Squadron

Two D77-TC Pelican dropships of the 23rd Naval Air Squadron during the Battle of the Silent Cartographer in September 2552.

Squadrons are a military organisational unit utilised in several military branches of the United Nations Space Command. They are used by the UNSC Navy and UNSC Air Force to organise both the warships and strikecraft of their respective organisations.

UNSC Navy

In the UNSC Navy, squadrons are used for the organisation of both ships and smaller craft.

Naval squadrons

During the Insurrection years prior to the outbreak of the Human-Covenant War, the navy divided its naval squadrons into numerous specialised functions, including attack, battle, carrier, monitor, and support squadrons. However, due to the chaos and high rate of ship loss during the conflict, squadrons ceased to be relevant on a tactical level, and became an administrative organisational type for record-keeping and honourific purposes. Despite this, naval artificial intelligences - sticklers for regulations - continue to carefully arrange dwindling ship rolls into the aforementioned squadron types, despite them having lost de jure meaning over two decades ago. In some cases, this level of administrative mismanagement left long-destroyed squadrons attached to UNSC fleet units out of deference to tradition and to honour their sacrifice. A UNSC fleet with only such detached squadrons is sometimes termed a "paper fleet", and new ships may be occaisionally assigned to them due to bureaucratic error.

The movement and tasking of naval squadrons is the responsibility of UNSC Fleet Command (FLEETCOM).

For tactical deployments, UNSC warships are instead grouped into battle groups, which are then combined together to form flexible task forces. Fleets are the highest level of UNSC naval organisation.

Naval air squadrons

Contrary to warship organisation, the UNSC Navy also utilises squadrons as part of its smallcraft deployments. Naval air squadrons such as these consist of dropships, strikecraft, bombers, and other air units assigned to a given warship or collection of warships. Little is known of how these squadrons are assigned, or their place in the overall UNSC military hierarchy. At present, only two such squadrons have been formally identified:

• 23rd Naval Air Squadron - the air wing detachment assigned to UNSC Pillar of Autumn for Operation: RED FLAG in August 2552.
• Longsword Squadron Delta - a detachment of GA-TL1 Longswords attached to UNSC Commonwealth during its mission to the Chi Ceti system in 2525.
• Ten such squadrons of F-29 Nandaos were attached to Task Force Pantea in mid-2526, which itself consisted of six Halberd-class light destroyers.

UNSC Air Force

Within the UNSC Air Force, squadrons are an intermediate level of aircraft organisation, consisting of between six and sixteen aircraft. Each squadron consists of between two and six flights, which each consist of three or four individual aircraft. The squadron additionally consists of the flights' combined and additional technical support and command personnel. Several squadrons are then grouped alongside non-aircraft specialised units into either groups or wings, depending on whether their mission is expeditionary or garrison in nature, respectively.

Air Force squadrons are named via a numerical designator and a mission type, such as the 980th Intercept Squadron. The Air Force operates a network of quick-reaction squadrons deployed on Earth and throughout the Inner Colonies, which are designed to deploy with atmospheric fightercraft and military spaceplanes (such as the FSS-1000 Sabre) at a moment's notice.