Warship type descriptions

[asmodeus]

Can anyone give me a description of how a warship is classified by type? What are the roles these ships are intended to fill? Below are a few of the types that I have seen. Please add a more complete list if possible.

</font>

• Frigate</font>
• Escort</font>
• Destroyer</font>
• Cruiser</font>
• Battleship</font>
• Dreadnaught</font>

Some of these will sometimes have modifiers such as Close, Light, or Heavy.

I realize that there will not be hard and fast rules, and it will differ based culture and other factors. Still, there should be some general guidelines.

 

[jchurchill]

Frigate
Escort
Destroyer
Cruiser
Battleship
Dreadnaught
======================================

All of the above are derived from historical navies obviously but some of the terms changed over time... an 18th century "frigate" is different from a 20th century "frigate."
using 20th century roles at least --

Frigate, escort and destroyer can all be considered small escort ships that would:

1. escort merchant vessels
2. act as a screen for larger warships like the dreadnought
3 hunt and destroy smaller craft like SDB's
[the "Detroyer" was originally called the "torpedo boat destroyer" because that was its original role -- then later ASW role]

The cruiser -- in the 19th and 20th century was used to:

1. act independantly of fleets to enforce power and show the flag [as small scouting groups of one or two cruisers + a few destroyers

2. as a commerce raider...over come escorts to sink merchantmen.

3. as lead ships in screening forces for larger ships.


battleship v. dreadnought

in MT Fighting Ships -- the diff. is that a Dreadnought is a TL 13+ large battelship. "Battleship" is a Tl 12 or lower smaller warship larger than a heavy cruiser.

Historically --- the age of the ironclad [1859-1906] ended with the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 -- the first so called "all big gun ship" that made all prior warships obsolete or at least obsolescent and Britain began dubbing those older pre-1906 warships as "battleships" and all post 1906 "big gun" ships as dreadnoughts. The role of the dreadnought is to engage and destroy all other vessels. It literally "dreads nought" from other ships...[as in the phrase "Fear God and dread nought."]

 

[aramis]

Cruiser: multimission capable ship of the battle-line, good range of operations by type and distance..

Destroyer: pure-combattant ships too small to be in the main batle line, usually screen the cruisers. Multi-mission capabilities usually limited to multiple combattant missions. Light cruiser weapons on a smaller and (historically, but not currently) shorter ranged hull. In sci-Fi, usually bigger than frigates.

Battleship: a core unit of a battle line; usually a fully combattant vesseel, and usually bigger than, better armed and armored than a cruiser.

Dreadnought: Synonomous with Battleship. Historically, the HMS Dreadnought (a class ship) was the biggest thing afloat in her day, and was the first of the battleships. in modern naval usage, Dreadnought is avoided. In sci-fi useages, DN's are either smaller than BB's (SFB, some scifi novels) or bigger than BB's (Starfire). Traveller seems to use it as bigger than cruisers, smaller than battleships.

Frigate: singlemission or limited multimission screening vessel, capable of independant operations. Some navies use FF and DD interchangeably, others by mission type. In most sci-fi, Destroyers are larger than Frigates. Historically, since th introduction fo the destroyers, DD's have been slightly larger.

Escort: Typically, a vessel designed fro a screening role in battle, but not capable in the screening line of large battle fleets, as a single cruisr salvo can usually cripple them...


In terms of size, in common useage:
Escorts
Frigates
Larger frigates and smaller destroyers
Cruisers
Dreadnoughts and battleships.

 

[Ran Targas]

A good site for this stuff is:

http://www.hazegray.org/faq/

or:

http://www.glossarist.com/glossaries/government-politics-military/military/naval.asp

Haze Gray has some very good articles on ship classification and naming conventions. For some really unique ship classes, check out the Soviet designations.

 

[jchurchill]

Page 5 and 6 of MT's Fighting Ships have a general overview of what it calls 5 ship types and their role generally --

It describes "dreadnougt" as a "super battleship."

cruiser it describes as "supporting battleships and carry combat to areas where a battleship is not considered necessary."

Fighting Ships would be useful...if you want more historical background -- try "Warfare in the Age of the Ironclad" by Richard Hill. I picked up a copy of it and it covers a period fo naval warfare that is roughly comparable to Traveller combat --

 

[deadlock]

Greetings and salutations,

Frigate: Intended to protect other warships and merchant ships.
Escort:
Destroyer: Fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to eascort larger vessels in a fleet or battle group and defend them against smaller, short-ranged attackers.
Cruiser: Large warship capable of engaging multiple targets simutaneously. Historically, they were the smallest ships capable of independent operations.
Battleship: Were the most heavily armed and armored warships.
Dreadnaught:

Other ships you may wish to investigate include:
Battlecruiser: Comparable to a Battleship in size and armament, but has thinner armor and faster speed.
Corvette: Small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship. Since they are smaller than Frigates, this would equate into the System Defense Boats most planetary systems with TL9 have in use.
Destroyer Escort: Small, fast warship designed to be used to escort convoys of merchant ships.
Heavy Cruiser: Equivalent to a Battlecruiser.
Light Cruiser: Not so large or as powerful as a cruiser or heavy cruiser, but still larger than a Destroyer.
Escort Carrier:

This information is from http://www.objectssearch.com/pedia/get.jsp?page=/wiki/Category:Ship_types and covers ship types from several different nations and what they were used for then and now. In Traveller (all versions), some will have different purposes and/or added duties.

Hope this helps.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

One important point concerning modern cruisers:
They are used as defensive platforms for air and missile defense. They also tend to be the workhorses in terms of radars, etc.
Of course, that is in a carrier-based Navy.

 

[jchurchill]

Marquis D wrote:

"Battlecruiser: Comparable to a Battleship in size and armament, but has thinner armor and faster speed."

See my minor quibble below about "heavy cruiser"

"Corvette: Small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship. Since they are smaller than Frigates, this would equate into the System Defense Boats most planetary systems with TL9 have in use."

Another minor quibble --- if going by real world equivalents -- A corvette is still capable of travelling beyond a coastal region and IMTU a corvetter would be a small jump caple ship like the Gazelle class -- I see an SDB as more like a PT boat or an MTB. But reasonable minds may differ.

"Heavy Cruiser: Equivalent to a Battlecruiser."

There is a fuzzy line here but the two are supposed to be different. There is always some oddball ship like the German "pocket battleships" or the USS Alabama which althoigh classified as a battleship in USN terms was dubbed a battlecruiser by other navies. The heavy cruisers like the Indianapolis or the New Orleans were impressive ships but not "comparable in size and armamament" to a battleship really. Compare the Indianapolis to the USS Missouri.

Ok that's it and that is a minor quibble but one I htought worth throwing out. Note that between the CT Fighting Ships and MT Fighting Ships the idea of the battlecruiser seems to have been dropped. Unless one counts the bizarrely named "Light Battleship" of MT.

 

[jchurchill]

One important point concerning modern cruisers:
They are used as defensive platforms for air and missile defense. They also tend to be the workhorses in terms of radars, etc.
Of course, that is in a carrier-based Navy.
---------------------------------------======
I let that slide because to me the Traveller navies tend to not be "carrier-based." There is a whole long thead about this issue in the Fleet about the Dreadnought versus the fighter --- I'm too rusty with High Guard to summarize it correctly here.

 

[asmodeus]

Any ideas on Escort vs. Close Escort? Can Close apply to other types of ships? What about Far or similar?

 

[jchurchill]

Any ideas on Escort vs. Close Escort? Can Close apply to other types of ships? What about Far or similar?
================================================
"Close Escort" as a descriptor never meant much sense to me...too ambiguous. Does it mean close as in close to planets? Close as close to the ships it is escorting?
Call it a destroyer escort. That makes more sense to me.

 

[Capt. Blacklight]

I would have to say, call it a corvette. a DE is So much more that a standard traveller CE.

Originally posted by secretagent:
Any ideas on Escort vs. Close Escort? Can Close apply to other types of ships? What about Far or similar?
================================================
"Close Escort" as a descriptor never meant much sense to me...too ambiguous. Does it mean close as in close to planets? Close as close to the ships it is escorting?
Call it a destroyer escort. That makes more sense to me.

 

[aramis]

The problem is that there are two competing modes, and the roles are evolving to fit, in ship design:

Multi-mission and Single-mission.

Multi-mission craft are designed either for the ability to fill several roles in a fleet structure.

Singlemission focus on one mission to the exclusion of others.

Cruisers had range, originally, on heavy frigates and light Ships of the Line, hence the name.

They gave up armament for range, and once armor became common, single-mission ships could easily outdo them on any one area.

Battlecruisers sacrificed some fo the range (1880-WWII) for larger guns and more armor, plus generally were less equipped for the non-combat roles.

Pocket Battleships sacrificed even more range for the heaviest armor and weapons they could mount on the hull.

Corvettes are small, fast frigates.

Traveller generally uses the term destroyer for the Frigate role: the smallest ship of the line, and the basis for the secondary lines. (hence being the smallest classes routinely mounting spinals.)

Just for the historical basis, from Wooden Ships and Iron Men:
Class 1 and 2: Ships of the Line
Class 3: Frigates
Class 4: frigates and corvettes
Class 5: sloop, schooner and brig
Class 6: Gondola, Galley, and Radeau
Class 7: Gunboats

This was a typical understanding (and IIRC, is based upon the fench method of classes from the time).

Destroyer is a WWII term, as destroyers were pack-oriented, and often operated in independant packs, ratehr than as integral parts of larger fleets... at least in theory.

Pocket battleship is a term applied to certain superheavy cruisers (Several arms limitation treaties defined Cruisers by displacement... and the germans and brittish promptly built ships right to those limits, and some were shorter ranged so they could mount armaments expected of Dreadnoughts and Battleships.

Think of a PBB as being , in Traveller HG terms, an AV10+ heavy cruiser, mounting an ABSOLUTELY HUGE armament Spinals R+, multipel hundred ton bays.. but having only J3, not the typical J5 of fleet units. Battleship armaments, cruiser hull, and from a distance, not being THAT threatening...

Historically, HMS Dreadnought, being one of the earliest Battleships, was also one of the smallest....

 

[jchurchill]

I would have to say, call it a corvette. a DE is So much more that a standard traveller CE.
================================================
That is an excellent point ....call it a corvette...call it a little red corvette if necessary.

 

[jchurchill]

Destroyer is a WWII term, as destroyers were pack-oriented, and often operated in independant packs, ratehr than as integral parts of larger fleets... at least in theory.
=================================================
Destroyers were present in the 1st World War and even getting back a little further to the late 1890's. Originally called Torpedo Boat Destroyers.

"fast naval vessel that has served a variety of functions since the late 19th century. The term destroyer was first used for the 250-ton vessels built in the 1890s to protect battleships from torpedo boats. These torpedo-boat destroyers, as they were called, then became super torpedo boats themselves, so that, by World War I, they were commonly deployed ahead of the battle…"

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9030095

http://www.destroyers.org/Redesign/P3/history1.htm

 

[jchurchill]

"the USS Alabama which althoigh classified as a battleship in USN terms was dubbed a battlecruiser by other navies."

I was confused when I wrote this...what else is new....I should have written USS ALASKA not USS Alabama.

 

[jappel]

This is strictly a MTU thing here.

MTU is a homebrew with one largish stellar power (~80 systems), some medium-sized powers and a host of smaller polities and independent worlds. Harkening back to an Age of Sail model, specifically the exploits of the early 19th century US frigates (and some of their British counterparts), several of the larger powers field a class of vessels I call "patrol frigates".

These generally operate independently beyond their government's borders for months at a time. Being purpose-built military ships in the 3-5k dton range they easily trump any pirates, privateers and most small warships, but they aren't meant to duke it out in a fleet engagement. They have a small troop contingent, too.

Occasionally you'll find one leading a squadron of smaller vessels, usually <1k dton vessels similar to Fierys and Gazelles, on anti-piracy sweeps. However, usually they'll be found singly or in pairs, showing the flag, rendering assistance, etc. They make a good deus ex machina to bring in when the situation goes to pot, too, as they're big enough to be too much for almost any PC group.

John

 

[vutpakdi]

In the OTU, you also get things like battleriders, monitors, and missile boats.

Battleriders: large (10k dTon plus), well armored, well armed non-starships designed to be carried into a system by a jump capable carrier (which is very lightly armed/armored) and then detached for offensive operations.

Monitors: large, well armored, well armed non-starships which are designed to remain in a single system for defensive purposes.

Missile Boats: cheap, poorly armored hulls packed with missiles used by the Terrans in the first set of Intersteller Wars.

Ron

 

[BetterThanLife]

Actually while their primary function is Air Defense, in a carrier task force everything is designed to protect the carrier, it is not their only function. In point of fact the F-14 Squadron is a Carrier Task Force's Primary Air Defense system. Cruisers in the USN are still Multi-Mission and Multi-Function. In the days following the collapse of the Soviet Union, where large flights of Cruise Missile bombers are not as big a threat, the cruiser can carry less defensive armament and more offensive armament. For example, the Virginia had 8 Tomahawk launchers installed, plus 8 Harpoon launchers. The SM2 launchers can generally handle Harpoons, ASROC and SAMs. The VLS Aegis Cruisers, and Destroyers can fill any of those cells with either Harpoon or Tomahawk missiles. VLS Aegis was originally designed to carry approximately 120 missiles and can flush all of those missiles in less than 5 minutes. Loading up with a 50% load of Tomahawk in two of the Cruisers assigned to a Carrier Task Force would put a world of hurt on any surface targets that the Task Force commander decided to strike. (And with 75% Cruise Missile loads, could put almost as many missiles in the air as a typical Alpha Strike.) Considering that you could do the same thing with the VLS Destroyers, (Though they do carry less missile cells.) you no longer need a carrier to attack surface targets that are over the horizon.

Of course it is extremely difficult to recall a missile and once you shoot your load you have to entirely rearm to continue the engagement. Whereas Carrier Aircraft are reusable, can react to changing conditions and have a better variety of options as to what to use to service a target.

However the modern Cruiser is every bit as much a Multi-role ship as the WWII equivalent. MAtter of fact with so much more punch the Battleship is the ship that is the ship that has been withdrawn from service, worldwide.

Originally posted by Fritz88:
One important point concerning modern cruisers:
They are used as defensive platforms for air and missile defense. They also tend to be the workhorses in terms of radars, etc.
Of course, that is in a carrier-based Navy.

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by Ron Vutpakdi:
Missile Boats: cheap, poorly armored hulls packed with missiles used by the Terrans in the first set of Intersteller Wars.

1248 has Torpedo Boats which fulfil a similiar role.