Destroyers, cruisers and frigates

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

There are certainly enough references to the ship types, but I'm not sure if they should be discussed together. Things are now very blurry; it used to be that a modern cruiser had an area air defense system but a destroyer did not -- but that changed with the Burke class. The main difference seems to be more radar illuminators on the cruiser, and more space for a flag staff.

A modern frigate could be called a cheap destroyer, perhaps without area air defense, but this is blurring into corvettes and littoral combat ships.

The distinctions, of course, were much more clear in WWII. For a time, there was a fashion for land attack/ASW (Spruance) and air defense (early Burke) destroyers, where the Soviets had the anti-surface and limited area air defense Sovremennys, with the ASW Udaloys.

Where does one start? Should there be separate articles on older (as WWII) and modern definitions?

[Joe Quick]

It sounds to me like there should be separate articles for each type.  Those article would discuss historically different types and explain how the distinctions have been blurred by modern incarnations.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

It sounds to me like there should be separate articles for each type.  Those article would discuss historically different types and explain how the distinctions have been blurred by modern incarnations.

Is there anyone reading this who is fluent in Soviet naming conventions? To some extent, they didn't stay with the old system, although some of it was for political reasons -- if the Montreux Convention says that an aircraft carrier can't go through the Dardanelles, there's nothing that prohibits a Large Aviation Cruiser, is there. :-)  There also were some fundamental doctrinal differences between the Soviets and NATO that led to a certain type of ship being optimized for a given mission, such as carrier-killing if you didn't have your own carriers.

There have been many flip-flops. I'd argue that a Napoleonic (roughly) frigate -- say a fourth-rate or less -- was more like a 20th century cruiser, in that it was able to go on independent missions; ships of the line fought in formation. There was the battlecruiser idea -- fast enough to run away from what can kill you, and heavily armed enough to kill anything else -- that may, or may not, have perpetuated into the Soviet Kirovs and Slavas (yes, I know, they have been renamed).

It gets even stranger when one discovers that the U.S. Spruances, Ticonderogas, and Burkes were built on the same basic hull -- but two were "destroyers" and one was a "cruiser".  Mind you, a late Flight II Burke has the displacement of a WWII light cruiser, but, using SM-2 missiles in surface-to-surface mode, probably could have given a very, very hard time to any WWII battleship.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

FYI, on the wet side of the military, I have draft articles in mainspace on destroyers and cruisers. It took me quite a while to think I figured out the U.S. navy insanity "cruiser" gap of 1950-1975, with the designations constantly changing, so I haven't been brave enough to try "frigate" after the cruiser gap period redefinition.

I happen to think a modern frigate (as opposed to a sailing frigate) is a low-end escort, but that's just me. For that matter, I'm not sure if the third article would properly be titled "frigate", or perhaps something along the lines of "convoy escort" to include destroyer escorts, and possibly corvettes and sloops. Corvettes also tend to fit into a growing family of littoral vessels, which were once called coastal -- the nuanced difference, I think, is that a littoral ship can cross an ocean to get to the coast of interest, but coastal vessels stay coastal. There may also need to be an entry for fast attack craft, which are generally coastal. There's also a submarine article.

I just started antisubmarine warfare.  There is an amphibious warfare draft, but I haven't started ASuW or AAW. For the latter, I'd be most interested in the electronics rather than the weapons.

[Paul Carrier]

The USN confused things between 1960 and the mid 1970's by calling ships that would have been cruisers, frigates.
Traditionally a frigate was an ASW ship, look at how the RN and other European navies use the term.
Destroyers have regained some of their multi- mission capabilities with Cruisers being primarily the AAW ship.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

The USN confused things between 1960 and the mid 1970's by calling ships that would have been cruisers, frigates.
Traditionally a frigate was an ASW ship, look at how the RN and other European navies use the term.
Destroyers have regained some of their multi- mission capabilities with Cruisers being primarily the AAW ship.

Oh, agreed that the USN suffered from temporary insanity.  We are OK, I think, with articles on cruiser and destroyer; at this point, I'm wondering if there should be a "frigate" article at all, but rather something along the lines of "ocean escort". That would probably also require a "coastal warship/boat" article.

Sailing frigates were actually more like the definition of cruiser until somewhere in WWII--they were most likely to he on independent operations.

[George Swan]

There are certainly enough references to the ship types, but I'm not sure if they should be discussed together. Things are now very blurry...

The distinctions, of course, were much more clear in WWII...

Where does one start? Should there be separate articles on older (as WWII) and modern definitions?

Yes, I agree that, without regard to what Navy Departments call contemporary vessels, there have been too many changes to shoehorn all the different kinds of vessels into one article.

Perhaps there should be an article entitled something like [[Warships called "Frigates"]], with sections like:

*"early sailing frigates";

*"sailing frigates of the Napoleonic era";

*"post Napoleonic sailing frigates";

*"world war 2 frigates";

*"missile armed frigates";

The earliest surviving sailing Frigate, USS Constitution, is over three times the size of the modern reconstruction HMS Surprise, and carried weapons close to ten times more powerful.

IIRC the earliest sailing frigates were the size of HMS Surprise, or smaller.

IIRC the appellation "frigate" was abandoned for a couple of generations -- correct?  Same with "corvette", correct?

The Royal Navy destroyers in use during World War 2 were (mainly(?)) in the range of 1500 to 2000 tons, IIRC.  The Washington Naval Treaty limited Cruisers to under 10,000 tons.  And almost all the Cruisers in 1939 were built to comply with that treaty.  Some modern destroyers are almost as large as WW2 Cruisers.  IIRC some WW2 cruisers were only 6,000 tons -- smaller than the largest USS guided missile destroyers.

I suggest being armed with missiles guided by digital computers rather than being armed with cannons controlled by crude analog computers and the "Mark One Eyeball" is a more significant change than being the vessels nominal role as escort, or air-defense.

Cheers!

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

There are certainly enough references to the ship types, but I'm not sure if they should be discussed together. Things are now very blurry...

The distinctions, of course, were much more clear in WWII...

Where does one start? Should there be separate articles on older (as WWII) and modern definitions?

Yes, I agree that, without regard to what Navy Departments call contemporary vessels, there have been too many changes to shoehorn all the different kinds of vessels into one article.

Perhaps there should be an article entitled something like [[Warships called "Frigates"]], with sections like:

*"early sailing frigates";

*"sailing frigates of the Napoleonic era";

*"post Napoleonic sailing frigates";

*"world war 2 frigates";

*"missile armed frigates";

The earliest surviving sailing Frigate, USS Constitution, is over three times the size of the modern reconstruction HMS Surprise, and carried weapons close to ten times more powerful.

IIRC the earliest sailing frigates were the size of HMS Surprise, or smaller.

IIRC the appellation "frigate" was abandoned for a couple of generations -- correct?  Same with "corvette", correct?

Depends on the navy, I suspect. I'm not sure about the RN; I can't remember the USN using it post-sail/steam until they had a period of temporary ship psychosis from 1950 to 1975.  It clearly was a colonial term, with the RN speaking contemptuously about "fir built frigates".

Corvette was certainly a WWII RN term. I believe the Soviets used it for their larger missile boats (Nanushka, IIRC, rather than Osa). I've seen the Israeli Sa'ars called both corvettes and frigates.

The Royal Navy destroyers in use during World War 2 were (mainly(?)) in the range of 1500 to 2000 tons, IIRC.  The Washington Naval Treaty limited Cruisers to under 10,000 tons.  And almost all the Cruisers in 1939 were built to comply with that treaty.  Some modern destroyers are almost as large as WW2 Cruisers.  IIRC some WW2 cruisers were only 6,000 tons -- smaller than the largest USS guided missile destroyers.

I saw an article yesterday that the Zumwalt class destroyers had been cancelled with two in construction. The last technical article I saw had them up to 14,000 tons; Graf Spee was around 16,000. The news report  said they couldn't fire Standard missiles, which filled me with considerable disbelief -- I suppose I could see them as super-Spruances without full AEGIS, but still with VLS and I'd assume that they could fire Standards under the control of another vessel with Cooperative Engagement Control. If the news report got it right, I'm not sure if major Naval mental health examinations are in order.

I suggest being armed with missiles guided by digital computers rather than being armed with cannons controlled by crude analog computers and the "Mark One Eyeball" is a more significant change than being the vessels nominal role as escort, or air-defense.

Cheers!

Computer control is a quantum jump, especially with mature systems, but air defense gets to be an interesting issue in WWII -- while the CLAAs weren't that much of a success, battleships and cruisers did seem to have a major role of carrier close-in air defense, while the ASW screen had a very different role.

While I recognize there's been creep in terminology, some of it gets into science fiction I've enjoyed.  Even something as amusing as E.E. Doc Smith, trying to figure out how to explain to the two planetary fleets, about to face off in 2 hours, could be taken on by the lightest vessel in the Galactic Patrol task force due to arrive in 2 hours and 10 minutes. Comparably, one Burke vs. one Yamato has the BB badly outnumbered, if one compares the energy, accuracy, and range of a SM-2 Block IV in surface-to-surface mode, vs. an 18.1 inch gun.

I suppose one can be cheered a bit to observe that current medicine has advanced about as much as has weaponry.

Returning to the specific issue, I'm rapidly concluding that there would be little point to having a "frigate" article. Convoy/utility escort, yes, and probably littoral combat (both oceangoing and not). Otherwise, it's easier to put a ship-of-the-line in the Battleship article than to figure out frigate.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Here's what I finally decided:
 [[Destroyer]] and [[Cruiser]] are useful titles.

After much thought, and liking none of the alternatives, I created [[Ocean escort]] for the DEs, frigates, sloops, etc. This excludes the patrol boats, subchasers, etc., which are appropriate only for coastal waters.

I created [[fast attack craft]] for torpedo boats, small gunboats, missile boats, etc., generally not assumed capable of blue-water operations.