Firefly - Alliance fleet strength

[Jalinth]

To avoid cluttering up the Serenity thread and to correct my lack of knowledge, does any canon evidence exist as to the Alliance fleet strength (roughly how many ships) and classes (type and strenght)?

My comment on how the Alliance units over Mr.Universe's abode seemed like a good chunk of the fleet strength was pounded on - so I know want to know what is the fleet strength?

[AK_Jedi]

The operative's mission was supposed to be more or less secretive, so it couldn't have been a huge portion of their fleet. Their fleet is also large enough that patroling ships have accidentely come across serenity twice in the series. Other than that, I can't think of any canon evidence for size.

It seems that the tower ships seen in the series functioned as a sort of mothership, and they would send out gunships to nearby trouble spots. The ships in Serenity all appear to be dedicated warships.

I know its not much, but I hope it helps

[RedImperator]

There are at the bare minimum, two gargantuan city-ship cruisers, I.A.F. Dortmunder and Magellan (the one in "Bushwhacked" was unnamed, and there's an outside possibility it was Magellan again with a different CO). More likely we've cannonically seen three. None were present in the film.

Considering how cheap and abundant spacecraft are in the Firefly 'verse, and the number of planets nominally under its control, it doesn't make any sense that the Alliance has a small enough fleet that the flotilla over Mr. Universe's planet represented a significant portion of it. Furthermore, the fact that the Operative didn't have a cruiser under his command speaks volumes about his ability to call on naval help. The cruisers are gunboat carriers, and the gunboats are perfect for chasing down and killing/capturing small, fast quarry like Serenity.

[Bartman]

This is from the RPG; I'm not sure if this is offical or not. But I haven't found anything that the RPG got wrong, yet. This is also from memory so take it with a grain of salt.

All the city-ship cruisers have been built since the war. All are built at the same shipyard. It takes five years to build one. And there are six under construction at any one time. So a little more than one a year comes on line. That means that there would be less than a dozen of them.

Other ships are mentioned, but no mention of their numbers.

[Bartman]

And of course I get it backwards. It actually says six years to construct and five at a time. None the less there are very few large cruisers flying around.

Here is the relevent quote:

BOROS
Ares, one of Boros’ moons, is home to Iskellkian’s primary military shipyards. It’s no wonder then, that the planet is crawling with all manner of government agents and bureaucrats and military folk. Ares is restricted to Alliance personnel and Iskellian technicians. However, anyone who travels near to Boros can lay eyes on the Alliance cruisers being built in orbit around Ares. There are usually five cruisers in production at any one time, since it takes roughly six years to complete one. A full battalion of Alliance troops is barracked here...

And while I'm at it here are some vehicle stats. First the city-shp cruisers:

ALLIANCE CRUISER
Dimensions (LxBxH): 1,200 x 1,000 x 2,500 feet.
Tonnage: 5.5 million tons.
Speed Class: 1 cruise/3 hard-burn
Crew/Passenger Complement: 40,000, and
two squadrons of ASREV.
Minimum Crew: 40.
Fuel Capacity: 55,000 tons (600 hours).
Price: 0.5 billion.
Agi d2, Str 1d2, Vit d8, Ale 1d2, Int d6, Wil d8; Init d8+d2, Life 20. Healthy as a Horse. Aerial Transport Operations/Cruiser d6; Perception/Security d4; Space Transport Operations/Cruiser d6. Complexity: extreme. Maintenance costs: ¢ 50 million a year.
After winning the war, the Alliance moved quickly to consolidate its hold over the outer planets. The Tohoku Class was conceived as a mobile base for pacification operations, and a visible symbol of Alliance power and prestige. In essence, each Tohoku is a self-contained city in space, providing a platform for the Alliance to bring the benefits of civilization to the backward worlds of the Rim. The cruisers are manned more like a city than a spacecraft: information and development specialists, economists and financiers, public administrators, and the staff to support them all. A few highranking officials even bring their families aboard.
The Tohoku design consists of four towers (two large, two small) projecting out of a wide, flat base. The base provides primary support services, including engines, power, and life support. On the underside of the base and inverted with respect to the rest of the cruiser is the landing field; a control tower projects downward to provide oversight. The main towers—hundreds of feet across at the base and hundreds of levels tall—offer maximum surface area for heat management and contact with the outside.
Listing all the capabilities and gear for one of these fortresses would be pointless. Suffice to say that while virtually any sort of defensive weapon is available in quantity, Tohoku Class ships are unarmored and rely on their gunships for defensive actions.

366m x 305m x 762m? If that's right than even the really big ships are a lot smaller than the impression I got from the show.

And next a Patrol Boat:

ALLIANCE PATROL BOAT
Dimensions (LxBxH): 340 x 155 x 45 feet.
Tonnage: 3,955 tons.
Speed Class: 5 cruise/7 hard-burn
Crew Complement: 4 officers, 12 space hands.
Crew Quarters: 4 quad cabins, 4 double cabins, 4 single cabins.
Fuel Capacity: 200 tons (1,200 hours).
Cargo Capacity: 20 tons.
Gear: Eight 100-pound short range missiles (500 pounds each). Ten 10-pound short range missiles (50 pounds each), with decoy or jammer warheads. One 20-pound cannon with 160 rounds. Two 1- pound autocannon with 1,000 rounds each. Two shuttles. Two ASREV. 250 escape pods. Infirmary with four beds.
Price: 140,000, plus ammunition (11,000 credits per full load).
Agi d6, Str d6, Vit d6, Ale d2, Int d6, Wil d6; Init d6+1d2, Life 12. Perception d6; Pilot d6. Complexity: high. Maintenance costs ¢ 10,560 a year.
The work horse of the Alliance enforcement arm, patrol boats can be encountered anywhere in the ‘Verse (though they are mainly found concentrated around the Core planets). Patrol boats perform customs duty, search and rescue, antismuggling patrols, and maintain general control of the space lanes.
Patrol boats saw service on both sides during the war, being one of the few classes the Independent worlds had on hand at its outbreak. Those that were captured intact have been returned to Alliance service (or at least that’s what was supposed to happen!).

And the Gunships:

ALLIANCE SHORT RANGE ENFORCEMENT VESSEL (ASREV)
Dimensions (LxBxH): 83 x 48 x 20 feet
Tonnage: 40 tons.
Speed Class: 5 cruise/7 hard-burn
Crew: Command Pilot, Weapons Officer, two Marshals.
Crew Quarters: 4-seat cockpit, with 2 cramped bunks located behind.
Fuel Capacity: 1 ton (500 hours).
Cargo Capacity: 4-ton bomb bay; 8 tons of external weapons.
Armament: One 1-pound autocannon with 200 rounds. Up to 8,000 pounds of bombs and 16,000 pounds of missiles.
Price: 3,400 plus ammunition.
Agi d10, Str d2, Vit d6, Ale d6, Int d4, Wil d4; Init d10+d6, Life 6. Everybody Has One (the only military ship to have this Complication). Aerial Transport Operations/Gunship d4; Perception/Search d4; Space Transport Operations/Gunship d4. Complexity: average. Maintenance costs 80 per year.
The most common vehicle for Alliance Federal Marshals, sometimes referred to as a “gunship,” ASREVs have three principal roles: anti-boat and anti-missile patrols around Alliance bases and warships, airspace dominance over planetary settlements, law-and-order quick response missions. Although ASREVs are equipped with pulse drives and the range for deep space flight, limited cockpit space and slow speed make ASREVs a poor choice for long stern chases or courier duty. The Independent faction fielded an essentially identical vehicle prior to and during the Unification War. Captured models have been assigned to Federal bases on remote moons. Some few are in private hands and see a variety of uses from personal shuttles to survey ships.

And for comparison Serenity herself:

SERENITY
Dimensions (LxBxH): 191 x 128 x 53 feet.
Tonnage: 2,400 tons.
Speed Class: 4 cruise/6 hard-burn
Crew Quarters: Two double, three single cabins.
Fuel Capacity: 60 tons (600 hours).
Cargo Capacity: 400/460 tons in hold #1.
Passenger Capacity: Four double cabins aft of #2 hold.
Gear: Two 20-ton shuttles. Infirmary in #2 hold. Hover mule. At least six 50-pound, short range decoy missiles in cargo.
Price: Unknown, but probably no more than 2,500 credits.
Agi d8, Str d6, Vit d6, Ale d2, Int d2, Wil d4; Init d8+d2, Life 8. Loved (Major); Healthy as a Horse (Major); Everybody Has One; Seen Better Days. Aerial Transport Operations/Firefly d2; Space Transport Operations/Firefly d2. Complexity: very low. Maintenance costs: 3,872 credits a year.
This 03-model Firefly may have started out life as a standard version, but she has been converted and reconfigured several times over her working life. At least one security-minded previous owner added a number of hidey-holes for high value cargo. Her final conversion was as a medship for the war, and she served in that capacity until Armistice. With the war ended, she was decommissioned and sold to a scrap yard on Boros, where she remained until purchased by her current owner, Malcolm Reynolds. Serenity’s Vitality and Willpower have been raised by her ship’s mechanic. A Quirk-level problem with the ship’s heat management wiring led to the installation of aftermarket radiator panels at several points around the hull.

Unfortunately none of the enties mention the toal number produced or such except for the Firefly class transport:

The original Firefly was designated 01-K64, for model 01 and the year she first flew (2464). The “K” in the type class is a pun: “kei” is a Japanese word for “firefly.” More than 20,000 of the 01 model were constructed between 2464 and 2473. The design tended to shake badly in atmosphere, however, due to turbulent air from the forward fuselage being sucked into the engine pods.
A second model (02-K64) in 2468 tried to fix the problem by having the engine pods swing up instead of down, but that just caused her to be unstable on the ground, and the model was dropped after only a handful were launched. The solution—to extend the wings to move the engine pods about 2 feet outboard—was incorporated in the 03 model in 2469, and production continued until 2498. In all, more than 93,000 Firefly-class transports were constructed; maybe 40,000 are still in the air.

Even with a couple hundred planets that would mean that there would be 200 Fireflys per planet, which explains why Serenity was able to blend in, in spite of her colorful history.

I'm not sure what inferences we can make from this, but if a single civilian model can run at production rates of 1450+ a year, it is reasonable that there could be thousands of Patrol Boats and ASREVs.