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Canadian Surface Combatant RFQ

I was going down a much worse rabbit hole.
Season 4 GIF by The Simpsons
 
Interesting that the T26 is about 6 feet wider than the Town Class cruiser, with a draught 6 feet deeper as well, but ~ 140’ shorter with 75% of the weight at full load.
T26 and CSC are very heavy, very solid ships with a lot of weight above the waterline.
 
As well as the size aspect, cruiser has a long history of use (predating using it for specific classes) for vessels operating not immediately within a fleet. Equally, frigate has a long history of "not a capital ship, operates in screening roles with a fleet, or independently." Could see destroyer disappearing, as the newest coinage (IIRC it dates from "torpedo boat destroyer" in the late, late 1800s or early 1900s).
 
Ships are named for their roles not their size. If ships were named for their size then the USS Nimitz would be called a Battleship. Its not called a battleship because it does different things then a battle ship does (and does what a battleship did better but that's another discussion).

Cruiser doesn't have a role in the modern navy (though some countries use the term cruiser for different reasons). Cruisers were fast ships of the line with long endurance and speed to raid enemy merchant fleets. Those don't exist anymore as submarines and aircraft can do that job better. US only uses the cruiser name because of politics. See Cruiser Gap on Wikipedia.

Modern Destroyers and Frigates though of similar tonnages these days are supposed to have different roles in the Anglosphere and their copycats (Japan, Korea notable examples) - Destroyer is an AAW and C&C ship. Frigates are usually general purpose and ASW ships.

The Eurozone (with some notable exceptions like Italy) use Frigate to name every single escort type. If its ocean going and bigger then a patrol boat its a Frigate (AAW or ASW or GP).

Now that being said as all ships are going general purpose and there is less and less difference between frigate and destroyer loadouts and sensors the roles start to blend into each other and the classification really doesn't mean to much anymore when comparing between countries.

Could see destroyer disappearing, as the newest coinage (IIRC it dates from "torpedo boat destroyer" in the late, late 1800s or early 1900s).
Modern Frigate terminology is WW2 vintage. They brought it back like they did with Corvette.
 
It would make sense to call a multi-role ship that can do AAW and ASW a destroyer, a primary ASW ship a frigate and a primary AAW ship a AD Destroyer (or a AD Cruiser if it has BMD+7000+ DWT). That would satisfy the Navy types and the general public who are interested in such things
 
It would make sense to call a multi-role ship that can do AAW and ASW a destroyer, a primary ASW ship a frigate and a primary AAW ship a AD Destroyer (or a AD Cruiser if it has BMD+7000+ DWT). That would satisfy the Navy types and the general public who are interested in such things
The what do you call a primary ASuW ship?
 
Given everything is trending to being multi role, maybe the classification should be done based on depth of magazines (ie number of VLS) maybe paired with radar capabilities.

Over 100 VLS. Would be a cruiser.
60-100 VLS. Would be a Destroyer.
30-60 VLS. Would be a light destroyer.
Under 30 VLS. Would be a Frigate
 
Given everything is trending to being multi role, maybe the classification should be done based on depth of magazines (ie number of VLS) maybe paired with radar capabilities.

Over 100 VLS. Would be a cruiser.
60-100 VLS. Would be a Destroyer.
30-60 VLS. Would be a light destroyer.
Under 30 VLS. Would be a Frigate
Now you're tying it to a weapon system. What if Direct Energy or Drones take over those jobs. Depth of magazine isn't even a thing, that just goes to staying power.
If a ship with one shot one kill had 30VLS, but a ship with 90 VLS needed 3 shots per kill would you still classify them as different?
What about the type of VLS? The Sea Cepter are each housed in their own particular type of VLS that are one missile per launcher. But if you were to put the same 48 missiles onto a Quad Pack VLS then you would go down to 12 launchers. This is why role is the whole package not arbitrary weapon numbers.
 
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