"Space Ship Roles and Designations" Topic

So, as I've been perusing through the various rule sets, they tend to organize fleets based on roles and types – Battleship, cruiser, escort, etc. I understand what a carrier is, but can someone give me a quick run down of what the various ship types are and their roles.
Alternatively a reference for a place that has this information would be suitable as well.

Thank you.

Essentially, the same as a wet water navy. The battleships and dreadnaughts are the heavy hitters that stand in line of battle and slug it out with their enemy counterparts. Cruisers support the battle line, defending it from smaller attackers and perform independent missions. Destroyers and frigate perform convoy escort and harass the enemy fleet with fast darting attacks against damaged larger ships while defending against their like opponents.

Okay. Thanks! Heck, don't know much about blue water navy either. Time to do some research.

Also, in Starmada, there is reference to various initials with respect to ship types and classes. Any idea what they stand for? Are these some common conventions for space games?

CR
CV – Corvette?
DD – Destroyer?
BB – Battleship?
BC – Battle Cruiser?
CL – Light Cruiser?
FF – Frigate?
CVB
CG
CA – Heavy Cruiser (Armored Cruiser)?
CVL
PF – Patrol Frigate?

Thanks!

For Starships, I simplified the system by weight classes, and used alphabetic order to make them intuitive:

Freighter (not really a warship, so the lightest)
Escort
Destroyer
Cruiser
Behemoth

After that, I added roles -- so generally speaking, a light carrier is a destroyer-weight carrier, while a true carrier is a cruiser-weight ship.

Obligatory links:
website purplefuzzymonster.com
product page link

And, yes, everything you've listed has a US Navy equivalent. For example, "CV" originally meant "Cruiser, aViation" and now means carrier. Wikipedia has a short article with a sample list: link

EDIT: the Wikipedia article has a link to USN's document on their abbreviations if you want the gory details.

The terms tend not to have much meaning spaceships; basically size steps

Historically, cruiser meant big enough to carry enough supplies and men to go out single handed: 'cruise' to police the seaways. Of course, that ended up being every size, in some sense.

But also small enough not risk loosing as a major asset to a battle line, the original meaning of 'battleship.'

Destroyer comes from 'torpedo boat destroyer', so the 'defending from smaller attackers' was it's original mission. Then it hunted, and still does sometimes, the submerged TBD, submarines. Of course, now days, that's more for other subs or aircraft, but DD's have their place.

Frigate has to be one of the weirdest, as it's changed places on the scale with DD's at some point.

Some rule sets have tried to make up new names; tends to be fruitless. Unless the history of the name is set in place, is very hard to 'feel' it.

I think Starmada uses historical forms, but that's tricky, as I've said. CV is carrier; they were originally cruiser sized, and the A was already taken. CVL is a light version.

CA in WWII was taken to be 'heavy cruiser'. Since then, CG are cruisers built to carry missiles(guided).

People point to Full Thrust as being 'WWII naval in space', but I think most games are, to some extent. Most assume spaceships have to have that 'cruiser' sense.

Otherwise, they're just 'boats.'

Doug

Edit: Damn, man, I've got to learn to type quicker! ;->=

For completeness, the US's aircraft designation codes: link

Yeah, part of the reason I chose the weight class names had to do with the role I envisioned in my game. "Cruisers" are the core of a fleet, and "Escorts" are designed to provide the cruisers support.

"Destroyers" are 'tweeners, basically intended to eliminate the other guy's escorts; and "Behemoths" are oversized cruisers. (They're so big that they have to use a special order to maneuver.)

I avoided "frigate" for a couple of reasons; the biggest being that "frigate" means different things depending on your home country. Originally, it just meant, "ship with guns on deck" which means that most every surface warship is technically a frigate. Obviously, that definition has drifted.

This is brilliant! Thank you for all your help.

traveller ship codes
link

traveller ship types
link

The sometimes useful but always interesting Atomic Rockets site has a pretty extensive section on ship designations:
link

Discusses various systems and points out of the issues with trying to map navy designations to space warfare (which depending on your technology assumptions either looks a fair bit or nothing at all like naval combat).

-Will

@wminsing … great link! That is very helpful.

CA does indeed stand for Armoured Cruiser.

Initially I believe there were Cruisers; that is independent warships capable of longer voyages. Then came Protected Cruisers which added some armour to different areas and then Armoured Cruisers which added armour everywhere.

The Brits around ww1 still had sub-designations of well, from the age of sail where a ship was rated.

A 1st-rate Cruiser for example was maybe the largest size available whereas a 3rd-rate cruiser was much smaller in size.

Though in the age of sail I think warships were rated from say 1 to 6, 1st-rate ship of the line versus say a 4th rate and in different eras maybe only rates 1-3 would actually fight in the battles.

There are also ships like CL, Light Cruiser, which were used as fleet scouts or Destroyer Leaders.

One shortcoming that nearly every starship games has is a lack of interest in endurance. In naval terms for example, different ships had different levels of endurance. Some ships could travel less further due to less oil/coal or they were ill-suited for the heavier seas of say the North Atlantic. A ship built to sail the Mediterranean is maybe not as well able to sail the oceans or around the Cape.

But in starship games there's rarely a distinction between a deep space warships and an orbital one with very little endurance.

Another term is DN, meaning Dreadnought which is technically a creation of fiction writers because from what I can tell historical a DN was actually just a Battleship with the same size main armament (rather than mixed sizes).

In starship combat games Dreadnought just means "bigger than battleship" or in some cases like SFB, "smaller than battleship" but rarely do the ships exhibit any real differences to other warships.

The one except may be the Nova Dreadnought from babylon 5 wars/ACTA which is armed with all the same guns.

- CV stands for Carrier (originally built on cruiser hulls hence the C and V comes from the French verb "voler" = "to fly"); Corvette would be K…
- CVL and and CVB are light and heavy carriers respectively
- CG is Cruiser, Guided Missiles

Another important distinction is you usually have a formal system (ie, what's in the navy paperwork) and an informal system (ie, what people actually call the ships in practice). Akalabeth points out Dreadnought, which was NEVER a formal designation (the RN called them Battleships, as did virtually every other seagoing service), but in the popular press they were called Dreadnoughts after the first example.

Another wrinkle is that different opposing forces will usually have their own designation systems, and some hilarity often ensues when they try to map their designations onto their opponent's ships which often do not match up perfectly….

-Will

Also depending on the rules set the designation might not matter all that much. Some rules focus very heavily on ship roles and make them an integral part of the rules (ie, destroyers can do X and not Y, Cruisers can do Y and not X). Colonial Battlefleet and I think(?) Firestorm Armada are like this. Build-and-bash systems like Full Thrust and Starmada however usually don't really care what you call the ships; they just help make size differences more clear.

-Will

I really like the Atomic Rockets definitions.

Frigates are small Cruisers, intended to work alone on long patrols and protect (or harass) the merchant ships.

Destroyers are small Battleships, intended to work in a fleet to protect the battleships and carriers.

I tend to rate carriers as more akin to gator-freighters, carrying craft dedicated to orbital and planetary operations instead of deep space ops.

Akalabeth reguarding CA as far as I've known for many years CA always meant Heavy Cruiser.

Now the Americans up until 1920 used the term ARC which meant Armoured Cruiser but after 1920 they changed it to Ca.

Now other Countries like Japan and Russia might've used the same term up until a certain year.

For myself anything up to 1916 that's an Armored Cruiser is classified as a ARC.

Just wanted to add I give props to Lucas and Straczynski for using destroyer as the baddest of the bad, except for the whole 'super star destroyer' thing…

Just because it doesn't conform to WWII naval may be a plus.

Also, Star Destroyer sounds cool, but could be used in space combat that makes distinctions between FTL and non-FTL craft.

As with the difference between 'ship' and 'boat', ocean-capable and not-so-much, maybe Star- and Sys- could be appended.

StarDes could be FTL-capable craft judged able to stand in battle, while a SysCrus is non-FTL, but sized to work independent for long periods.

FTL-capable 'fighters' isn't something I'd include, but others obviously must have 'em.

@LitS: I like your carriers!

Doug

Yes, I've seen people wail over ISD's and Omegas but obviously they haven't kept up with modern naval terminology; Destroyers *are* capital ships. 100% agree that you don't have to use WWII terminology. :)

-Will

I've stopped using the old battleship/cruiser/etc. designations in my game. I still use classes (ex. Orion Class), though, as there are different designs.

*blush* Fair's fair, I did so myself when I first heard the Omegas in the show. ;->=

Doug

Here is a good site for designations:
link

Captain Gideon, how's the Excalibur?

The designations here for example list the changing nature of the CA designation:
link

In the US navy they list CA to mean first class, then armoured, then heavy cruisers.

Wikipedia you'll notice has something similar:
link

I'm not sure how accurate these are but it is my impression. I always wondered why CA meant Heavy Cruiser when clearly A had nothing to do with being Heavy. But CL was perhaps a light cruiser.

I've heard DH meaning heavy destroyer as well though I don't know how historical that is.

@Beast – Regarding Star Wars. In A New Hope, Han calls the ISDs "Imperial Cruisers" not Star Destroyers.

Similarly one of the first times we see an Omega Destroyer in Babylon 5, Garibaldi calls it an "Earth Force Cruiser". (In the episode where the Free Mars guy starts electrocuting people)

So – while both JMS and GL may have changed it to 'destroyer' later on, they were initially both referred to as Cruisers. (Though the subtext for the Agamemnon in S2E1 for B5 might prove me wrong).

Thanks, Akalabeth! I'll give 'em a view.

Honestly, I could have sworn I heard JMS apologizing, sounding quite contrite, about the use of 'destroyer.'

I still thought it was a bold re-imagining. ;->=

Doug

At least according to the Bab5Wars game, Omega-class Destroyers were not the biggest/baddest ship in the fleet. Omegas were actually built on Nova-class "dreadnought" hulls, but the Nova-class didn't have the rotating section. This made the Nova-class poorly suited to long deployments without port calls.

Yeah. Well they were called Destroyers later on in Babylon 5; certainly when the Churchill for example comes to B5 Ivanova calls it an Earth Force Destroyer.

I think people's aversion to the use of Destroyer for larger ships is a bit erroneous in any case.

The term Battleship for example is I believe a derivation of Ship of the Line but in modern day navies, "Battleships" are not even in service though there are clearly ships in service that are intended as the main-line warships in an engagement (presumably guided-missile Cruisers), barring of course aircraft.

Does it make sense to call a Star Destroyer a battleship when it's not a ship? Is the now-retired Shuttle a spaceship or a spacecraft? Is the soyuz capsule a ship or a craft? Or simply a capsule?

If Battleships are an archaic, retired class does it make sense to carry the term into a space navy?

Similarly in the Star Wars universe, where even a ship like the Millenium Falcon has unbelievable operating range does it make sense to label a ship a "Cruiser".

The term Destroyer itself was originally a shortening of Torpedo Boat Destroyer, yet their role has evolved well beyond that of destroying torpedo boats. They carry helicopters, have guided missiles, screen against submarines, etcetera. I don't think it's too preposterous to believe that the class could evolve and expand into a general combatant and specialist classes would be left by the wayside.

Naval designations in general are a curious in that they were born out of a description of their function yet over the years many have evolved to describe something quite different.

All that said. I'm sure Lucas and JMS just thought "Destroyer sounds cool"

@Akalabeth-if you spend the time, I am sure you will find other descriptions and histories that contradict what we are have reviewed. That said, the link I posted is quite accurate based on some books I have.

@All-Descriptions listed on my link is more specific to US Navy usage, than other nations. Also, there are different "histories" pertaining to ship classifications. For example, I have heard that CV stands for Converted Vessel, as the first carriers were converted from something else.

Now Wikipedia also has a page on Hull Classes: link and the note CA, CB, CC, CL and CV as five sub-classes. Interesting to say the least, as it opens up the availabilty for war gaming.

WWI-WWII Germany and Russia use a prefix as part of their hull number. U-boats and Destroyers used U and Z respectively as part of the hull number. I believe they also had S-boats, which would have been torpedo boats. Russian submarines also use K or B prefixes in their hull numbers.

DH was mentioned earlier, and it is not unlikely that someone had a heavy destroyer that could have had a DH assigned to it.

Now for a bonus question. The US Navy had two ships that tend to be classified as battlecruisers. What were their names?

Here is something else to add into the discussion, and is pertinent to any fighters, bombers, etc. The US aircraft designation method: link has changed over the years. Post WWII, many of the NATO countries adopted the same method. Meanwhile Pre-WWII nations (excluding US) and postwar Soviet-bloc nations use a character code signifying the manufacturer, i.e. MiG, Su, etc.

In general, there are two "missions" (independent patrol and battle fleet) and three or four sizes, giving you a grid of 6 or 8 basic form plans.

Mission subtyping (how the mission is accomplished) can be seen as subdividing the cell in that grid.

Battle-line tends to emphasize protection first, then offense, then speed, then endurance.

Patrol tends to emphasize speed, then offense, then endurance, then defenses.

Certain navies will change the order of those four terms based on their strategic needs.