Re: Rant Warning below

--- Phillip Atcliffe <Phillip.Atcliffe@uwe.ac.uk> wrote:
> Oddly enough, it is possible to justify the B5 terminology by looking
> at naval history. Why do we talk about "destroyers"? Because it's an 
> abbreviation of "torpedo boat destroyer", a new class of ship
> invented to defend capital ships from the new threat of "torpedo 
> boats"; then the new ship proved so useful that it essentially took 
> over the role of Napoleonic frigates as general-purpose small ships, 
> making "frigates" even smaller and somewhat limited in their 
> capabilities. These days, of course, destroyers have grown in size
and 
> cost to the point where they aren't being built much and most navies 
> employ frigates for what destroyers used to do...
> 
> So an Omega could have been originally postulated as a "Sharlin 
> destroyer" or a "capital ship destroyer" and the term was abbreviated
> to "destroyer" in similar fashion. It makes a certain amount of
> sense, particularly when comparing an Omega to its ancestor, the Nova

> DN, and to a Hyperion CA.
> 

We always figured it was a "Fleet Destroyer".  Same Difference.  The
really annoying thing was that sometimes they would refer to them as
"carriers" or "carrier groups"

Re: frigates
The term frigate hasn't even been consistent within the 20th c.  At the
time of WW2, large destroyers (DL & DDL stand for Destroyer Leader, not
Destroyer, Light) were called frigates, while smaller, slower ones were
called Destroyer Escorts or Escort Destroyers (DE & DDE).  At the same
time the British referred to US DEs & DDEs in RN service as "frigates".
 In the early 1960's all of the DLs, DLGs, and DLGNs were reclassified
as Light Cruisers and DEs and DDEs were reclassified as Frigates (FF). 
So frigates went from being larger than a destroyer to being smaller
(at least in the USN).

J