FF Frigate
Frigate , originally a long, narrow nautical vessel used on the Mediterranean, propelled by either oars or sail or both. Later, during the 18th and early 19th cent., the term was applied to a very fast, square-rigged sailing vessel carrying 24 to 44 guns on a single flush gun deck. Frigates were employed by the European naval powers in large numbers as commerce raiders and for blockade duty. In the United States before the War of 1812, Joshua Humphreys designed a number of frigates superior to any other vessels of their class in speed and armament. With the introduction of steam and steel warships in the middle of the 19th cent., frigates as a class of warship passed out of use. However, during World War II frigates were reintroduced by the British as a form of antisubmarine escort larger than a corvette and smaller than a destroyer.
The introduction of the surface-to-air missile after the Second World War made relatively small ships effective for anti-aircraft warfare (AAW): the "guided missile frigate." In the USN, these vessels were called Ocean Escorts and "DE" or "DEG" until 1975 - a holdover from the World War II Destroyer Escort or DE. Other navies maintained the use of the term "frigate."
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the USN commissioned ships classed as guided missile frigates which were actually AAW cruisers built on destroyer-style hulls. Some of these ships :the Bainbridge, Truxtun, California and Virginia classes;were nuclear-powered. These were larger than any previous frigates and the use of the term frigate here is much more analogous to its original use. All such ships were reclassified as guided missile cruisers (CG / CGN) or, in the case of the smaller Farragut-class, as guided missile destroyers(DDG) in 1975. The last of these particular frigates were struck from the Naval Vessel Register in the 1990s.
Destroyer-type ships called frigates are important combat vessels today; however, there is no clearcut uniform distinction between a frigate and a destroyer. Modern frigates are often armed with antisubmarine weapons and guns; many are missile-armed and some are nuclear-powered. The nuclear-powered frigate U.S.S. Truxtun, launched in 1964, was the largest destroyer-type ship ever built..
Nearly all modern frigates are equipped with some form of offensive or defensive missiles, and as such are rated as guided-missile frigates (FFG). Improvements in surface-to-air missiles allow modern guided-missile frigates to form the core of many modern navies and to be used as a fleet defence platform, without the need for specialised AAW frigates.
USS Brooke FFG-1
