How frigates fight side by side with destroyers

How frigates fight side by side with destroyers

The types of foreign naval surface ships have been simplified a lot, and only aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, missile boats, amphibious warships, mine ships and military auxiliary ships have been retained. Cruisers, destroyers and frigates are also called surface warships, and their tonnage, appearance and equipped weapons are very similar. So, what is the difference between them? What are the criteria for delimiting destroyers and frigates?

Judging from the appearance time, frigates are earlier than destroyers, and in the early ranking of naval vessels, the tonnage of frigates is also greater than destroyers. Later, the destroyer's capacity gradually increased and the level was upgraded to a frigate. However, the difference between the two is getting smaller and smaller.

For example, the "European multi-purpose frigate" jointly developed by France and Italy. Although they are all called frigates, they are actually destroyers in France, numbered "D" and listed as frigates in Italy, numbered "F". An important criterion to distinguish frigates from destroyers is the mission entrusted to them. Generally speaking, destroyers are mostly used for offensive operations and are the main combat forces in the formation;

Frigates are mainly used for formation defense, offshore patrol surveillance and other tasks. The destroyer has a large tonnage, many weapons and electronic equipment, and strong comprehensive combat capability; However, frigates are smaller, with fewer weapons and electronic equipment, and their combat capability is far from that of destroyers.

Judging from the equipped weapon system, destroyers are mostly equipped with first-class and offensive weapons, while frigates are mainly equipped with defensive equipment, with exceptions.

Destroyers are responsible for formation air defense and need to be equipped with regional air defense weapons, that is, long-range ship-to-air missiles. The destroyers of the United States, Japan and Han Haijun are equipped with vertical launchers and "standard" 2 Block III A/B ship-to-air missiles, with a range of170km, and are responsible for formation air defense.

Frigates are generally equipped with American sea sparrow, French Aster 15, Mika and other ship-to-air missiles, with a range of about 20 kilometers, and only have the point defense capability of the ship. For operational purposes, frigates used to be one of the members of the aircraft carrier battle group. After the Perry-class frigate was retired, the USS Aircraft Carrier Strike Group was no longer equipped with frigates. Eight ships of Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's 8th Fleet are destroyers.

The navies of other countries mostly use the mixed grouping of frigates and destroyers to jointly carry out maritime combat missions. In terms of combat capability, advanced destroyers abroad are now equipped with phased array radar, which has a long detection range and can track hundreds of targets at the same time and engage with 10 targets that pose the greatest threat.

For example, foreign Aegis destroyers can generally intercept 12 air targets at the same time, while frigates have few fire channels and can only intercept several targets at the same time. If it is a frigate without a missile vertical launcher, its ability is even worse.

Judging from the latest development of foreign frigates, some frigates are equipped with long-range strike weapons and share some destroyer tasks. In the past, destroyers and attack nuclear submarines mostly carried out long-range land attack missions. In 20 15, Russia used 2000-ton 166 1 frigate.

3M-54 cruise missiles launched from the Black Sea and Caspian Sea have carried out long-range attacks on extremist camps in Syria. The American frigate Constellation will be equipped with 16 "Joint Strike Missile". In addition, Mk-4 1 vertical launcher can also be loaded with weapons under development, such as "maritime attack tomahawk" and "long-range anti-ship missile", so as to meet the requirements of strengthening the anti-ship capability of surface ships proposed by the concept of "distributed maritime operations".