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Not only do I think "conventional" frigates are in fact very useful ships, but I believe that the trend is towards frigates as the mainstay major surface combatant after supplanting the destroyer, just as missile cruisers supplanted battleships and just as destroyers supplanted cruisers. Of course, this also depends on what the definition of "frigate" is.

As you can see in the little progression above, the trend has always been towards smaller, more efficient ships because weapons have gotten smaller and more efficient (and by that, equal or greater firepower from a smaller launching platform). But in many ways this "smaller" progression has been disguised and is an outright lie as cruisers and destroyers simply balloon to be the size of battleships (or at least very close to it). Because they don't have armor, the displacement is less, but the launching systems (including the launcher itself, magazines, handling equipment etc), the guidance and tracking equipment (a typical ship requires 2D air search radar, 3D air search radar, surface search radar, gun directing radar, terminal guidance radar, radar directors, including different sets of directors for all the different missiles you have all the way down to Sparrow - and that's just the radar sets you need, in addition to the actual computers and power generation needed to operate them) and the crew required to operate and maintain all of this stuff means that volume balloons in a hurry - such that a Sprucan is now the physical size and volume of a typcial WWII heavy cruiser (and not too much behind on displacement either). And if you consider the Ticos to be destroyers (further proof that the whole traditional designation system is muddled and obsolete) it's not exactly trending towards the reverse anytime soon as far as the USN is concerned, and the Burkes (especially Flight IIA) are only marginally smaller still (and their larger foreign derivatives, especially the Atagos and King Sejoung the Great, easily muscle their way back into Tico territory anyway).

But just as technology has meant that a relatively small missile launcher can take the place of a huge gun turret, now we've gotten to the point where a few small systems can now take the place of the large, bulky, and energy-hungry systems that were once required to operate those missile launchers. Now with the Mk 41 VLS and other types, you eliminate the need for separate launchers, magazines, and handling equipment beyond what port facilities or an underway replenishment ship can provide (which will always be there anyway). Now with the latest and projected versions of SPY- set radar, you combine 2D air search, 3D air search, surface search, gun directing, terminal guidance if your missile even needs it anymore, and radar directors into a single radar set, and it's compatible with absolutely every SSM and SAM your hull carries all the way back to AIM-7 Sparrow and all the way up to ESSM, Standard, TLAM and your guns. Power generation hasn't shrunk, but considering that it was fairly compact to begin with, that's no problem, and in fact even a small hull like a frigate can put out gobs and gobs of power. And that's exactly where we are today.

The French and Italians have frigates as their most powerful surface combatants (Horizon in both cases, or Forbin and Andrea Doria if you prefer). The Germans have frigates as their most powerful class (F-125 Sacshen), and are the primary exporter of frigates which in turn also become the most powerful surface combatants of their navies in most cases. The Dutch have frigates as their most powerful vessels, so do the Spanish, the Norweigans, you get the point. The RN still holds onto "destroyers" (D45 Daring) but truth be told their firepower is about even with those of the other European navies I just described (in fact Daring was originally part of the Horizon program).

But that's the other thing. While still smaller than USN destroyers (indeed their average displacement is much more in line with a large WWII destroyer or one of the very light cruisers classes, like the British 8-gun light cruisers) they're still much larger than preceding frigates; easily twice the displacement of an OHP, for example. Because none of these navies really adopted the large, multi-purpose, triple-purpose anti-sub/surface/air warfare destroyers that the USN is fond of, and because their destroyers tended to be more straight developments of WWII types, they're now finding their frigates to be as large and more powerful than what they typically term a destroyer (and in most cases it's a case of "political convenience" to call it a frigate, yet another reason why I think traditional classifications are obsolete BS). So, that's what I mean by "it depends on how you define a frigate."

But the distinguishing mark about these frigates compared to USN destroyers is that European-style frigates are much smaller than USN destroyers and do indeed compare as "frigates." But the firepower difference isn't actually as great as what the difference in tonnage suggests. Both frigates (and from now on, when I say "frigate" I mean the big, powerful European types as opposed to the weak OHP) and destroyers are equally adept at ASW - both types have powerful bow sonars, about the same number of ASW torpedo tubes and mainly rely on identical compliments of ASW helicopters for ASW anyway (and the European ASW helicopters are usually bigger and more designed for the purpose from the onset to boot). Both types of ship are capable of fielding TLAM-class strike weapons. Both types of ship are capable of carrying SM-3 class weapons. Both types of ship carry comparable ASMs. Both types of ship carry similar-class radar and tracking (S-1850 or SMART-L in the typical case of European frigates, which may not have the exo-atmospheric capability of SPY-1 but still very close in other areas; Norwegian and Spanish frigates actually do have SPY-1).

The main advantage of big destroyers still remains size - endurance and in raw number of missiles carried. This is why the Japanese and Koreans like big destroyers (in fact bigger than what we have), because they like the idea of each ship essentially being its own SAG. The French, Italians and British operate more closely on the American CBG model as indeed all three navies have carriers, so the primary mission of the frigate is the same as that of USN destroyers - screen the carriers.

Right now, the planned trend of USN destroyers is trying to go for the Japanese/Korean model of each destroyer being it's own, one-ship SAG. The Zumwalt exemplifies this thinking - it's 13,000 tons at least (more than the vast majority of cruisers ever floated) and has enough VLS cells to field just about every weapon the USN envisions being in its inventory, not to mention AGS - the end is a very large, ballooned ship with the idea that it'll park itself off whatever shore the USN wants, be able to challenge any threat towards being able to park itself, and then destroy any land target or air target that shows up until whatever beach head or objective is secure.

The real question is, especially with the financial aspects of Zumwalt ballooning, is whether or not this type of thinking is even relevant for the USN. If the USN abandons the missile truck approach, they might start coming up with vessels a lot closer to European frigates as the next-gen screening force of CBGs.

As for Canada, they operate pretty close to the German model - that is, "back in the 1930s we elected this short anti-Semetic guy and started a war, and in that war we got our butts kicked so bad everybody says we can't make war without their permission again and so we build our warships accordingly." Except instead of electing a short anti-Semetic guy, Canada's restricted by resource and financial restraints + lack of power projection requirement. So an anti-submarine, anti-air warfare frigate like the German model makes a lot of sense (the German frigates are still powerful with S-1850 and, full ASW suite, and at least decent range). Plus the Germans love modular ships.

I think the whole idea of ship classifications is anachronistic and it assumes that there will be major ship-to-ship duels, in which ratings are important because you don't want to foolishly send small ships to get pwned by large ships.

But in this day and age, not only can a small ship theoretically pwn a large ship, but except for coastal defense ships most ships are getting around the same size anyway. As I alluded to, it's all equipment-driven.

I keep going back and fourth as to whether or not a slightly larger or slightly smaller ship would be better. It's just trying to think what would be good compared to the Zumwalt fiasco, and what the Zumwalt got right and wrong. I'm not a naval engineer, I just know people who are.

Anyway, as I talked about elsewhere, that's why I like the idea of classifying ships either as a Major Surface Combatant (a vessel that can undertake independent operations) and Escort/Patrol Combatant (a vessel more like an OHP, designed for lower-intensity patrol/anti-piracy work). I feel these classifications also pair up nicely with LCS.

Shipbucket

random crap copy-pasta'd from somewhere else

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