Carrier flight groups
- Thread starter Shrike
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Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Originally posted by Bob McDob
Isn't the frigate larger than a destroyer?
Yes... hence what TC said about a frigate being larger than a destroyer.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Originally posted by Shrike
Ahhh...... hmm. Long-range cloak detection gear?
Well, I'll figure it out.
You're thinking of Star Trek.
OriginalPhoenix
Professor Emeritus
Only in the WC universe. In reality, frigates are marginally smaller than destroyers. For example, the de facto US Navy frigate (the OLIVER HAZARD PERRY-class) is about 445 feet long and 4100 metric tons, while the ARLIEGH BURKE-class destroyers are about 505 feet long and displace 8400 metric tons.Originally posted by Bob McDob
Isn't the frigate larger than a destroyer?
In the US Navy, frigates are dedicated anti-submarine vessels, while destroyers are multi-role (ASW, AA, transport, scout).
Sizes tend to change based on the needs at the time, however. I don't think frigates existed during WW2, for example. Frigates existed during the age of sail, and I think they were one of the larger classes of ships around, although I don't remember exactly how many guns a frigate carried.
A classic example of how mutable ship designations are is Freespace 2. In that game, the ship classes are (from smallest to largest) cruiser -> corvette -> destroyer. Drop the corvette, and you're also looking at the order in Star Wars.
A listing that puts Freespace more in line with modern terminology would probably be cruiser -> battlecruiser -> battlecarrier.
You are correct. Frigates were about the size of modern day destroyers, in retrospect that is. The payload of the guns was often about 28-38 (at the height of frigate design). Usually consisting of 9-pounders, but also consisting of 12, and up to 18.
While it is true that "frigates" were used by the US Navy in WWII, it was more like a corvette than an actual frigate. (Used more for light patrol, escort, and a bit of area recon.)
OriginalPhoenix
Professor Emeritus
True, but then ask yourself: was there such a thing as destroyers and cruisers during the age of sail? The answer would be no. Frigates were by default the largest (and most powerful), because nothing larger had been conceived of.
Freespace and Star Wars...fictional universes, as WC.
I'm merely pointing out that WC, being a fictional universe that in many ways is based on modern military facets, has the sizes of frigates and destroyers switched around. It's not a big deal, just an observation.
OriginalPhoenix
Professor Emeritus
Many people would consider the destroyer escort of WWII to be pretty much a frigate in both form and function -- slightly smaller, somewhat lighter armed, and customized for the anti-submarine role.
Hardly the biggest (although it was one of the larger ones). I used to have an old coffee table history of the US Navy book that had the various classifications, and there were ships with well over 60 guns.
The difference just has to do with time, the way things are perceived, and the needs of the day. "Frigate" is probably the only Age of Sail ship name still in use today. To the best of my knowledge, the other names simply aren't used nowadays. There's no reason not to call a ship a "sloop" (iirc, a ship with a minimal cannon battery) - rather, the term is just no longer used. Why "frigate" survived while the others did not is something I don't know, particularly since the modern day version seems to bear little similarity to the older version.
As for the fictional universes that one finds in Science Fiction - a cruiser presumably "cruises". It can patrol an area of space for a time and exert a reasonable degree of influence over it. Since we see little of WC that isn't carrier based ops, its hard to determine how much "cruising" WC cruisers do. The FS cruisers, being smaller and cheaper than the destroyers (the only other capital ship in the first FS) seem built for this role. In peacetime SFB, this seems to be the primary role of cruisers until the war cruiser arrives on the scene and upsets the balance (most of the combat power, half the on-station endurance, and two-thirds the cost).
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
Frigates were not the biggest ships of the sailing period. They were a very effective combination of speed and power, but neither the fastest nor the most powerful. When they were first conceived in the 17th century, they were much less powereful than the war galleons (but naturally, much more manoeuvrable and faster); in the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, the "line ships" (I'm not sure if that's a proper term in English - it's a direct translation from a Polish book I was reading a few weeks back) were far more powerful. Then, later in the 19th century, warships with sails were overtaken in power by steam-powered warships.
A sloop is a type of single-master - the name is used to define single-masters with two sails. The term is certainly still used today. For that matter, many other Age of Sail names are also used today; things like ketches, cutters, barques and, naturally, corvettes, all still exist either.
On the contrary, in terms of military role the frigate is virtually identical to the frigates of old. The same goes for WC frigates; while they are bigger than destroyers, they are not very well armed.
Capn Johnny
Cap'n Johnny
You know.. you could clear all this up.. or maybe not.. by just going to dictionary.com and looking up sloop, corvette, frigate, destroyer, corsair.. or any other ship type you can think of..
-John
-John
OriginalPhoenix
Professor Emeritus
For some reason, I doubt that the dictionary has much to say about the actual sizes of these vessels, other than generic terms such as "large", or "sizable". 
Capn Johnny
Cap'n Johnny
frig·ate Pronunciation Key (frgt)
n.
1. A warship, usually of 4,000 to 9,000 displacement tons, that is larger than a destroyer and smaller than a cruiser, used primarily for escort duty.
2. A high-speed, medium-sized sailing war vessel of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
3. Archaic. A fast, light vessel, such as a sailboat.
4. Originally, a vessel of the Mediterranean propelled by sails and by oars. The French, about 1650, transferred the name to larger vessels, and by 1750 it had been appropriated for a class of war vessels intermediate between corvettes and ships of the line. Frigates, from about 1750 to 1850, had one full battery deck and, often, a spar deck with a lighter battery. They carried sometimes as many as fifty guns. After the application of steam to navigation steam frigates of largely increased size and power were built, and formed the main part of the navies of the world till about 1870, when the introduction of ironclads superseded them. [Formerly spelled frigat and friggot.]
5. United States warship larger than a destroyer and smaller than a cruiser [syn: guided missile frigate]
-John
n.
1. A warship, usually of 4,000 to 9,000 displacement tons, that is larger than a destroyer and smaller than a cruiser, used primarily for escort duty.
2. A high-speed, medium-sized sailing war vessel of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
3. Archaic. A fast, light vessel, such as a sailboat.
4. Originally, a vessel of the Mediterranean propelled by sails and by oars. The French, about 1650, transferred the name to larger vessels, and by 1750 it had been appropriated for a class of war vessels intermediate between corvettes and ships of the line. Frigates, from about 1750 to 1850, had one full battery deck and, often, a spar deck with a lighter battery. They carried sometimes as many as fifty guns. After the application of steam to navigation steam frigates of largely increased size and power were built, and formed the main part of the navies of the world till about 1870, when the introduction of ironclads superseded them. [Formerly spelled frigat and friggot.]
5. United States warship larger than a destroyer and smaller than a cruiser [syn: guided missile frigate]
-John