to "keep up" with the other fast ships? What other ships would fit well in a "fast squadron"?

AFAIK, no, raiders were only used individually by all empires.

A non-fast ship would not be able to keep up with a squadron of fast ships. That's why they're called "fast".

Just for clarification, the Light Dreadnoughts are "Fast" ships as well, correct? Another question, did the Federation ever develop a fast battleship type, like the Klingon B9?

mattruh wrote:Just for clarification, the Light Dreadnoughts are "Fast" ships as well, correct? Another question, did the Federation ever develop a fast battleship type, like the Klingon B9?

Technically, the Federation never developed a battleship period... fast, slow, or half-fast!

In SFB, only the Klingons built a battleship (the B-10). The other empires drew plans for comparable battleship class ships, but never began construction for economic reasons.
Federation Commander simplified the whole built, un-built, limited production, unique aspects of the deal and just allowed every empire to have a battleship.
But as of right now, this very moment - only the Klingons have a fast battleship.

Although calling it a fast battleship is like calling a box turtle fast because it can outrun a tortoise.

We have a fed BBL on file for publication in R13.

See!
That's why I said, "Right now, at this moment..."

Stupid wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey...

A more specific answer: Fast raiders were a concept that sounded good before the war and didnt' really turn out as advertised. The shps were expensive, and the loss rate was high, and they were't as good (and were wasted) in normal combat Anybody could have put together a fast raider squadron any time they wanted. Possibly, this happened once or twice for some empires. Few deep targets were worth the risk of losing all of the fleets' fast raiders on a single mission. At various times, a given fleet might have held its fast raiders out of battle to maintain a threat, or used them only to hunt down enemy raiders, then changed their mind and used them for raids, and then changed their mind again and didn't. Considering that more fast raiders (NCAFs and CWFs) were built during the war, the concept never entirely went away. When X-ships showed up (and were as fast as fast raiders) there were times that F-ships and X-ships were combined into squadrons (for raiding or reserve missions) just because they were all the same speed.

I recall a note somewhere that the ISC tried using their fast ships as first responders to incursions along the cordons they patrolled during the Pacification; could there have been scope for at least some of these forcers to be "fast echelons" (with a PPD-armed DNL supported by CFs and/or CLFs)?

Given their somewhat different ways of doing things during the Pacification (in that they were more open to trying various ship types and tactical concepts, since they had built up their fleet without the attrition rates which whittled down the Alliance and Coalition during the General War), it seems that, of the major Alpha Octant powers, the ISC would have been the most likely to at least try the concept out.

Uh-oh, you got my wheels turning. A fast frigate! Although, it can't afford to lose any heavy weapons. It goes real fast and does nothing when it gets there

Fast frigate would be too small to raid anything.

Except the refrigerator!

If you don't eat your ghoch, you can't have any pudding !!