Thread: A protest
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 148
# 48
06-13-2012, 11:26 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alextrous
You got that backwards. A squadron specifically designates a group of fighter wings. This with the fact the Galaxy wings were called Galaxy wings and not Peregrine wings indicates that they were actually wings of Galaxy class ships part of a larger designated entity we know as a fleet. If the peregrine wings were referred to as galaxy wings that would generate confusion in the command structure, thus, it's highly unlikely that they were.
Sorry, but that is factually inaccurate. The organizational structure of forces varies from country to country. However, the term wing always refers to an upper level organziational structure. In fact, what varies is whether a group or a wing is the top level division of forces. Sometimes wings are subdivisions of groups (US Air Force structure) and sometimes groups are subdivisions of wings (US Navy and British structure). Other countries follow one of these two structures. However, what seems to be fairly unviserally true is that squadrons are lower subdivsions than both wings and groups regardless of which of the latter two is highest. That is, it is either wing > group > squadron, or it is group > wing > squadron, but groups and wings are never part of a squadron.

Also, in military terminology, at one time historically wing referred to calvary units positioned on the flanks of a battle. This term was used from the Middle Ages through the French Revolutionary Wars, so it was a term used long before aircraft were invented. The British retained this term as an administrative organizational structure for its calvary units up until about 1939, where it was dropped in favor of using it solely in terms of its air unit organizational structures due to its natural connection to flight. Other than that, as a term of military organization, wing always refers to air units, and this is especially true of naval terminology. For instance, a "carrier air wing" refers to the organizational structure of air units on the carrier, not to the carrier itself. Ships, generally destroyers or submarines, may be organized into squadrons which are subdivisions of taskforces or fleets, but ships are never orgainzed into wings.

This is an important fact because Star Trek uses naval terminology for its starship organizational structures. Thus, you can find fleets and squadrons of ships, but "wings" would always refer to groups of fighter craft, not the ships themselves. Thus, a "Galaxy wing" would refer to a wing of fighers attached to a Galaxy or to a wing of fighters using the code name Galaxy, but it would never refer to a group of Galaxy starships.