Reserve Status and Fleet Formation

This is an example of how ships in reserve (A10.40(a)), and in Fleet Formation (A10.40(d) & D7.0) interact.
Assume you have an illegal (probably), but helpful for this explanation squadron that consists of 4 large ships and 12 size class 4 ones.
By A10.40(a), the 4 large ships may be placed in reserve. This lowers their AF and restricts their special abilities somewhat.
By A10.40(e), if you have FF tech, some ships may be put in reserve at full AF.
If you have FF-I, then this SQ could put 2 ships in FF-I reserve slots (12xSC4 is two sets of six), and the other two would have reduced AF due to being there via A10.40(a) instead of A10.40(e).
If you have FF-II, things would be the same as FF-I, as you have two sets of five ships and some spares(*).
If you have FF-III, then you could put 3 ships in FF-III slots and one in the reduced AF reserve slot.

* The spares in this case might have some use as a valid combat tactic is to kill off ships (typically SC4 ones) to reduce the number of ships allowed in reserve. In this case, the 1st ship lost would reduce the reserve limit, but not the fleet formation slot count (with FF-I or FF-III in this example you'd lose both a reserve slot and a FF slot).
Ships in reserve (ex: FFp) are not likely to learn (see C9.52).
A ship that is counted for a FF slot can not itself be placed into reserve (ex: FF-III, SQ with SC3 and 8xSC4 hulls would have one FF slot).