How many planes in a (1960s) USN squadron?

[JCR]

Trying to create some scenarios, I found a lot of sources about what squadron was based on which carrier at any given time, but rarely anything about numbers.
What was the authorized strenght of a F-4, F-8, A-4, A-7, A-6 squadron or the smaller A-3, EA-1 etc detachments during the 60s/70s?

[thewood1]

There was a thread asking this a couple weeks ago and a couple links were provided for it.

[mrfeizhu]

generally it seems to be 12 for combat aircraft and for the support and electronic aircraft 5, now the number seems to be less. most web sites will give a lot of information on the squadron, but not in numbers.

[Anathema]

http://www.gonavy.jp/ lists all of the carrier air wings and also includes breakdown of the aircraft for most deployments since the 1950s. Click on the 'BU No.' link to see the number of aircraft that were assigned.

[JCR]

Thanks a lot, this site has the info I needed.
So also for others.
The general rule for the 60s-70s seem to have been:
F-4 and other fighter units: 12 aircraft
A-4 and A-7 units, usually 15, sometimes 12, but there were 20 occasionally
A-6 or A-1: 12 planes
Recon units: 6-8
A-3 detachments: 3-5, same for AEW detachments
Plus one CAG personal plane, either a F-4 or a A-6/A-1

[Mgellis]

When in doubt, or if I simply cannot find reliable information, I just do this...

Squadrons get treated as 12 aircraft. This is useful, as it permits easy division of the squadron into flights of 2, 3, 4, or 6 ships. (It also lets the squadron be divided among two missions, with 6 planes each, and even with the 1/3 rule, the planes will go up as a 2-ship flight.)

Detachments (or small squadrons of specialized aircraft like E-2s) get treated as 4 aircraft. (I know a lot of squadrons of specialized aircraft were actually 5, but if I don't know for sure, I just use 4.)

Some of the sites I use...

http://www.uscarriers.net/
http://www.gonavy.jp/
http://navysite.de/
http://www.scramblemagazine.nl/orbats
http://www.hullnumber.com/
http://russian-ships.info/eng/

I hope this helps.