What is the difference between a destroyer and a frigate?

Let's start with the definition. For destroyers, the definition is a multi-purpose warship, which is a medium-sized warship with strong assault force in the naval fleet. At the same time, it can also undertake air defense, anti-submarine, landing support and anti-landing operations, as well as patrol alert, maritime blockade and rescue tasks. It can be said that the destroyer's functions basically cover all the functions that the fleet needs in naval battles except that it can't take off and land fixed-wing aircraft and can't dive into the water to fly to the sky.

Let's talk about frigates. The definition of frigate is very similar to that of destroyer. They can perform anti-submarine and patrol missions, but the difference with destroyers is that frigates are light warships, and their tonnage and firepower are often inferior to destroyers in modern naval formations. In other words, the functional coverage of frigates is narrower than that of destroyers. As the name suggests, frigates prefer? Guard? Protect the interests of your fleet and offshore areas.

Traditional destroyers are designed around torpedo attack warfare, which determines that destroyers need higher speed and lighter tonnage to ensure maneuverability. They played an auxiliary attack role in the battle, and were responsible for carrying out reconnaissance missions and reconnaissance of the enemy before the war. The traditional frigate is for anti-submarine escort, which has low requirements for tonnage and relatively more important functionality.

But these were decades ago. With the continuous development of technology, the concepts of universality, modularity and serialization of modern shipbuilding industry are also constantly improving. The situation of early driving and protecting aliens no longer exists today, but driving and protecting the same type is becoming the mainstream trend of future warship development.

Simply put, destroyers and frigates are nominally two kinds of warships, but there are actually many overlaps: needless to say, there may be overlaps in construction, that is, the same berth, the same equipment and the same group of people are built. This is the result of the three modernizations of shipbuilding mentioned this morning. In this context, the difference between destroyers and frigates may be only the difference in functional coverage and tonnage, and the rest are basically the same.

In terms of functional coverage, destroyers can generally perform more tasks, while frigates tend to guard. The difference in tonnage is also an important reason for the different functional coverage to some extent. Because of the higher tonnage, destroyers can often carry more functional modules, such as a dozen or dozens of frigates on vertical holes, which gives them the possibility of carrying more different types of missiles. However, frigates cannot develop more comprehensive capabilities like destroyers because of their insufficient tonnage, so they tend to specialize in one or several functions to ensure the necessity.

Therefore, destroyers are generally equivalent to sea generalists, while frigates are sea bodyguards. This reflects the changes in modern naval warfare: the Pacific War has determined the unshakable position of the aircraft carrier in the navy, and the air superiority has since become the focus of contention between the warring parties. Many old warships in the past can no longer meet the needs of modern warfare, but after these old warships withdraw, new warships not only need to adapt to modern naval battles with air superiority, but also make up for the gap caused by the departure of these old warships. Therefore, the development of new warships to generalists and panaceas can be said to be an inevitable result.

The difference between destroyers and frigates will be smaller and smaller in the foreseeable future. But this situation may be more aimed at naval powers such as China, the United States and Russia, as well as warships of ordinary countries, and may not even be qualified to participate? Destroyer or frigate? In the discussion.