Maldorian wrote:Sorry if there is already a topic about this.
Well, we all know that the ships in Honorverse are classified by their weight.
And we also know, that Manticore has broken this classification system with building ships bigger as in the classification mentioned.
So, the Battleship is a death class! To old to be effective, so, no one build them ( yes, I know that the Republik Heaven had some, but we can count them as faild experiment).
Manticorian ship designs moved into the next bigger category.
Battlecruiser big as Battleships.
Heavy cruiser big as Battlecruiser.
Light cruiser big as Heavy cruiser.
Destroyer big as light cruiser.
Why not changing the system?
Replace the "Tag" of the "Battleship slot" with Battlecruiser!
The weight range of an the old Battlecruiser is the new definition of an Heavy Cruiser and so on.
The old Destroyer "Slot" would be now a frigate.
The old Frigate class would be now a Corvette.
We can say that that isn´t something new. Look how big a destroyer was in World War 2 and what size a Destroyer has nowdays. An american Arleight Burke Destroyer would be in WWII at least classified as a Cruiser. On the other hand, there were no Frigates and Corvettes in world War 2 ( There was a Corvette, but it was a very poor ship for escort duties, an absolutly bad design. I don´t count that).
Now there are Corvettes and Frigates in the Navies in the world, because the former smallest ship in the Navy, the Destroyer, became bigger and they needed a new class name for ships of WW2 Destroyer size.
What do you think of the Idea?
It depends on how you want to classify ships.
Though if you look at WWII there were two different classes of corvettes, the Flower and Castle classes. But yes, they were slow anti-submarine escorts for convoys; based off an existing commercial whale catcher and build in commercial yards to commercial standards; which allowed them to be build in more places and in greater numbers than a more capable military standard ship. (And for a ship you don't count, were critical to the war effort by forming the backbone of the vital escort screen for convoys as well as helping cover various amphibious landings). And they were operated by the Uk, Canada, US, Free French, India, Free Greek, New Zealand, and Norway.
And there were also frigates in WWII, being larger, faster, escorts (though still smaller and slower than a destroyer) and sometimes build to military standards; these were somewhat analogous to the USN's destroyer escorts (DE). I believe that the few DEs that were given to the RN were reclassified by them as frigates. The RN built the River and Loch classes of anti-submarine frigates and the Bay-class anti-aircraft frigate.
Also during WWII the USN reclassified its Tacoma-class patrol gunboats (PGs) to patrol frigates (PF); and those were based on the RN's River-class frigate, modified to American requirement for construction in American yards.
Still, the WWII frigates had nothing in common, beyond the name, with frigates from the age of sail. Their WWII counterpart would be heavy cruisers; while an age of sail corvette would probably be closer to a WWII light cruiser or large destroyer -- though of course those analogies are far from perfect.
But as for size growth look at the post-war USS Norfolk, which the USN thought was the minimize size to fit all the necessary destroyer functionality for the post-war environment. At 5,600 she dwarfed the late-war destroyers like the Gearing-class (2,616 tons) and even the next USN destroyers the semi-experimental Mitscher-class (3,642 tons) which were followed by the even smaller Forrest Sherman-class (2,800 tons) and then by the first guided missile destroyers the 1958 Farragut-class (4,167 tons). It wasn't until 1972's Spruance-class (8,040 tons) that USN destroyers finally exceeded the size (and cost) of Norfolk. And then those were followed by the Arleigh Burkes; which, as you noted, at 8,100 - 9,500 tons are the size of a WWII cruiser. Heck, they're towards the upper end of the 10,000 tons allowed by the pre-war treaties. And then there's the 3 Zumwalt class desteroyers
at 15,656 tons they fall between the tonnage of the USN's last two gun cruiser classes, the Oregon City (13,260 tons) and the Des Moines (17,255 tons)
And even today ship types don't mean the same things in all navies. The US considered a destroyer to be high-end an all around ship, capable of anti-air, anti-surface, and anti-submarine work. And our frigates (when we had them) were low-end primarily anti-submarine ships. But in the RN destroyers, Type 4x ships like the current Type 45, are dedicated anti-air escorts, with their Frigates broken into two types, the Type 2x ships like the current Type 26 being anti-submarine escorts, and the Type 3x like the current Type 31 general purpose (which lack the anti-submiarine capabilities of the Type 2x or the anti-air of the Type 4x). Their high-end all-around ships would be Type 6x but they don't have a current high-end all-around design in service.
And in the Honorverse the RMN has always classified ships by their role, with weight being secondary. Hence why they didn't reclassify old CLs as DDs once new DDs started exceeding their size. The Courageous-class CLs, like Fearless, came on the scene in 1820, and just 41 years later their new Havoc-class DD was nearly as large; and by 1872 the IAN introduced the larger Dolch-class DD, 1883 the RHN the larger Bastogne-class DD, even if the RMN itself didn't introduce a larger DD until the 1906 Culverin-class.
So I don't see them reclassifying old ships just because the size of new ones has ballooned. They'll instead replace those old ships with new ones as quickly as they can.
