Naval Ship classes: their tonnage, and designations

[justleroy (OP)]

I started playing this game about a month ago.  In reading the forums and the wiki, I've noticed that there is a lot of variation in ship classification.  In doing a Google search to make sure I had a more or less realistic classification for my ships, I discovered there is a large variation in real-world ship classification, as well.  There are a lot of nations that want to call their frigates destroyers (or vice versa in the case of some EU nations).

I decided to make a listing for my own reference, and have decided to share it with the community.
 

It can spot a 10,000-ton battleship [. . ]
   -Aurora Wiki Active Sensor Design page

I included that quote from the wiki because it gave me a chuckle.  This is like calling a chihuahua a horse. 

In general, this is what I came up with through various Google searches on naval displacement, tonnages, and classifications.  The most valuable source was the AMI International Definitions of Vessel Types (hxxp: www. amiinter. com/pagex. php?pg=vesseltypes).

<700 tons - Fast Attack / Patrol craft --
FACs are small (under 700 tons), fast (over 25 knots) vessels that are intended for quick, hit-and-run strike operations within 100 miles of the coast.  In Aurora terms, any craft under 500 tons is treated as a fighter, so this class in Aurora is generally from 501 - 1000 tons. 

700 - 2000 tons - Corvettes / gunships / coastal patrol craft --
Corvettes are generally the smallest platforms capable of accommodating the sensors, weapons, and combat systems needed to operate in a medium threat environment.  In Aurora terms, this would be used for defense of a planet, moon, or listening post, but would not give chase to an enemy once driven off.

2000 - ~5000 tons - Frigates --
 A frigate is generally the smallest surface combatant that can conduct extended blue-water missions in a high-threat environment.

~5000 - ~ 10,000 tons - Destroyers --
Generally, a destroyer is considered to be a ship that has all of the sensors (including a sophisticated phased-array radar), combat systems, and weapons needed to operate in a high-threat environment.  This ship is the backbone of most navies as these ships are generally more cost effective than, and almost as capable as, cruisers.

~10,000 - ?? - Cruisers --
A cruiser generally displaces over 10,000 tons, and is fully capable of a wide-range of independent warfare operations in a multi-threat environment.  These are the most familiar types of vessel in science-fiction.  There does not appear to be an upper limit for cruisers.  Even the old battleships could be classified as cruisers.  Logically, though, the cruiser class shoufd probably end where the battleship class begins. 

>~34,000 tons - Battleship/Dreadnaught --
The only real world equivalents are from WII, as no one has built a BB since ~1943.  These ships are huge and expensive.  Note, they are not necessarily slow! The Iowa class battleships of WWII could easily keep pace with the Essex class aircraft carriers they escorted and had a top speed of 31 knots.  Respectable even for modern naval vessels.  These ships carried the largest and most powerful armaments ever put on a naval vessel.  The Yamato class battleships used 18" guns, the Iowas 16". 


Some examples of past naval vessels and their sizes are below.  (Taken from hxxp: www. rpsoft2000. com/shipsize. htm)

Code: [Select]

Passenger and Military Type Ships
        approx. feet feet knots
date name owner weight (tons) decks people length width Speed
Passenger / Military            
1912 Titanic White Star Line 46,328 9 3,000 882.5 92 21
1934 Queen Mary Cunard 81,237 12 3,131 1,019   28.5
1939 Bismark German War Ship 50,000     880 120 29.5
1962 Carrier Enterprise US Navy 89,600   5,830 1,101 133 30
1973 Carrier Nimitz US Navy 97,000   5,680 1,092 134 30
1991 Monarch of the Seas Royal Caribbean 73,941 11 2,350 880 106 19
2000 Explorer of the Seas Royal Caribbean 138,000 15 3,114 1,020 157.5 23.7
2001 Adventure of the Seas Royal Caribbean 138,000 15 3,114 1,020 157.5 23.7
2002 Brilliance of the Seas Royal Caribbean 90,090 13 2,501 962 105.6 25
2004 Queen Mary 2 Cunard 150,000 23 3,873 1,132 147.5 30
2006* Ultra-Voyager Royal Caribbean 160,000   4000+  

[joeclark77]

I think these things are all relative.  A destroyer today would be bigger than a destroyer from a century ago.  I think you're generally in the clear as long as you have your cruisers bigger than your destroyers and reserve words like "battleship" for the biggest things you plan to build.

[Maltay]

I am amused.  I was looking at the same stuff earlier today.  I came up with the same order and explanations =)

[joeclark77]

What I'd like to know, if anyone can find it, are some of the terminology from the olden days of wooden sailing ships.  I know they used the term "frigate" back then, but I don't know how would it compare to a brigantine or a schooner or a ship of the line or what have you.  Did they use the term "destroyer" in that era, or is that something new?  It might add a little more flavor to the game if we had these hulls available.

[strych90]

What I'd like to know, if anyone can find it, are some of the terminology from the olden days of wooden sailing ships.  I know they used the term "frigate" back then, but I don't know how would it compare to a brigantine or a schooner or a ship of the line or what have you.  Did they use the term "destroyer" in that era, or is that something new?  It might add a little more flavor to the game if we had these hulls available.

I do know (know might be a strong word, but I'm fairly certain) that some of the ship designations had to do with the way their sails were rigged, as well as size and type of guns carried, etc, etc.

[Gyrfalcon]

I generally go with a 2000-4000 spread, but for the early game, a 20,000t ship is called a battleship. Mid-game, the civilization does an adjustment of sizes and 40,000t might be considered a battleship, and the obsolete ship in the museum that was a battleship now has the same displacement as a light cruiser.

As for the destroyer?

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called boat destroyers in 1892,[1] evolved from the response of navies to the threat posed by torpedo boats...

So it's mostly what you make of it.

Oh, and amusingly, from slightly further in the same article:

...Modern destroyers, also known as guided missile destroyers, are equivalent in tonnage but vastly superior in firepower to cruisers of the World War II era...

Basically, how I handle it has modern-day precedent.

[Paul M]

What I'd like to know, if anyone can find it, are some of the terminology from the olden days of wooden sailing ships.  I know they used the term "frigate" back then, but I don't know how would it compare to a brigantine or a schooner or a ship of the line or what have you.  Did they use the term "destroyer" in that era, or is that something new?  It might add a little more flavor to the game if we had these hulls available.

First of all you have to understand that the US frigates of the time were not really frigates and that within any classification there was a lot of variation as the major naval powers were somewhat different.

Sloop of war was a single masted ship with carronades as its main weapon or a few light guns and carronades.
Frigate was 2 masted and had 1 or 2 gun decks, plus carronades.  What the US called frigates were actually more accurately small 3rd rate ships of the line.  I think they tended to 8-12 lbers and usual was 18-24 guns, but the US frigates had 44 guns and they were 12-24 lbers (if memory serves).
3rd rate ship of the line was a 3 masted warship with 18-24 lbers usually with 2 gun decks  (44 or so guns) It mainly was applied to older ships of the line that had been refit...but were smaller and had weaker broadsides then modern ships.
2nd rate ship of the line was a 3 masted warship with 20-24 lbers usually with 2 gun decks. (60 or so guns)
1st rate ship of the line was as 3 masted warship with 20-48 lbers usually with 3 gun decks.  (72 or more guns)

I think Brig-Sloop of War and so on were all just different names for essentially the same ship.
Frigates were intended to function as scouts and they lacked the armour (well hull thickness) and weight of broadside to fight in the line of battle.
The English SoL were usually smaller, and had fewer guns then the French and Spanish ships.  But their crews were a lot more motivated and well trained.

When the batteries were mixed (which was fairly common) the heavier guns were lower in the hull so you might have on a 2 deck frigate with 12 guns in the broad side 6 8 lbers in the lower deck and 6 6 lbers in the upper deck, then with 4 4lbers on the main deck and 4 48 lb carronades bow and stern.

Destroyers came about when they introduced torpedoes in the later half of the 19th century and the full name was "torpedo boat destroyer" as they were tasked to destroy the ships carrying them.  They transitioned to them mounting torpedoes by WW1.  Modern terminology is probably motivated by budget concerns...it is easier to convince congress to buy "destroyers" then "light cruisers" which is what a modern destroyer is anymore.  Same is true for modern Frigates most of which are the same displacement as a WW2 destroyer...but again "frigate" sounds cheaper when you are talking to congress.

WW2 ships are best classified by gun size:
Destroyer 4" guns
Light Cruiser 6" guns
Heavy Cruiser 8" guns (huge variation though)
Battle Cruiser 12" guns (lots of variation though)
Battle Ship 15+" guns

Again you have to take this with more than a few grains of salt as Germany had some designs that straddled the heavy cruiser/battle cruiser line, but pretty much everyone had odd classes and so on that were harder to define.

Hope this helps.

[joeclark77]

Silly question, but.... what's a carronade?

[sloanjh]

Silly question, but.... what's a carronade?

From my days of playing Wooden Ships & Iron Men (and maybe from reading Hornblower):
Large shot (heavy hitting), short barrel, short range. (Hence Steve's Plasma Carronades).

Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carronade

John

[sloanjh]

Modern terminology is probably motivated by budget concerns...it is easier to convince congress to buy "destroyers" then "light cruisers" which is what a modern destroyer is anymore.  Same is true for modern Frigates most of which are the same displacement as a WW2 destroyer...but again "frigate" sounds cheaper when you are talking to congress.

LOL, but I'm not convinced that's the case - I think it might be capability creep.  I remember reading a Proceedings article 20 years or so ago that plotted cost and number purchased by the military of various weapons systems vs. time.  My recollection is that basically they all (battleships, carriers, fighter planes, bombers, ...) had their unit costs go up up up while the number purchased went down - the article was talking about eventually having an air force with only one plane - but a really capable plane.  I think it also mentioned disruptive technologies stopping the progression by truncating entire classes of weapons systems, like air power did to battleships.

I think it's analogous to the evolutionary arms races that lead to ridiculous peacock tails or really big dinosaurs.  Everyone wants their next generation of frigate to be just a little more capable than the last one, until a few decades later the capability brackets have shifted.  At that point, there's a void at the small end of the spectrum and they have to introduce an entirely new type to fill the void - I think that's what been going on with the Littoral Combat Ship.  Come to think of it, a similar effect probably happened with aircraft carriers - the Wasp LHD class has a displacement ~50% larger than a WWII Essex class carrier.

I think the same thing happens in the automotive industry.  My first new car was an '87 Nissan Sentra.  20 years later, the Sentras looked MUCH nicer (and cost a lot more) - I think they'd been hit with the same functionality creep.  Not sure if Nissan slid another model underneath Sentra yet, though.

Didn't mean for that to be so long, but it's something that's interested me for a while now....

John

[joeclark77]

Yeah, that happens.  In the business school we talk about the "Red Queen effect" in competition between businesses.  Kind of a similar idea.  The term refers to the episode in Through the Looking-Glass where the red queen's country moves so fast you have to keep running just to stay in one place:

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!

[Vordarian]

I usually class my ships more after their roles than size.

Anything below 1kt is considered a vessel, not a ship.

Aerospace vessels are below 500t and are classified as Scout, Fighter, Fighter-bomber or Bomber

Between 500t and 1000t are Patrol boats, Torpedo boats, Missile boats and Gunboats, as well as Couriers

Smallest Ship class would be Corvettes, around 2kt at the start

Frigates would be around 3-4kt, both to act as screen for Fleets, or long-range patrols.  Escort versions of both would use slower civilian drives, and be a tad bigger.

Destroyers would mass around 5-7kt, armed with light torpedoes (I use the term torpedo for ASMs)

Cruisers would start around 8kt, up to 10kt at first.  Standard cruisers get a balanced armament and are built for commerce warfare.  There are several subtypes for specialized roles, Scout cruiser, Patrol cruiser, Missile cruiser, Torpedo cruiser. . .

Armored cruisers mass about 12-15kt, with heavy armor and guns/torpedos, basically pocket battleships

Battlecruisers are about 18-20kt, fast, heavily armed, but only moderately armored

Battleships would start at 18-22kt, with heavy armament and armor.  Orbital defense ships (Orbitalpanzerschiffe) are the equivalent of seaborne coastal battleships, at or a bit below the lower range of size, with much lower range and endurance as regular battleships

Most classes from Cruiser upwards would also have jump capable variants with reduced offensive armament

[justleroy (OP)]

I usually class my ships more after their roles than size. 

The  mission or role a ship is designed to fit into is more important than tonnage.  Tonnage is just a rule of thumb, a guideline, rather than an absolute definition.  However, in general, most ships are going to fall into a certain range defined by their tonnage as much as their role.  And your list is a good example of that - various tonnages delineate what roles a vessel will fulfill.   For example, a ship of 3000 tons is not large enough to pack enough armor and weaponry to be a general combat vessel.  It must be specialized -- guided missile frigate; point defense frigate; search and rescue, escort, anti-submarine, patrol/coastal defense.  Choose one, or perhaps even one and a half, but that's it.  A destroyer-sized vessel that is specialized for it's role and can not effectively carry out any other mission, could rightfully be called a frigate.  It may be a stretch to call an 8,000 ton ship a frigate, though, even if that is what the ship does.

The role/mission of a ship is going to define it's size as much as it's size is going to define what roles and missions it can realistically take on. 

[strych90]

Here is how I generally designate my classes. I have a big text file that I keep designs and stuff in. Generally the form follows function and if I want something for a certain role it ends up within these weight classes (Like if I design something with 'heavy cruiser' in mind -Medium speed, armored, heavy hitter- they usually end up towards the higher end of my cruiser tonnage. Form and Function).

         F       Fighter/Interceptor/Scout < 250t
         F/A            Specialized Fighters/Bombers etc. 250t - 500t
         B       Bomber ~500t
         FAC            Fast Attack Craft 500t-1kt
         C       Corvette 1kt - 4kt
         FF       Frigate 4kt - 6kt - FF,FFG,FFA
         DD       Destroyer 6kt - 10kt DD,DDG,DDA
         CL       Cruiser 10kt - 14kt CA,CL
         BC       Battle Cruiser 14kt - 22kt
         BB       Battleship 22kt - 40kt
         DN       Dreadnaught 40kt - 60kt
         TN       Titan 60kt+

Really though, if you wanted to call a 2m kt super ultra dreadnought a frigate, there's nothing stopping you

[gekkoguy82]

What I find interesting is that when I started up a new game for a walk through recently, just with very basic default settings, Earth has about 4 shipyards that can build 1-2ish 13,000 ton (max) ships each and employs around 7 million people do so.   Seems to me that many people working on a handful of ships which are only slightly larger than modern Ticonderoga-class cruisers is a bit excessive, and possibly counter productive 

Maybe not though? I'm no expert!