Frigate
A frigate is a type of warship.
In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied. In the 17th to early 18th centuries the term 'frigate' was loosely given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and maneuverability and intended for scouting, escort or patrol. By the second quarter of the 18th century, what is regarded as the 'true frigate' was developed in France and subsequently copied by other navies. This type of vessel was characterised by a long sleek design with a single gun deck of 28 and 36 cannons, and an unarmed deck below used for berthing the crew.
In the mid-nineteenth century the definition of frigate was expanded to include the early ironclad warships, which also had a single gun deck. However, later developments in ironclad ships rendered the designation obsolete and the term fell out of favour in navies worldwide.
The term was reintroduced in the Second World War to describe a seagoing escort ship of intermediate size between a corvette and a destroyer. After the war, this definition has gradually expanded to include many different kinds of vessels, from large ocean-going anti-submarine warfare ships to corvettes, destroyers, and nuclear-powered guided-missile cruisers.
Etymology
The etymology of the word remains uncertain, although it may have originated as a corruption of aphractus, a Latin word for an open vessel with no lower deck. Aphractus, in turn, derived from the Ancient Greek phrase ἄφρακτος ναῦς – "undefended ship".Age of sail
Origins
The term frigate originated in the Mediterranean in the late 15th century, referring to a lighter galley-type warship with oars, sails and a light armament, built for speed and maneuverability. The first recorded usage of the term seems to date from 1562, when Alonso Pérez, Duke of Medina Sidonia armed a galley fleet complemented with vessels called fragatas which were claimed to be invented by him. However, these frigates proved impractical and were retired soon. The term was later used as an alternate name for the galizabra, a kind of galleass built by Alonso de Bazán in 1584 as a cross between a galley and a zabra.In 1583, during the Eighty Years' War of 1568–1648, Habsburg Spain recovered the southern Netherlands from the Protestant rebels. This soon resulted in the use of the occupied ports as bases for privateers, the "Dunkirkers", to attack the shipping of the Dutch and their allies. To achieve this the Dunkirkers developed small, maneuverable, sailing vessels that came to be referred to as frigates. The success of these Dunkirker vessels influenced the ship design of other navies contending with them, but because most regular navies required ships of greater endurance than the Dunkirker frigates could provide, the term soon came to apply less exclusively to any relatively fast and elegant sail-only warship. In French, the term frigate gave rise to a verb – frégater, meaning 'to build long and low', and to an adjective, adding more confusion. Even the huge English could be described as "a delicate frigate" by a contemporary after her upper decks were reduced in 1651.
The navy of the Dutch Republic became the first navy to build the larger ocean-going frigates. The Dutch navy had three principal tasks in the struggle against Spain: to protect Dutch merchant ships at sea, to blockade the ports of Spanish-held Flanders to damage trade and halt enemy privateering, and to fight the Spanish fleet and prevent troop landings. The first two tasks required speed, shallowness of draft for the shallow waters around the Netherlands, and the ability to carry sufficient supplies to maintain a blockade. The third task required heavy armament, sufficient to stand up to the Spanish fleet. The first of the larger battle-capable frigates were built around 1600 at Hoorn in Holland. By the later stages of the Eighty Years' War the Dutch had switched entirely from the heavier ships still used by the English and Spanish to the lighter frigates, carrying around 40 guns and weighing around 300 tons. In the 17th century, the term fregat in the Dutch Navy described any oceangoing warship carrying fewer than 40 guns. The effectiveness of the Dutch frigates became most evident in the Battle of the Downs in 1639, encouraging most other navies, especially the English, to adopt similar designs.
The fleets built by the Commonwealth of England in the 1650s generally consisted of ships described as "frigates", the largest of which were two-decker "great frigates" of the third rate. Carrying 60 guns, these vessels were as big and capable as "great ships" of the time; however, most other frigates at the time were used as "cruisers": independent fast ships. The term "frigate" implied a long hull-design, which relates directly to speed and which also, in turn, helped the development of the broadside tactic in naval warfare. In the 17th century the term 'frigate' was sometimes applied very loosely and could be used for any warship. The more precise description of the time was the rating of the ship, frigates generally were ships of the fourth to sixth rates
At this time, a further design evolved, reintroducing oars and resulting in galley frigates such as of 1676, which was rated as a 32-gun fifth-rate but also had a bank of 40 oars set below the upper deck that could propel the ship in the absence of a favorable wind. In Danish, the word "fregat" often applied to warships carrying as few as 16 guns, such as, which the British classified as a sloop. Under the rating system of the Royal Navy, by the middle of the 18th century, the term "frigate" was technically restricted to single-decked ships of the fifth rate, though small 28-gun frigates were classed as sixth rate.
Classic design
The classic sailing frigate, or 'true frigate', well-known today for its role in the Napoleonic Wars, can be traced back to French developments in the second quarter of the 18th century. The French-built of 1740 is often regarded as the first example of this type. These ships were square-rigged and carried all their main guns on a single continuous upper deck. The lower deck, known as the "gun deck", now carried no armament, and functioned as a "berth deck" where the crew lived, and was in fact placed below the waterline of the new frigates. The typical earlier cruiser had a partially armed lower deck, from which it was known as a 'half-battery' or demi-batterie ship. Removing the guns from this deck allowed the height of the hull upperworks to be lowered, giving the resulting 'true-frigate' much improved sailing qualities. The unarmed deck meant that the frigate's guns were carried comparatively high above the waterline; as a result, when seas were too rough for two-deckers to open their lower deck gunports, frigates were still able to fight with all their guns.The Royal Navy captured a number of the new French frigates, including Médée, during the War of the Austrian Succession and the British were impressed by them, particularly for their inshore handling capabilities. They soon built copies, based on a French privateer named Tygre, and started to adapt the type to their own needs, setting the standard for other frigates as the leading naval power. The first British frigates carried 28 guns including an upper deck battery of twenty-four 9-pounder guns but soon developed into fifth-rate ships of 32 or 36 guns including an upper deck battery of twenty-six 12-pounder guns, with the remaining six or ten smaller guns carried on the quarterdeck and forecastle. Technically, 'unrated ships' with fewer than 28 guns could not be classed as frigates but as "post ships"; however, in common parlance most post ships were sometimes described as "frigates", the same casual misuse of the term being extended to smaller two-decked ships that were too small to stand in the line of battle. However, most ships of this size were called 'ship sloops'.
A total of fifty-nine French sailing frigates were built between 1777 and 1790, with a standard design averaging a hull length of and an average draught of. The new frigates recorded sailing speeds of up to, significantly faster than their predecessor vessels.
Heavy frigate
In 1778, the British Admiralty introduced a larger "heavy" frigate, with a main battery of twenty-six or twenty-eight 18-pounder guns. This move may reflect the naval conditions at the time; with both France and Spain as enemies, the usual British preponderance in ship numbers was no longer the case and there was pressure on the British to produce cruisers of individually greater force. In reply, the first French 18-pounder frigates were laid down in 1781. The 18-pounder frigate eventually became the standard frigate of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The British produced larger, 38-gun, and slightly smaller, 36-gun, versions and also a 32-gun design that can be considered an 'economy version'. The 32-gun frigates also had the advantage that they could be built by the many smaller, less-specialised shipbuilders.Frigates could additionally carry smaller carriage-mounted guns on their quarterdecks and forecastles. In 1778 the Carron Iron Company of Scotland produced a naval gun which would revolutionise the armament of smaller naval vessels, including the frigate. The carronade was a large calibre, short-barrelled naval cannon which was light, quick to reload and needed a smaller crew than a conventional long gun. Due to its lightness it could be mounted on the forecastle and quarterdeck of frigates. It greatly increased the firepower, measured in weight of metal, of these vessels. The disadvantages of the carronade were that it had a much shorter range and was less accurate than a long gun. The British quickly saw the advantages of the new weapon and soon employed it on a wide scale. The US Navy also copied the design soon after its appearance. The French and other nations eventually adopted variations of the weapon in succeeding decades. The typical heavy frigate had a main armament of 18-pounder long guns, plus 32-pounder carronades mounted on its upper decks.