What do frigates do

During the Classic Age of Sail, it was a full-rigged ship with a single dedicated gun deck. Depending on the nationality, there was also a minimum gun limit. They were usually used for scouting, patrol, dispatch boats for large fleets, and in independent commerce raiding. In the role of patrol and commerce raiding, they acted independently and were sometimes referred to as cruisers.

The Cruiser was initially a mission, not a ship class. Once armored with turreted gunned ships became the norm, the Frigate became the Cruiser. The term Frigate disappeared around the late s or so. It did not reappear again until WW II. The British needed a vessel for convoy escort.

The Destroyers were serving in much the same role as the Frigates during the Age of Sail. The ocean going, long-endurance Destroyers were relatively fast and carried torpedoes to threaten and harass capital ships, like Battleships and Cruisers — and in short supply. The Patrol Boats were not fast enough and did not have the range or seakeeping qualities to escort the convoys and protect them against submarines. It was bigger than the Patrol Boats to carry more fuel and endure the rough ocean weather and waves.

The British recycled the term Frigates for this new class of ships. In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers.

Destroyers are much smaller than battleships but larger than frigates. Modern destroyers often have a helicopter pad as well, which helps with anti-submarine warfare.

Smaller and faster than ships of the line the principal vessels of naval warfare , frigates served as scouts or as escorts protecting merchant convoys; they also cruised the seas as merchant raiders themselves. In World War II, Britain revived the term frigate using it to describe escort ships equipped with sonar and depth charges, and used these ships to guard convoys from submarines. In the postwar decades, the frigate also adopted an antiaircraft role, adding radar and surface-to-air missiles.

Modern frigates can sail at a speed of 30 knots and carry a crew of These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'frigate.

Send us feedback. See more words from the same year. Accessed 11 Nov. More Definitions for frigate. See the full definition for frigate in the English Language Learners Dictionary. Nglish: Translation of frigate for Spanish Speakers. Britannica English: Translation of frigate for Arabic Speakers. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Log in Sign Up. This was the definition that was officially used by the Old Republic , the Galactic Empire , the Alliance to Restore the Republic , and the New Republic , although formal exceptions were made for ships like the heavily-armed m Carrack -class light cruiser, and many other classification systems were used simultaneously throughout the galaxy.

A Lancer -class frigate. Frigates were armed to defend themselves effectively against smaller and more maneuverable warships, and with a limited attack capacity against larger capital ships; they could sometimes carry up to three squadrons of starfighters, and were often deployed in small groups to protect larger vessels.

Some frigate types, like the anti-starfighter Lancer design, were specifically designed to support larger warships, but others were intended primarily to defend unarmed freighters and transports, including the most famous frigate type of the Galactic Civil War , the Nebulon-B escort frigate. The escort frigate was designed by the Empire to combat Rebel "piracy," with the dual role of protecting Imperial transport ships and hunting down Alliance forces; but captured ships also came to be used extensively by the Rebellion against Imperial Forces during the Galactic Civil War , where they were used as raiders, and as screening vessels within combat squadrons.

A Republic frigate. Escort frigates had a stark, stripped-down hull form, not particularly fast or maneuverable, but carrying a typical frigate armament and two squadrons of TIE Fighters. However, because they were designed to operate independently of larger capital ships, they were also equipped with powerful HoloNet transmitters and impressive command facilities, and this led to them becoming popular as command ships for squadrons containing more powerful warships.

On both sides of the war, escort frigates are recorded as the flagships of task forces containing ships as large as m heavy cruisers. On one side or the other, escort frigates saw action in countless engagements throughout the Galactic Civil War, and they were still in use during the Yuuzhan Vong War and the Corellian secession crisis. Although primarily designed for a combat role, frigate-sized warships could be adapted to carry out a wide variety of duties.

Some types, such as the Imperial Navy's Star Galleon , were purpose-designed as armed cargo ships, while others were modified for cargo duty as military transports. Some Nebulon-B frigates were also known to have been converted into hospital ships , such as the one that Luke Skywalker was treated on after having lost his hand in dueling Darth Vader ; these ships were known as Medical Frigates , although this term was also applied to ships that in no way conformed to the standard definition of a combat frigate—a reminder that there were many ships in the Galaxy which were described as frigates even though they fell outside the standard designation.

Historically, space frigates evolved from aquatic war vessels called Frigates. Their purpose was to protect aquatic transports from the Destroyer warships. Ships described as "medical frigates" range from the thirty-meter Sprint -class rescue craft to the two-kilometer hospital ship Mercy , and a "winged" variant of the MC80 Star Cruiser , probably the same type as the Liberty , which must have been at least m long. Other small frigates are known, such as the 35m Imperial Customs Frigate and the m Interceptor -class frigate , an adaptation of a civilian design; but the term was in rather more widespread use as a designation for relatively large ships that would be designated as cruisers under the standard system, such as later variants of the Acclamator -class assault ship.

Ardent -class fast frigates were among the foremost warships in the time of the Sith Empire under Darth Krayt. Some ships in larger size brackets are called frigates rather than cruisers. The m Munificent -class star frigates were designed around high-powered HoloNet transceivers to ensure secure interstellar communications for the InterGalactic Banking Clan , but came to be used as combat warships by the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars.