David Weber on Frigates, Part 3

SWM wrote:A bit of an aside, but I believe the prefix designation for frigates is FF. (Not that it really matters. )

That is based on the American designation system. In Europe most of the navies use only a single letter. eg
F Frigate
D Destroyer
C Cruiser

The US system came out because of the Washington treaty in 1922 to differentiate between light and heavy cruisers. Look at the series of cruiser hull numbers. The system was expanded during and after WWII to differentiate between ship types.

JeffEngel wrote:If you're defining the classic ship types by tonnage, certainly. I don't have a quibble with the definition; it did work for centuries in the Honorverse after all. But if you define things by role, you'll still have destroyers (probably) and cruisers. (Heck, the frigate vs. destroyer distinction, if you are not counting it by tonnage, is a bit elusive for me.) You'll just have the typical size range for them jumping way up: destroyer jobs being performed by ships the size of old CA's, cruiser jobs being performed by ships the size of old battlecruisers, battlecruiser jobs being performed by ships the size of smallish old battleships. And there may not be much point in building things to do "destroyer" things without building them a touch larger and letting them do "light cruiser" things too.

I think in the semi-recent past the RMN (at least) looked at Frigates and Destroyers as different configuration extremes on ships that were too small to be good for everything.

Destroyers traded off cruising endurance for extra firepower and defenses, while on only barely smaller hulls Frigates got near CL cruise endurance at the cost of fewer tubes, fewer rounds per tube, and fewer beam weapons & defenses.

To get the firepower and the cruise endurance you had to go to a larger hull like a light cruiser - but that's more expensive than either so you can't afford as many of them. (Though remember that light cruisers contemporaneous with the final RMN frigates were barely larger than 1st war destroyers)


Now other navies took different approaches. That Gryf-class frigate is small but carries more tubes than some light cruisers! God knows what they gave up to get that.
(SITS does show that it uses the same Type 55 missiles, though a different launcher, as their contemporaneous Joachim-class destroyer - so my first thought that they'd gone with less powerful, and smaller, LAC missiles was wrong.
However it also shows that it carries less than 10 missiles per tube - and how those FF/DD missiles stack up to an RMN DD missile of the same era isn't shown)

Jonathan_S wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:If you're defining the classic ship types by tonnage, certainly. I don't have a quibble with the definition; it did work for centuries in the Honorverse after all. But if you define things by role, you'll still have destroyers (probably) and cruisers. (Heck, the frigate vs. destroyer distinction, if you are not counting it by tonnage, is a bit elusive for me.) You'll just have the typical size range for them jumping way up: destroyer jobs being performed by ships the size of old CA's, cruiser jobs being performed by ships the size of old battlecruisers, battlecruiser jobs being performed by ships the size of smallish old battleships. And there may not be much point in building things to do "destroyer" things without building them a touch larger and letting them do "light cruiser" things too.

I think in the semi-recent past the RMN (at least) looked at Frigates and Destroyers as different configuration extremes on ships that were too small to be good for everything.

Destroyers traded off cruising endurance for extra firepower and defenses, while on only barely smaller hulls Frigates got near CL cruise endurance at the cost of fewer tubes, fewer rounds per tube, and fewer beam weapons & defenses.

Thanks. That tracks their more-or-less classic wet naval usages too. (The Age of Sail 'frigate', at least, and the early 20th century 'destroyer'.)

To get the firepower and the cruise endurance you had to go to a larger hull like a light cruiser - but that's more expensive than either so you can't afford as many of them. (Though remember that light cruisers contemporaneous with the final RMN frigates were barely larger than 1st war destroyers)


Now other navies took different approaches. That Gryf-class frigate is small but carries more tubes than some light cruisers! God knows what they gave up to get that.
(SITS does show that it uses the same Type 55 missiles, though a different launcher, as their contemporaneous Joachim-class destroyer - so my first thought that they'd gone with less powerful, and smaller, LAC missiles was wrong.
However it also shows that it carries less than 10 missiles per tube - and how those FF/DD missiles stack up to an RMN DD missile of the same era isn't shown)

A Silesian warship can do without much range; Silesia's dense and isn't invading anyone. I imagine the idea there was a minimum size, minimum expense hyper-capable platform able to make minimal pirates and armed merchant cruisers DIE.

A concession to all who yearn for frigates...

Let's just take the Roland class destroyer -- or one category up since the Roland is a transitional class-- light cruiser class, say, and we will just rename it frigate. There! Everybody is happy!!!

Don

n7axw wrote:A concession to all who yearn for frigates...

Let's just take the Roland class destroyer -- or one category up since the Roland is a transitional class-- light cruiser class, say, and we will just rename it frigate. There! Everybody is happy!!!

Don

No, because it doesn't accurately describe what the Roland is. I'd rather redefine "frigate" to mean something other than what it currently does. It's not like the term's been set in stone, historically.

Edit: I think I misread your post and you suggested exactly what I suggested, whoops. Just rename Light Cruiser --> Frigate.

Destroyer
Frigate
Cruiser
Battlecruiser
Dreadnought
Superdreadnought
Dahak

Why not?

Edit II: Actually, from a certain "Age of Sail" perspective, everything smaller than a dreadnought is a Frigate, in the sense that Frigates were ships too weak to stand up to the line of battle. So, everything from a Destroyer up to a Battlecruiser is a "frigate."

Crown Loyalist wrote:

n7axw wrote:A concession to all who yearn for frigates...

Let's just take the Roland class destroyer -- or one category up since the Roland is a transitional class-- light cruiser class, say, and we will just rename it frigate. There! Everybody is happy!!!

Don

No, because it doesn't accurately describe what the Roland is. I'd rather redefine "frigate" to mean something other than what it currently does. It's not like the term's been set in stone, historically.

Edit: I think I misread your post and you suggested exactly what I suggested, whoops. Just rename Light Cruiser --> Frigate.

Destroyer
Frigate
Cruiser
Battlecruiser
Dreadnought
Superdreadnought
Dahak

Why not?

Edit II: Actually, from a certain "Age of Sail" perspective, everything smaller than a dreadnought is a Frigate, in the sense that Frigates were ships too weak to stand up to the line of battle. So, everything from a Destroyer up to a Battlecruiser is a "frigate."

As I read it, in the age of sail, frigate would have been more the equivalent of battlecruiser in the honorverse. Anything bigger was ship of the line. Below that you had brigs, slopes, corvettes, etc.

All hail to Mr. Midshipman Hornblower!!!

Don

saber964 wrote:

SWM wrote:A bit of an aside, but I believe the prefix designation for frigates is FF. (Not that it really matters. )

That is based on the American designation system. In Europe most of the navies use only a single letter. eg
F Frigate
D Destroyer
C Cruiser

The US system came out because of the Washington treaty in 1922 to differentiate between light and heavy cruisers. Look at the series of cruiser hull numbers. The system was expanded during and after WWII to differentiate between ship types.

Interesting. Didn't know that.

Crown Loyalist wrote:

n7axw wrote:A concession to all who yearn for frigates...

Let's just take the Roland class destroyer -- or one category up since the Roland is a transitional class-- light cruiser class, say, and we will just rename it frigate. There! Everybody is happy!!!

Don

No, because it doesn't accurately describe what the Roland is. I'd rather redefine "frigate" to mean something other than what it currently does. It's not like the term's been set in stone, historically.

Edit: I think I misread your post and you suggested exactly what I suggested, whoops. Just rename Light Cruiser --> Frigate.

Destroyer
Frigate
Cruiser
Battlecruiser
Dreadnought
Superdreadnought
Dahak

Why not?

Edit II: Actually, from a certain "Age of Sail" perspective, everything smaller than a dreadnought is a Frigate, in the sense that Frigates were ships too weak to stand up to the line of battle. So, everything from a Destroyer up to a Battlecruiser is a "frigate."

In the Honorverse at least, it's looked like the primary use of 'frigate', 'destroyer', and 'cruiser' have been to define a series of sub-wall warships in ascending order of size. A secondary part of it may be frigates as armed and long-ranged, destroyers as well-armed, and light cruisers as well-armed and long-ranged.

Weber's been adamant about those 60, 80,000 tons hyper-capable warships not coming back for first-tier navies. But that's been a matter of that small hull range as an effective combatant, not about the f-word.

If the navies after the MDM revolution reach another technical plateau, there's reason to think they'd still have a use for distinguishing among at least two, possibly three or four ranges of warship size (and typical associated uses) below the wall. The RMN has thrown the typical hull size range as a determining what the unit is called out the window and gone to using purely intended role for that.

It's possible that those future navies will call what they've got below the wall 'light cruisers', 'heavy cruisers', and 'battlecruisers', but that "we're all cruisers down here!" scheme does not fall lightly off the tongue. Spreading 'frigate', 'destroyer', 'cruiser' over that range - in effect, taking a 1800ish PD naming scheme and scooting the tonnage range up a lot - may provide a more helpful way of describing what's out there.

Crown Loyalist wrote:

n7axw wrote:A concession to all who yearn for frigates...

Let's just take the Roland class destroyer -- or one category up since the Roland is a transitional class-- light cruiser class, say, and we will just rename it frigate. There! Everybody is happy!!!

Don

No, because it doesn't accurately describe what the Roland is. I'd rather redefine "frigate" to mean something other than what it currently does. It's not like the term's been set in stone, historically.

Edit: I think I misread your post and you suggested exactly what I suggested, whoops. Just rename Light Cruiser --> Frigate.

Destroyer
Frigate
Cruiser
Battlecruiser
Dreadnought
Superdreadnought
Dahak

Why not?

Also I'd say that as destroyers had to get bigger to carry enough defense against laser heads, (more PDLC, more CM tubes, bigger CM magazines, that it drove up the hull size enough where they started getting enough cruise endurance for a lot of missions that previously needed a frigate or CL.

So not only were the semi-recent RMN frigates getting increasingly unsurvivable, but their cruising duration advantage was most likely shrinking when compared to newer DDs. (And since their endurance was presumably sufficient already there wasn't much point in upsizing them to give even more range). But adding survivability just morphs into a DD or CL design (depending on whether you also compromised on range when doing so).

Yeah I always wondered why so much of the RMN was based off the old RN system but Hnorverse frigates were so weak when RN frigates covered so many roles.

I think I figured it out though

Honorverse frigates are the equivalent of Royal Navy Age of Sail sixth rate ships (In the age of sail the lightest frigates were 28 gun sixth rates with ships rated at less then 28 guns being sloops or brigs and ships rated 30 guns being fifth rates)

Honorverse Destroyers and Light Cruisers are the equivalent of age of Sail Fifth rate Frigates

Honroverse Heavy Cruisers and Battlecruisers are the equivalent of Age of Sail Fourth Rate frigates.