The Terran Protectorate Stellar Navy deploys a heavy assault task force for assets deep within enemy territory that needs to be destroyed; not captured, liberated, or otherwise preserved. Enemy shipyards, listening posts, anchorages, staging grounds and space-based or even planet-based production facilities are all potential targets. The task force plunges into enemy territory at faster-than-light speeds, come out as close to the target as possible, put as much firepower onto target as possible, ensure its destruction, and then retreat back to the Protectorate. They hit fast, and very very hard, and they are meant to hit where it hurts. A standard H.A.T. consists of three battleships or battle cruisers, usually with a Dreadnought class battleship or Hastings class battlecarrier as the flagship, and either a pair of Powell class battleships or Damocles-class battlecruisers. They are escorted by four heavy cruisers, six to ten destroyers and two escort carriers. The flagship carries at least a wing of fighters, mostly strike fighters like the Super Crossbow or the Ballista, while the escort carriers carry mostly interceptors like the Crossbow or the Tengu to play a defensive role. The carriers also have several light pinnaces for picket duty which are deployed once the fleet is inside enemy territory as an early warning net. The task force has the firepower to engage most enemy ships they encounter, with the possible exception of an enemy carrier fleet, which could overwhelm it with fighters while staying safely out of range of the taskforce's heavy guns. In those situations the H.A.T. tries to either quickly close or fight its way free of the fighter swarm and escape with its negative mass drives into FTL.