In real life with surface based warships there were many attempts to mount aircraft onto frontline warships. This has overall had mixed success over time. Cruisers and Battleships could mount a few usually no more than two float planes or ther light aircraft typically used for reconnissance or in a desperate situation to supplement a battle groups air defense capacity however these were mostly removed as time went on. Modern warships have brought this practice back to some extent with on board helicopters. Attempts to up gun or up armor carriers proved in effective or inefficent for a few major reasons. While many carriers would be designed around the hulls of battleships or cruisers a carriers flight deck proved to be extremely vulnerable. The flight deck also limited space for armaments. The final problem however was simply that carrier's could not be used in the same manner as battleships or cruisers, and to have one fight in such a manner would be both dangerous to the carrier and an inefficent usage of its resources.

In space however these factors may not be as important, primarily because one does not need a large dedicated runway in space, and it doesn't have to be located on the "top" of the ship. The landing and launch faciluties can be located elsewhere on the ship or even seperate sections, allowing for more room to be used for armor and weapons. As for tactical paradigms, conventional carrier tactics may not be as effective considering that a carriers primary defense comes from it distance from a target, which in space would be a lot less effective. Dedicated carriers could still exist but would have to have extensive defenses.

The generally accepted origins of the Battlestar and the Assault carrier are of course Battlestar Galactica (though there was considerable influence from Star Wars) and the original Gundam series. Both ships follow a the same concept of being a capital ship with considerable armor and weapons and large compliments of attached attack craft. These ships are highly flexible, more than a match for other ships in their weight class by being able to respond to threats that their opponents can't.

5626505
Depends on the effective range of strike craft and if they can mount ftl. In such a case it may be possible for such a ship to sit in a different star system, close enough to recover its craft, and launch from there. Smaller escort carrier type ships might also exist, if only to provide support to picket or patrol groups, or to recover craft quickly..

5626466
I know most people expect me to rail against the use of any fighter-sized craft, but I actually like the idea of battlestars.*

However, being able to carry a large number of secondary craft does make colonial defense easier as those craft could be launched to aid in a colony's defense while the mothership moves to intercept, continues her patrol route, or follows other orders that require her to leave and no other starship is available to take up defense of said colony.

Of course, the best advantage is that the launch bays could easily be converted to peace time/second line use simply by changing the composition of the craft aboard. Be it establishing colonies, evacuation procedures, delivery of important medical supplies, etc and all without severely compromising any other system.

Dedicated carriers on the other hand.... I reasonably doubt.

* With some caveats of course. I do still view the inclusion of fighter craft to be inefficient as guided torpedoes/missiles can do the same job for a much lower cost in resources and space that could be used for more sensors, weapons, reactors, shield generators, armor, etc.

5626532
Honestly one some ships are called a carrier its cause they focus a lot attack craft but few ship to ship weapons. Or the navy in question just calls them a carrier.

Missiles and torpedo are fairly limited in their use compared to attack craft, they only get one use and that's to attack. Attack craft can patrol, preform recon, search a rescue, provide defensive support for other ships, escort landing craft, potentially provide surface close air support, and ideally you can use them again and again. I see it as more of a trade off than anything.

5626667
Which I agree about. For a pure combat craft, I'd want more torpedoes; but for a true multirole I'd want a decent sized shuttle bay. Though mostly for use in second-line duties (such as the aforementioned escorting landing craft) and peace-time use.
Though for patrol, unmanned probes could do the same task and would also be recoverable.

I see it as more of a trade off than anything.

Indeed. Depends completely upon the niche you want to fill.

5626687
5626678
Well at least we can agree that the battlestars have the biggest nut sacks of any starship ever conceived. Sorry USS Defiant,.

5626775
Oh I wouldn't say that, the niche I see them in is mostly rear-eschelon and frontier units*. Frontier units that need to be prepared for any possible role and rear-eschelon to guard worlds on the opposite side of where the fronts are and to provide support for planetary invasions or to act as a mobile repair facility by loading the bays with small repair-craft and tugs.

So, closer to the lower part of the spinal column than the nut sack. You can go a long way without it and even beat people that have it, but it makes life a bit easier.

* Under the definition I use for battlestar, a Galaxy class starship, as an example, would also qualify as a battlestar as her main shuttle bay and secondary shuttlebays could be loaded with Peregrine Attack Craft and Danube Runabouts instead of the standard shuttles and other small craft.

5626805
Oh you thought I meant like they were the backbone! I meant nut sack in the metaphorical sense of being Badass.

A Galaxy-class really would be stretching the definition very far. Its capacity would be more akin to previously discussed catapult launched craft off of cruisers or battleships. A proper Battlestar would have several squadrons worth of craft if not multiple wings, backed up by a lot of guns and armor, perhaps not as much as a proper battleship but more than enough to stand toe to toe with one and win with its attack craft. A battlestar should ideally be like a second or third line of a hypothetical battlefleet, at last at the start of a battle so as to launch its attack uninterrupted before moving up to support the main battle line with its own fire power and recover any damaged attack craft.

5626862
Well that definitely makes a lot more sense. Most of the time when people talk about the battlestar they believe that they should be the tip of the proverbial spear instead of being situated behind the destroyer/frigates packs, cruisers, and battleships.

As for the Galaxy's ability to support large squadrons

Time Stamps: 1:30-6:20
The main shuttle bay takes up almost the entirety of decks 3 and 4, I think that's enough room. Sadly the closest we ever see to it on screen is the on the MSD in Main Engineering. Damn budgets.... Thankful the model and the video are all based directly on what TNG used as the official blueprints and images taken of the model itself.

5626939
Depends on the situation. On defense I prefer to bunker up my ships, tight formation with heavy cap ships in the center supported by picket ships and cruiser or frigate weight ships, backed up by defensive gunnery and orbital weaponry. I will occasionally have a few ships typically corvettes, frigates, maybe a light cruiser going on offensive sally operations with any strike craft with heavy anti capital ship weapons and interceptors. On offense I prefer to pick the enemy apart with strike craft and using lighter ships to establish a beach head. Then I send in a battering ram of heavy capital ships operating as one big group concentrating fire on targets to wipe them out. Cruiser weight ships get thrown in where needed to back my forces up. If I'm just doing a raid I just throw together a force of light ships with maybe a cruiser to back them up.

So grand total of 24 craft? Not bad, not great but its solid enough for a heavy cruiser.

5627068
Interesting. My own preference on the offensive is engage the enemy formations with cruiser-lead frigate/destroyer squadrons with the battleships and their own supporting fleets composed of cruisers and destroyers/frigates to punch through to the battle's objectives and pure frigate/destroyer flotilla held in reserves.
Where on the defensive I prefer engage outside of the systems I control with harassing forces and only risk fighting over the planet when necessary. I don't put a lot of faith in defensive starbases or planetary installations as anything other than a delaying action for the main fleet to arrive and even then, the enemy fleet could just bypass any station and hit from an angle that the station can't cover. Unless I were to invest in enough stations to cover every possible angle, but that that point it would make more sense to invest in more fleets.

So grand total of 24 craft? Not bad, not great but its solid enough for a heavy cruiser.

Yeah, that's about right for the peacetime version of the bay. But there is a lot of empty space that for the live of me I can't guess why.

5627195
Ah what you fail to realize is that you don't have to cover the whole thing to produce a threatening strong point. Coordinated defensive positions can produce a relative safe zone through which you can either evacuate or reinforce your own forces and protect vital ground positions. For the orbital battle it also provides a safe zone for your own ships to regroup, rearm, repair, and strike from potentially indefinitely. In such a situation you can force the enemy to engage your battle cluster where you will have a huge advantage.

Most likely that extra space is used for servicing the craft, although its a lot of space... like twice what should be needed. Some of it could be used if a ship has to make a crash landing but if so it is a very poorly designed launch bay. I'm hoping to God they have force fields or shields around the storage bays and everything else. Seriously one bad crash could get really ugly, imagine photon torpedoes from a runabout going off inside that space? That comm drone accident on Galactica would be a paper cut by comparison.

5627222
Actually that's one of the reasons why I don't put that much faith in the way of fixed defenses. Say you wanted to defend the Earth-Moon system
The logical place to put the stations would be in the various Lagrange points of a system as those would require the least up keep.

However, only L4 and L5 are stable equilibrium. While it is possible to put stations into L1-L3 (we've put satellites in L1 and L2 in real life) any bump can easily knock them out of those points which makes them unsuited for placement of a defensive station since even the stations own weapon fire could deorbit it.
This means that the ideal area to attack would be from the direction of the L3 Lagrange point; either by attacking from outside the station's effective range and the planetary defenses effective range, by running the gambit to put Earth between the stations and the ships, or more likely a combination of the two in order to take down planetary defenses the portion facing them and then launch an attack. This is actually where I do endorse the use of small craft as garrison units, but they would at best be a delaying action as any fleet attacking. While this does mean that the parts on the same side of the planet as the L4 and L5 points would be relatively safe and easy to evacuate/strike from, those on the L3 side would not be as lucky.

This is, of course, assuming the worst case scenario and the fleet is caught completely out of position, destroyed, or forced to retreat.

True, I had not taken servicing the craft into account. As for crash-landings, well there's only been one onscreen case of a crash-landing without shields or tractor beams and that was the infamous Plan B scene in Star Trek V. I'd presume that by the 24th century and during war time they'd have better measures for emergency combat landings.

Oh yeah, a photon detonating inside the ship would be utterly devastating.

Probably be enough to cripple the saucer section since the hull would contain the blast.

5627238
That's what I figure but its way to much, wasted space for the most part.

5627325
Depends on what you want to do with that defense, how much of the planet you actually have to defend, how much of it can be based on the ground, and how well such defense can be raised against orbital attack. I'd still call for a mobile defense but having a strong point to anchor your defenses is vital for a protracted engagement, it would be incredibly difficult to dislodge you. Also you left out mines and other proximity defenses.

For example if you only have to defend a single position on the surface like say Echo base on Hoth from the Empire Strikes Back. The Empire can certainly take the whole rest of the planet without a fight but that doesn't do anything for them beyond securing a landing zone. This also allows the rebels to evacuate with a small escort and suppression fire from a single anti-orbital ion cannon.

Isn't that right under the Bridge?

5627434
True, but I was thinking of defending something other than an outpost. Since for some reason almost every time I try a strategy game the opposing force bypasses my outposts in favor of going straight for the core systems.

Yes, and it also goes near at least one of the main computer cores. Though given the strength of a 24th century photon torpedo, I'd expect the battle bridge to be taken out too. Thankfully, all the shuttle bays are far away from the warp core and matter/antimatter storage. Though the blast would likely take out the auxiliary fusion reactors in the saucer section and cause massive damage throughout the neck.
Depending upon the yield of course. Without shields it was considered dangerous for the pre-official Borg encounter Galaxy class starships to use torpedoes at full strength when the target is within one kilometer.
Best case scenario for a photon torpedo detonating inside the shuttlebay? The ship limps back home with a blasted out saucer section under the command of the chief engineer. Worst case scenario? Something like this.

5627493
Really? What RTS' are you playing where you don't fortify your main base in some way?

I go for decapitating strikes all the time, seriously, if it works its almost impossible for them to recover.

5627524
Yeah turn the moon into giant gun platform.

5627521
Turn-based Endless Space and another game that I cannot remember off the top of my head. Half the time the AI would always either just build up a crapload of cheap ships to eat away at my fleets or put everything into military tech and steamroll through any mountable defense.

5627524
I mentioned that.

5627559
You know I just noticed? Our tactical doctrines mirror pre World War 2 tank tactics theories.

If one takes the cruiser and frigate weight ships to be the "infantry" so to speak and the heavy capital ships as "tanks" then my tactics resemble something a kin to blitzkrieg or deep battle tactics, with a primary focus on the break through power of my heavy cap ships. Your's resembles British and French ideas which focus on the primacy of infantry with the tank in a support role.

5627602
Huh, never thought of it like that. I was trying to combine naval task force structure with aerial tactics.
Though now that you mention it, most of the time when I do play strategy games I tend to expand I tend to avoid blitzing the enemy in order to avoid overstretching my resources and instead force them to come to me.

Never heard of the tank analogy before today though.

5627619
A reasonable approach, but is shows a blind spot in your tactical approach to things which I must admit doesn't surprise me that much. In most of the roleplays you always focused on naval and air forces, leaving your ground forces just adequate enough to hold the line. Its a thought process that speaks to a mentality that large scale ground wars are a thing of the past. Your strategic approach calls for bleeding the enemy out and keeping them at a distance, choking them to death by crippling their economy, a solid long term strategy but with one fatal flaw which I have seen demonstrated repeatedly. Your build is great provided you can keep the enemy at a distance but if they blitz you then you struggle to recover, you are thrown off balance scrambling to fill the holes opened up in your line before the enemy takes your airfields or your ports, rendering your naval and air forces useless. Its a lesson straight out of the battle of Marathon or the Korean War, if you can't take and hold ground then all your ships and planes are at best on borrowed time or useless.

It pays to think out of the box, experiment with differing tactical maneuvers and paradigms. I learned this stuff playing Empire at War, Age of Empires I, II, III, Age of Mythology, StarCraft, WarCraft, Halo Wars, Dawn of War, Total War, Company of Heroes 1 and 2, Red Alert 3, Mount and Blade, and even Sunrider.

My own tactics call for first assuming a strong defensive posture while launching raids, or artillery strikes, into enemy territory to harass the enemy, disrupt their economy, and gather intelligence. Then I deliver the hammer blow of heavy units supported by lighter units but using my heavies as the tip of the spear. The key to this is momentum, keeping the enemy from dictating the course of the battle until you are ready to deal the killing blow. Mind you it doesn't always work but that tends to be due more often to my AI allies being idiots and blocking the GOD DAMN BRIDGE WITH THEIR IS-2 WHILE MY FREAKING PERSHING AND SHERMANS ARE TRYING TO CROSS AND UNABLE TO GET OUT OF THE ENEMIES' KILL ZONE AND CAN'T SUPPORT MY RANGERS, WHO ARE GETTING SUPRESSED BY THE ENEMY BUNKERS! FOR FUCK SAKE RUSSIA! GET OUT OF THE WAY! Otherwise when I'm playing with my room mate it tends to work beautifully. Even if the Blitz fails I still have a strong defense to fall back on until I can rebuild my forces to strike again.

5628153
That's.... actually a rather fair assessment. Had the role-plays been better (since no one ever seemed to suffer the economic consequences of long term massive mobilization), I probably would have picked up on that.
Though I don't completely neglect economic disruption strikes. For example, I tend to focus on the Exploration and Science branches in Endless Space's tech tree for early rapid expansion, movement speed bonuses, and to unlock Warp Tech so I'm no longer dependent upon Quantum Filaments (Hyperspace Lanes). Since otherwise is next to impossible to punch past the lines for those strikes as the natural checkpoints in the randomly generated galaxy can lead to someone locking down 3/4ths or more of the galaxy by controlling a single system (also something I tend to do since I always go with the Vision bonus that reveals the location of all homeworlds).
Well, you can punch past the lines but by that point you're probably also destroyed at least 75% of their fleet and they'll either fall completely or sue for peace.

Back on track, I've noticed that too when I end up going against AIs (and people) that are naturally more aggressive. My strategies in... actually, in everything tend to be about build up then decisive strikes/pushes. Hell, my old Magic: The Gathering Deck (Blue/Black Artifact) is a prime example of that. My late game stuff tends to be insane, but early game I'm mostly on the defensive trying to build up to that point with spells and attacks being more about delaying actions, field manipulation, or hitting the enemy's lands.

Though the lack of ground forces in role-plays also had another reason. My nations tended to be on the smaller side so there was little way to realistically have a large ground force. Plus, given the kinds of people we used to RP with... it just seemed like sending my citizens into the meat grinder with no chance of victory. The more aggressive nations also tended to be the larger ones and tended to just use wave tactics to crush everything under force of numbers. The solution seemed to be to have a smaller mostly defensive ground force and invest primarily in the navy as every one else tended to have surprisingly small naval forces or tended to have invested far more in ground troop tech so I could then out-tech their navies. Similar logic with the air force. And almost every RP I tended to place my nation in places where I'd have a significant amount of coast line and relatively few avenues of attack via ground forces.

Ah allied AI. With allies like those, who needs enemies?

I learned this stuff playing Empire at War, Age of Empires I, II, III, Age of Mythology, StarCraft, WarCraft, Halo Wars, Dawn of War, Total War, Company of Heroes 1 and 2, Red Alert 3, Mount and Blade, and even Sunrider.

Funnily enough, in the first two chapters of Sunrider (the one that actually costs money is on my to get list) I tend to keep spawn in units on the farthest edge of the map and pick off enemies from a far with a combination of lasers, sniper shots, and hacking with the short-range units rarely seeing action beyond using their active defenses to protect against missile and torpedo strikes.
At least until the pin-point warp ability becomes available. Then I prefer doing that plus occasionally jumping in and doing close range strikes (preferably with the Vanguard Cannon since I avoid using) and jumping out before being overwhelmed.

5628407
A reasonable approach but with one tiny draw back. See I actually kept those analysis records I made during the role play and a technical advantage, we did not have technical supremacy.
Scientific Advancement
Concord: 519
Coalition: 441
The Concord is 17% more advanced than the Coalition.
That's basically like we have Korean war Tech while they had late World War II, tech difference.
Combine onto that the fact they had nearly double the effective military power of our forces and seven times the number of recruits to work with and it should be obvious. A tech-tech solution would be an inefficient use of materials, what was needed was tactical innovation to make up the difference until our superior economy could turn things around. Which is why I went on the offensive.

Of course Novogorske was about as useful in that mess as your average AI ally, and he had the bulk of our fighting strength. Possibly worse considering th AI might actually do things on a regular basis and at least soak up some of the bullets.

5628492
Which is also the other thing, at the time before everything went to crap for no apparent reason the combined defensive forces of our side of the RP had an equal amount of total forces. That's also why I was so adamant about keeping us together. That way instead of all of us trying to cover everything, instead we'd all play to our nations' respective strengths.
But then the insanity happened with the god modding, forced RPing posts before they were ready, nonsensical betrayals. Hell, my final post was originally going to be a short story that would have explained everything. The others just gave me an ultimatum of 'post now or we RP for you'.
My own plans were all about a delaying action until we could counter that goddammed space dreadnaught that came out of nowhere and had no reason to exist in story. Especially since there was that cold war that didn't make a lick of sense.

Still better than some of the nations. I mean, there was that completely unforshadowed betrayal and completely illogical actions. Like attacking a nation who's space station had deorbited via an attack on it because they RPed it hitting their nation or NOT attacking a nation that admitted to acts of terror in sabotaging a science station.
There's a reason why I try to forget those days. The entire thing could be taken as a guide on how not to RP.

5626678
perhaps I should have used the word fewer instead. They can still engage capitol ships but they focus a lot more on attack craft compared to more traditional battle star type vessels. They can still fend of corvettes, Frigates, light and maybe heavy cruisers if they have the armor but against a full on battleship they would lose in a gunnery duel.

Maybe it would be best represented by a scale.

Lots of heavy weapons few attack craft A decent amount of heavy weapons and attack craft Lots of attack craft but not a lot of heavy weapons
Battleship------------------------------------------------------------------------------Battlestar---------------------------------------------------------------------------Carrier

5634774
Wouldn't a pure carrier be redundant in your fleet? If every ship carries her own fighter/bomber wings, then wouldn't it make more sense to use the resources that would have gone into making a carrier into making a larger number of smaller ships?
That way you can avoid the major failing of aircraft carriers, namely the number of men and resources you lose with each vessel lost. Plus, since every ship has landing bays losing one cruiser means that only a handful of ships need to make additional room for the now orphaned craft instead of losing a carrier which would stress far more ships as they try to accommodate the load of fighters.

That was actually a major issue during WWII, every time a carrier was lost the other carriers started running out of room to put the planes and had to dump a number of otherwise fixable (or at least scrappable) aircraft into the sea.

Which isn't even covering the massive loss of life that would occur with loosing a carrier vs a couple of cruisers.

5634788
Depends on what kind of tech you are dealing with I guess. Sometimes its just to zerg rush the shit out of the enemy with an insane number of attack craft, well beyond what their point defense can handle. In other cases its honestly basically a battlestar just without the name and is simply referred to as a carrier like with most UNSC carriers. In some cases like in mass effect its basically done as a work around for strategic arms limitations treaties on battleships.

The other point usually is that these ships usually have battleship grade armor or shields, thus are less vulnerable to smaller warships like frigates and cruisers and thus can stay alive usually long enough to either get away or wait for someone to come to the rescue or for their attack craft to drive off the threat. Its not a perfect plan and I personally prefer the battlestar overall but it could still be useful for supporting things like a planetary invasion.

5634800
True, we never established what tech level we're talking about. A near future scenario, for example, would definitely see a lot of space fighter and attack type craft because they're inexpensive and the compromises needed to get the materials into space means that any structure or larger vessel would likely be lightly armored at best with most of that armoring to protect against space debris and not weapon fire.
Likewise, higher tech levels could see fighters and attack craft going the way of plate armor. Still around, but only a fraction of the mass and relative effectiveness it was before. The former favoring carriers while the latter would favor a small number of organic space wings on larger ships. True battlestars would be somewhere between those.

In some cases like in mass effect its basically done as a work around for strategic arms limitations treaties on battleships.

I remember that, it was a reference to the Washington Naval Treaty which was designed to curb Japanese expansion and prevent an arms race between the British Empire and the United States. ....Well, 1/2 isn't THAT bad...

The other point usually is that these ships usually have battleship grade armor or shields

True, a lot of authors seem to forget that you can armor up a carrier in space so they continue the tradition of carriers having eggshell thin hulls.
Which doesn't even make sense from a historical perspective given how much damage some carriers were designed to take and the number that exceeded that limitation.

Its not a perfect plan and I personally prefer the battlestar overall but it could still be useful for supporting things like a planetary invasion.

Also true. Though given the relatively limited utility, I think it would be wiser to just make more battlestars.
Assuming that's peace-time build up of course. If strategy games have taught me one thing it's always keep a few relatively fast building, cheap designs available. In which case, building a relatively less expensive carrier might make more sense given that it would also serve as a way to recover orphaned fighters and conduct search and rescue operations instead of assigning a more combat capable ship to that role.

5634821
Reasonable enough.

Interesting note, within Star Wars this is how the CIS otherwise known as the Separatists Alliance was able to amass such large fleets in relative secrecy. They built large "Cargo" ships with modular sections and concealed weaponry. When the time for secrecy had passed they simply stopped hiding all of the barely legal guns and added more military grade ones they had lying around. This combined with their massive capacity for Starfighters and thick hull armor gave the Separatists an early advantage.

5634960
Huh, that explains how Space FedEx and the other corporations were able to threaten the Republic. How private companies were able to construct ships capable of going toe-to-toe with military vessels was one of the major things that confused me about the prequels.

5634966
A mixture of bribery, legal loop holes, paper pushing, lobbying, political corruption, smear tactics, and the odd bit of blackmail. So you know, politics. That and the fact the Republic had considerably demilitarized for several centuries, and decentralized a lot of military power.

5634988
Given what I know about the Republic days of Star Wars, which admittedly is very little, why did they demilitarize? I seem to recall piracy, smuggling, and organized crime being a serious issue.
Which, given how easy it was to get military grade starship weapons semi-legally, should mean that the cartels should have decently threatening fleets to warrant funding a space navy.

5634999
Well that is a long story and here we are going into legends canon since with the Disney canon we simply don't know yet but it is probably very similar.

1,000 years prior to the prequels the galaxy emerged out of a chaotic period know as the New Sith wars, a period of massive upheaval and destruction that had nearly destroyed galactic society. With the SIth assumed exterminated during the final battle on the planet Ruusan, the Republic stood unchallenged in the galaxy. Eager to heal the wounds of the damaged galaxy a series of reforms were passed known as the Ruusan Reformation which reorganized the republic and Jedi order politically as well as militarily. It considerably down sized the Republic's military forces down to a force designed to deal with pirates, criminals, and smugglers. The Republic military became the Judicial Forces, basically heavily armed Space Cops, or the Japanese Self Defense Forces. This was deemed more than enough at the time to deal with current threats that faced the Republic. Basically they would only step into a planets internal affairs if absolutely necessary. They would also do inspections of local planetary or systems defense forces to look for anything outside of treaty regulations.

Skip ahead 1,000 years later however and this plan is starting to show its holes. Many systems have their own well within legal defense forces but more than a few were gaming the system by exploiting all of the loop holes and political bullshit. The reforms also failed to account for radical advances in starship technology during that time period allowing for the building of increasingly larger ships where as previously anything over 600 to 1,000 meters was exceedingly rare.

Think of it as like the second amendment debate. The policy was set in place in a different time and attempts to update the policy to meet changing conditions meet staunch resistance. It took the Clone Wars for the Republic to finally reauthorize the creation of a full time offensive military.

5635047
Makes more sense than 95% of the prequels. Thanks.

Also, the word you're thinking of is 'gendarmerie'.