Frigates

The term “frigate” has been around in naval circles since the 17^th and 18^th centuries. It used to be applied to any full-rigged ship built for speed and manoeuvrability for scouting, escorting, and patrolling. In the mid-19^th century, the dawn of the ironclad saw the development of armoured frigates, the term used because they featured only a single gun deck, even though these ships were now the most powerful in the world. After ten to fifteen years of further development, these ships were abandoned in favour of turret ships and other types of ironclads, soon replaced by battleships and the term “frigate” fell out of favour.

Frigates returned during the Second World War when the term described various smaller escort ships being built for convoy duty and other intermediate roles between destroyers and corvettes. Sloops-of-war, destroyer escorts, avisoes, and Kaibōkan were all later categorised as “frigates” when the design philosophies became more streamlined after the war, and this saw the revival of the concept.

During the Cold War, frigates were further developed as general-purpose surface warships, sometimes with a focus on anti-submarine warfare and other times as missile frigates. They were in-between destroyers and corvettes, and their size grew as the others did. Nowadays, frigates are often larger than mainline destroyers from World War Two and the early Cold War.