When is a warship a cruiser?

[WatcherZero]

SSBN's are todays battleships, they perform similar deterrence and prestige duties and have a similar relative cost value.
SSN's/SSGN's are today the first half of the 20th centuries heavy cruisers to hunt for enemy shipping/naval assets while possessing formidable firepower second only to a battleship the latter of course specialised in shore bombardment.
Todays destroyers are the equivalent of early 20th century light cruisers or age of sail Frigates, able to protect themselves and destroy smaller warships but vulnerable to SSN's or other destroyers when alone, group together for self protection in flotillas, capable of performing significant duration detached operations.
Todays frigates are the equivalent of early 20th century destroyers and destroyer leaders, the workhorses of the fleet providing mass and geographic coverage, primary role is escorting the merchant fleet or forming larger taskforces.
Todays corvettes are the same as WW2 and age of sail corvettes, protecting supply lines, border protection, and the primary defence capability of less wealthy countries against similar rivals.
Fast Attack Craft and conventional submarines today perform the same duties previously performed by motor torpedo boats, monitors and other brown water ships.

Which leaves out what constitutes a cruiser today as it doesnt comfortably fit into any of these better defined roles. I would argue what constitutes a modern cruiser is an oversized air defence destroyer with significant land attack capability. In historical terms this may be similar to the German Pocket Battleships or Japanese Battle Cruisers, (oversized heavy cruisers but sacrificing so much armour they are not capable of engaging a true battleship).

 

[pathology_doc]

Today we have destroyers which carry area anti-aircraft systems and general purpose frigates which do not.

The Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates muddied those waters extensively!!!

Isn't it to do with the number of swimming pools, the size of the ballroom and the number of Michelin stars the restaurant holds?

In all seriousness, I always thought it was related to the presence of onboard engineering workshops that enabled them to do their own maintenance when deployed.

That was the feeling I got as well. I'll have to check my Friedman and my Brown, but IIRC there are also factors concerned with the standard to which the hull is built.

First, there is nothing either intrinsically right or intrinsically wrong about liberty or slavery, democracy or autocracy, freedom of action or complete regimentation.

Off topic - That's Mentor of Arisia talking, isn't it?

 

[Yellow Palace]

That was the feeling I got as well. I'll have to check my Friedman and my Brown, but IIRC there are also factors concerned with the standard to which the hull is built.

There's a NAVSEA report from 2005 which looked at what made a cruiser here:https://navalmarinearchive.com/research/docs/cruisers/cr_navsea.html

About half-way through, there's a breakdown of the difference between cruiser and destroyer practice in the Royal Navy in 1957. Their final conclusion is that a modern cruiser - as distinct from a carrier escort directly replacing the CG-47 class - would include the following features:

• Increased survivability, especially against ambush attacks, including a return to structural armor,
• Increased stores and fuel loads for independent operations,
• Increased self repair stores and shops to allow staying on station for an extended period while remaining fully capable,
• First responder capabilities (such as limited medical facilities, small arms for the crew and an extensive boat/helo outfit), and
• Crew sized not only to operate the ship but to put small detachments ashore or onto seized merchant ships.
• Provisions for carrying a small command staff and a senior officer (if assigned a role in the command structure).

 

[WatcherZero]

Since 1957 I would argue both Destroyers and Frigates have taken on many of that list of duties in the Royal Navy. The Type 45 had twice the displacement of the Type 42 (about 8,500 to 4,500 tons) while Frigates have gone from the 2,500 of the 1950's Leopard and Salisbury classes to 8,000 on the Type 26 and 5,700 on the Type 31 with the Type 32 expected to return to a 6-8,000 general purpose design.

 

[Dilandu]

Off topic - That's Mentor of Arisia talking, isn't it?

Yep)

 

[chimeric oncogene]

The Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates muddied those waters extensively!!!

You mean the patrol frigate, guided missiles, right?

 

[pathology_doc]

You mean the patrol frigate, guided missiles, right?

FFG-7 class. That which by any other name would carry a Mk13 launcher, a 76mm gun, a CIWS, torpedoes and a helicopter.

 

[Scott Kenny]

FFG-7 class. That which by any other name would carry a Mk13 launcher, a 76mm gun, a CIWS, torpedoes and a helicopter.

Which were originally proposed under the Patrol Frigate name...

 

[owlscreech]

Not really the FIII Burkes have C&C spaces in them now from I’ve read and heard.

The cruiser designation is just dying out that’s all.

Personally I think large surface combatants should be cruisers, medium/small frigates, and modern corvettes and things like the ASuW LCSes should shoulder the title destroyer since it is just a shortening of torpedo boat destroyer, and modern destroyers do not fit that role at all any more.

I'm partial to the functional definition used by the Commonwealth navies i.e. destroyer = primarily AAW, frigate = primarily ASW/GP. However, I am a British-Australian dual national so I would say that lol

As for cruisers, I agree it's rather become a designation in search of something to designate.

Funny you point out that the LCS is closer to the historical TBD than modern DDs/DDGs, because I've long said that trying to build a PT boat the size of a Type 12 frigate was inevitably going to be a hell of a thing to make work.
As we all know now of course, it has indeed been hard to make the LCS work, but the LCS makes plenty of hard work for their crews!

 

[Scott Kenny]

There's a NAVSEA report from 2005 which looked at what made a cruiser here:https://navalmarinearchive.com/research/docs/cruisers/cr_navsea.html

About half-way through, there's a breakdown of the difference between cruiser and destroyer practice in the Royal Navy in 1957. Their final conclusion is that a modern cruiser - as distinct from a carrier escort directly replacing the CG-47 class - would include the following features:

• Increased survivability, especially against ambush attacks, including a return to structural armor,

I don't know how much structural armor will help against modern munitions. I mean, even the old and out-dated US AT4 antitank rocket could punch the main belt of an Iowa-class, and newer antitank missiles can punch over a meter of RHAe. That said, it may be easier to put thicker steel between compartments to contain damage better on surface ships.

Better damage control gear is easy to do, though it does take some careful designing so that it is very hard to leave a large area without a fire main or whatever.

• Increased stores and fuel loads for independent operations,

And increased crew habitability space.

• Increased self repair stores and shops to allow staying on station for an extended period while remaining fully capable,

This is a point where I think the USN has been working the opposite direction, less spare parts on board and less ability to fix anything onboard.

"Part X has gone bad, don't have one onboard"
"Pull and replace the higher assembly, then."
"We don't carry the higher assembly onboard, either."
"Seriously? (lots of expletives deleted)"

Example: one of the highly skilled Navy Enlisted Classifications (NEC) was one that had the name "Undocumented Troubleshooter", the guy who could look at the prints onboard and work through the different parts to see what exactly was broken. That school no longer exists, and neither does the NEC. It hasn't existed since the early 2000s. The only reason I know it exists is because a friend of mine was one.

Also, with how heavy even a 3mm steel sheet is when it's 4x8 or larger for simple hull plating, I'm not sure how much "patch the hole" can be done with onboard supplies if the ship doesn't have a crane rigged up to haul the sheets to the deck and hang them over the side to be welded in place.

• First responder capabilities (such as limited medical facilities, small arms for the crew and an extensive boat/helo outfit), and

A lot of this has happened in general post-9/11. The amount of guns and other supplies we got after 9/11 was unreal, and we were submarines!

• Crew sized not only to operate the ship but to put small detachments ashore or onto seized merchant ships.

That's a MARDET in the USN, and/or a Coastie LEDET, though having some bluejackets available again would be interesting.

• Provisions for carrying a small command staff and a senior officer (if assigned a role in the command structure)

This is arguable. The only time the USN needs flag officer space is for the Air Warfare boss in an escort group. I believe that most of these points should be added in general to newly designed/constructed ships of all classes.

 

[johnpjones1775]

I'm partial to the functional definition used by the Commonwealth navies i.e. destroyer = primarily AAW, frigate = primarily ASW/GP. However, I am a British-Australian dual national so I would say that lol

As for cruisers, I agree it's rather become a designation in search of something to designate.

Funny you point out that the LCS is closer to the historical TBD than modern DDs/DDGs, because I've long said that trying to build a PT boat the size of a Type 12 frigate was inevitably going to be a hell of a thing to make work.
As we all know now of course, it has indeed been hard to make the LCS work, but the LCS makes plenty of hard work for their crews!

The LCSes were poorly planned, that’s for sure but they’re becoming very important parts of our fleet.