Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!veritas!amdcad!amdcad!military From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Definitions of naval vessel types? Message-ID: <1991May3.063357.5484@amd.com> Date: 2 May 91 17:14:23 GMT References: <1991May1.030202.19737@amd.com> <1991May2.040310.20425@amd.com> Sender: military@amd.com Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 62 Approved: military@amd.com From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) [Further followups to soc.history, please; this is getting rather far to sea... --CDR] A quick bit of history (hey, it's technological :-)) may be of interest in regard to where the types came from. This has only the loosest relationship to the current use of the names. A battleship was, well, a battle ship: a first-rank fighting ship that could be a full participant in a major naval battle. This generally meant a large ship with heavy armament and (more recently) heavy armor. Speed was important because the faster fleet controlled the range at which a battle was fought. Cruising range was (reluctantly) relegated to a secondary consideration when steam replaced sail. (One reason why imperial powers tended to own little bits of land all over the place -- e.g., the Falklands -- was to provide coaling stations for battle fleets.) Cruisers specialized in long-range cruising. Their job was protection of trade routes, or attacks on same, so range and seakeeping ability took priority over armament and armor. Of course, when a major battle was in the offing, everything handy was pressed into service, so cruisers were also used for scouting and other fleet-support jobs. "Destroyer" is a shortened form of "torpedo-boat destroyer". When torpedos became a practical weapon, small fast torpedo boats clearly presented a real threat to large warships. One answer was a class of small fast warships, large enough to decisively deal with a torpedo boat, small enough to be deployed in large numbers and to be seriously fast. Destroyers quickly acquired torpedos of their own, and saw much use as, so to speak, combat- strength torpedo boats. Destroyer escorts were specialized convoy escorts, a role which became important when submarines became a practical weapon against trade routes. These were small ships (so they could be deployed in large numbers) with some specialization for long range and seakeeping; heavy weaponry was not really needed because submarines were not formidable surface combatants. Escorts' size and complexity eventually escalated when submerged torpedo attack without warning became the normal operating method for subs and sonar was developed as a countermeasure. Battle cruisers were a curious aberration, essentially light battleships with higher speed at the cost of very light armor. The intent was to make life rough for cruisers scouting for battle fleets, but this was quickly defeated when the other guys started building battlecruisers too. They worked well in the few cases where they got to function as intended -- wreaking havoc on smaller and less well-armed ships -- and poorly when facing equal or superior ships. There are probably a few classes I've missed, but that's all my memory is willing to produce at the moment, aside from a few more obvious ones like aircraft carriers. The advent of airplanes, missiles, and nuclear weapons threw everything into utter confusion, not helped by massive cost escalation that imposed strong pressures for fewer and smaller ships, and I'm not sure anybody has ever done a from-scratch rethinking of what classes of ships would be best deployed today. -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry