The Fascist weapon of choice is the beam weapon. Their ships do better than most when they are attacked by fighters, because of the higher them average number of beam weapons that can be used to destroy the incoming fighters.
The tech level 5 Fascist Battlecruiser as much beam weapon firepower as a battleship ( 10 banks! ). Many Fascist ships are of Birdmen design. Three of their ships can cloak. They have the ability to pillage planets for megacredits and supplies. They have two ships with the glory device that are designed to destroy enemy cloaking ships.
Fascist starships can plunder a planet for money and supplies. When a planet is plundered 20% of the population (native and colonist) is killed off and their personal belongings are converted into supply units. Plundering for around 6 turns will cause riots. Plundering for about 11 turns will cause a civil war, but very few of the inhabitants will still be alive. The reason it takes so long for the population to become upset and start to riot is that everyone in the population that starts trouble is killed.
The megacredits from the planet are beamed up to the ship after the pillage, supplies are also beamed up and any leftover supplies are sold for megacredits and beamed up to the ship.