[Alan Bolte]

I don't know where this might have been discussed before, I couldn't find it. But it's bothered me that the known lables for ships in the FSverse are limited to Cruiser, Corvette, and Destroyer (not to mention juggernaught or super destroyer).

Not only is there a lack of other lables, but the existing ones don't seem to fit. To steal from Dr. Saxton:

gunboat
a small vessel of shallow draught and with relatively heavy guns. [Oxford]
monitor
a heavily armed warship of shallow draught. [Oxford]
corvette
a small, lightly armed, fast vessel, used mostly for convoy escort, ranging between a destroyer and a gunboat in size. [Macquarie]
frigate
a naval escort vessel between a corvette and a destroyer in size. [Oxford]
destroyer
a fast warship with guns and torpedoes used to protect other ships. [Oxford]
cruiser
a warship of high speed and medium armament. [Oxford]
battlecruiser
a warship of maximum speed and fire power, but with lighter armour than a battleship. [Macquarie]
battleship
a warship with the heaviest armour and the largest guns. [Oxford]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks sort of like the situation is this:

FS1:
The oldest ship class in the GTA navy is the Fenris Cruiser. At one time, it was the epitome of a cruiser, a fast ship that could pack a punch. the Leviathan varient was apparently developed for the V-T war, and was also called a cruiser because it was simply a varient on the existing design. The Orion class was developed with a new scale in mind, where a fleet would be composed of vessels so large that the Colossus would be considered only fairly large. With a ship that big, including some fighters wouldn't be a problem, and might be good for anti-bomber defense. The resulting ship design was so large and powerful, and the present resources of the GTA so limited relative to the production of a super-sized fleet,  that it was adapted to serve in a carrier role, thus creating a sort of battleship/carrier when it was clear that the Fenris-scale would have to suffice (war had begun, and for real, current war, you need a lot of ships with proven designs, not some new concept model). For some reason the original designation of destroyer was kept when the design went into production.

FS2:
So now you have this bizzaro fleet left over from a major war, and you need to gun up just incase the Shivans come back. Now is not the time to go and restructure things. By bizzaro, I mean you've got destroyers larger than cruisers serving as carriers, and your cruisers have gotten pretty useless, possibly useful as anti-fighter frigates. Everything's upgraded with beam cannons. The Aeolus Crusier is created as a replacement for the Fenris and Leviathan, but is called a cruiser because by this point the names would have lost their original meaning for all practical purposes, and the ship is designed to fit in with the bizzaro fleet as it is now. Meanwhile, the super-sized ship idea is brought back, and the Deimos is called a Corvette such that it makes sense size-wise with the destroyers. The Hecate Destroyer is designed with the same idea as the Orion, with a fairly large armament and a fighter complement that is sufficient but small relative to its size. Concepts for a new fleet are outlined, but the prototype vessel to serve as a Cruiser or Battleship in this new navy isn't completed in time for this new war, and ends up being nothing more than a poorly deployed, underwhelming supership.

[FireCrack]

yeah, that's how i always thought of it, i guess the definitins at the top would have to be redifined for use in the freespace universe, for example

Destroyers
as you said these are more carriers, also the biggest ships in the fleet with lots of firepower

Corvettes
the same as a destroyer but without a fighterbay, from little mention of corvettes being lost in the command breifings i'd guess it doesnt serve a very high comand role (radar, coordinating attacks, commuunicating with fighters) and is more of a "pure warship"

Cruiser
Seems to be mainly now a tactical snd support platform, by suport i not only mean command support but also weapons support (most cruisers seem to have a fairly large forward beam cannon)

Juggernaut
Big


Atleast the frigates are inbetween the size of a coorvette and a destroyer

By the way, you missed PT boat

[Liberator]

To me the class names in FS are more closely related to their roots than the actual meaning of the word.

In FS1, you only had 2 warship classes, Crusiers and Destroyers

Therefore:
Cruisers cruise(patrol and picket deployments).
Destroyers destroy(deployed only to kill enemy warships and installations).

In FS2, the development of corvettes and frigates shows that the Naval forces are tracing their roots in classifaction if not role.

Therefore cruisers cruise and destroyers destroy things.

The Sathanas was designated a juggernaught because it was essentially unstoppable.

Destroyers are as big as they are because they do double duty as both warships and mobile fighter bases.  If you take the fighter component out of a destroyer, you end up with a frigate similar to the Iceni.

Frankly, I'm tired of everybody and their brothers/sisters/aunts/ect/whatever, trying to compare FS ship classes with every other game/universes ship classification system.  What it boils down to is V had these mondo sized ships, the largest, coolest ship ever, and they wanted a name that sounded cool, so they became "destoyers", "cruiser" just isn't as impressive to the ear as "destroyer".

[Bobboau]

yeah, there called destroyers becase it sounds cool, just accept it already, V isn't going to change it

[TopAce]

Alan Bolte:
It is a great idea to look into the real meanings of the warship types. I don't think the Deimos was classified as a corvette, because it was small compared to the Colossus. There must have been something else in the background. [V] was simply misinformed. And how nobody recognised it, don't ask me.
I locally admit that I utterly misjudged the gunship classification. My only presentable and released mod for FreeSpace 2 was called the GTGs Antwerpen, a gunship-type ship, which was 390 meters long. Ugh. I desecrated the gunship classification!! Too good nobody complained about it.

juggernaut: (www.reference.com)

• Something, such as a belief or institution, that elicits blind and destructive devotion or to which people are ruthlessly sacrificed.
• An overwhelming, advancing force that crushes or seems to crush everything in its path: “It doesn't assume that people need necessarily remain passive when confronted by what appears to be the juggernaut of history” (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt).
• Juggernaut Used as a title for the Hindu deity Krishna.

Frigate (www.reference.com)

• A warship, usually of 4,000 to 9,000 displacement tons, that is larger than a destroyer and smaller than a cruiser(!!), used primarily for escort duty.
  
• A high-speed, medium-sized sailing war vessel of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries

[Gloriano]

[V] was simply misinformed. And how nobody recognised it, don't ask me.

They just wanted use those names not misinformed
(and it's not always cool use Class names that lot use)

[Hellbender]

Being overlooked is the fact that ship classifications have been designated and changed (roles and size vessel) several times over the last number of centuries as the current naval ships have evolved from oar-power to sail to modern propulsion. The classifications changed as was convenient for each seperate navy. They continue to change. Ask any naval service people you know. Pick a country's naval forces.

What was considered a destroyer during the 1st World War was considerably changed by the time the end of World War 2 came about. Side by side vessels from each era, though designated the same would look and be fought in rather different ways.

Point is, V was pretty much justified for not using current class designations for their fictional space warships - by the time of the FS Great War era, the classifications would almost certainly have changed completely several times anyway. Sounding cool is just icing on the cake... though I still like "Dreadnoght" as the coolest sounding large ship class.

Dreadnought trivial stuff:

* Dreadnought is NOT spelled d-r-e-a-d-n-a-u-g-h-t!
* Dreadnought is NOT spelled d-r-e-a-d-n-a-u-t!
* Dreadnought has never been an official naval designation for a type of warship.
* The term "Dreadnought" is derived from the 1906 revolutionary British Battleship design, HMS Dreadnought. It was the first of its kind completed in the world at that time, giving the British crowing rights. Other ships of similar design were generally in the works in other world navies or modified during planning to be up to the new standard.
* HMS Dreadnought was actually classed as a Battleship.
* HMS Dreadnought was revolutionary for two major reasons:
1, it was the first major capitol ship to be solely powered by steam turbines, and
2, it was the first Battleship to have no intermediate caliber guns. It carried all big guns for its main armanent, and small caliber and AA weapons for the rest of its gun armanent. Normal practice at the time was to have say, 4 or so 12", a like number of 9", and a lighter battery of 5" or 6" plus assorted machine guns and torpedos. It was most important at the time because gunnery relied on the splashes made by each shot to range in on their targets - no radar. Intermediate caliber guns make roughly the same sized splash as the heavier guns, causing difficulty in determining which splash beloned to which gun, and in battle it would be very confusing indeed. With all big guns to shoot, targetting became magnitudes easier.
* All mixed battery Battleships were and still are referred to as Pre-Dreadnoughts, though it is also not an actual class. They were still classed as Battleships.
* Dreadnought is a term used to describe a Battleship having a uniform primary gun battery, and no intermediate gun battery, taken of course from the first Battleship of the type. Though Dreadnought sounds cooler, the correct designation is still "Battleship".

[magatsu1]

plus "battleship" even now sounds old fashioned.

[Swamp_Thing]

And who has heard of the "pocket battleship"?
And no, it´s not a toy ship that you keep in your pocket.
Does "Scharnhorst" ring a bell? German battleship. It had everything that caracterized a battleship, except in size. It was the size of a cruiser. But alás it´s not a kewl name as "dreadnought"...

[Moonsword]

That quote from reference.com is wrong.  Frigates are smaller than destroyers, and have been for a while.

Newest frigate:
Oliver Hazard Perry (Long Hull Group):
Displacement: 4,000-4,100 tons full load
Dimensions: 455 x 45 x 22 feet/138.6 x 13.7 x 6.7 meters

Destroyers:
Spruance (oldest class and largest)
Displacement: 9,000-9,400 tons full load (DD 997: approx. 9900)
Dimensions: 563 x 55 x 29 feet/171.6 x 16.7 x 8.8 meters

Arleigh Burke (Flights I & II)
Displacement: 8,850-9,000 tons full load
Dimensions: 505 x 67 x 30.5 feet/153.6 x 20.5 x 9.3 meters

Arleigh Burke (Flight IIA, under construction)
Displacement: 9,200 tons full load
Dimensions: 510 x 67 x 30.5 feet/155 x 20.5 x 9.3 meters

Slight difference in sizes there.  The only other frigates on active deployment at the moment (accoridng to this source) are the short-hull group of the Perry class, and the size difference isn't that great.

[aldo_14]

I prefer FS2 types to the proper naval ones.... 'destroyer' just sounds better than 'cruiser' IMO - as many have pointed out.  Dreadnaught, however, is the best name.  Cos it sounds really ****ing menacing

Albeit, didn't FS2 actually have a naval bloke credited as a consultant?

[Swamp_Thing]

Originally posted by aldo_14

Albeit, didn't FS2 actually have a naval bloke credited as a consultant?

Naah... he was probably from the Air Farse!:D

[Liberator]

*chuckle*
That was awful...I think part of my soul died.

[TopAce]

I really don't take care. Let's suppose things will change in the following 331 years.

[Geezer]

Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
And who has heard of the "pocket battleship"?
And no, it´s not a toy ship that you keep in your pocket.
Does "Scharnhorst" ring a bell? German battleship. It had everything that caracterized a battleship, except in size. It was the size of a cruiser. But alás it´s not a kewl name as "dreadnought"...

Gotta disagree, Swamp_Thing.  The Scharnhorst wasn’t a pocket battleship.  The German Panzerschiff ("Armored Ships”) were the Deutschland Class (Admiral Graf Spee, Lutzow and Admiral Scheer).  These were heavy cruiser-sized ships with 11” battleship-sized guns.  They were around 600 feet long and weighed 12,000 tons.   In contrast, the battleship Scharnhorst and her sister, Gneisenau, were around 760 feet long and 31,100 tons.

[pyro-manic]

Scharnhorst was actually a battlecruiser. Lighter armour, slightly smaller guns, but faster. Hence the low displacement.

[Geezer]

Pyro, if you want to call Scharnhorst a battlecruiser, I won't argue with you, but most sources I've seen call her a battleship.  The reality is that the Allies didn't have a ship class that covered a "battleship set up for commerce raiding".  The Nazi plan was apparently to eventually re-gun her with 15" guns but it never happened.

This is from the Encyclopedia thefreedictionary

Like the "pocket battleships"  of the Deutschland class, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were political compromises, symbols of international power for the Hitler regime, but designed not to overly inflame the British. They are often referred to as "battlecruisers" or "light battleships", which is incorrect. In fact, as completed, they were straightforward battleships that traded extra guns for their 32 to 33 knot (60 km/h) speed and extended range to allow for commerce raiding.  They initially carried nine 11 inch (280 mm) guns in three triple turrets, two forward and one aft, inferior to any British capital ship of the time. If they had carried their designed main armament of six 15 inch (380 mm) guns in three twin turrets, they would have been formidable opponents, faster than any British capital ship and nearly as well armored. But due to Hitler's shifting attitudes towards the surface navy and the priorities of war, they retained their 11 inch (280 mm) guns in triple turrets, like the Deutschland's, throughout their careers.

[Striker]

As far as I'm concerned, [v] did it the way they did cuz they feel like it.
It goes

fighter/bomber
cruiser
frigate
corvette
destroyer
superdestroyer
juggernaught

[Mad Bomber]

I take a couple cues from Nodewars in my classifications, but mostly stick to FS conventions. (I will never give the name "Dropship" to a lowly orbit-to-surface ship! Nevaaahhhh!! )

Fighter/bomber
Gunship (converted freighters, speedy AAA things, etc)
     80-249m
Cruiser/Dropship (depending on fighterbay-based or not)
     250-599m
Corvette/Strike Carrier (depending)
     600-999m
Frigate/Escort Carrier (depending) (The Iceni is the only canon FS2 ship known to use this convention, and it was bigger than the Deimos.)
     1000-1599m
Destroyer/Carrier (depending)
     1600-2999m
Superdestroyer/Supercarrier
     3000-4999m
Juggernaught
     5km+

[Black Wolf]

Personally, I put Frigates between corvette and destroyer (think Iceni).