Unsurprisingly, both frigates and destroyers are armed with the latest weapons and defence systems, which are vital for carrying out their escort and protect roles. Weapons and EW capabilities vary based on roles Modern destroyer vessels peak at around 33kn (61km/h), while the fastest ever recorded destroyer was the French Navy’s Le Terrible that reached 45.1kn (83.5km/h) during sea trials in 1935. The Zumwalt class is still as fast – if not faster – than most frigate classes.
One of the faster frigate ships is the Indian Navy’s Shivalik class that is touted to travel up to 32kn (59km/h) at max speed, while others range between 26-30kn (48-55km/h).ĭespite its impressive size, the Zumwalt-class destroyer can travel up to 30kn, slightly slower than the smaller Sovremenny and Daring classes, which have an average of 32kn. “Frigates are thus usually used as escort vessels to protect sea lines of communication or as an auxiliary component of a strike group whereas destroyers are generally integrated into carrier battle groups as the air defence component or utilised to provide territorial air and missile defence.” …and fasterįrigates are generally slower than destroyers although in modern times there is not a significant difference. They can thus provide theatre wide air and missile defence for forces such as a carrier battle group and typically serve this function. “By virtue of being larger, destroyers can more easily carry and generate the power for more powerful high-resolution radar and a larger number of vertical launch cells. “The key distinction between frigates and destroyers is size and, by extension, function,” says Dr Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.
They are roughly the same width as destroyer vessels. While frigates vary greatly in terms of size, many of the top frigates such as Russia’s Admiral Gorshkov class and Germany’s Sachsen class are smaller than destroyers, measuring in at around 130m-150m in length.
DESTROYER MAGAZINE FREE PICTURES FULL
The Zumwalt class weighs in at nearly 16,000t making it double the weight of smaller destroyers that weigh in at around 8,000t at full load. Then there is the US Navy’s Zumwalt-class destroyer, a 190m long colossus with a beam of 24.6m. Smaller destroyers, such as the Royal Navy’s Type 45 Daring class and Russia’s Project 956 Sovremenny class, measure in at around 150m in length, with a beam of around 17-18m. Data, insights and analysis delivered to youĭestroyer warships come in a range of sizes. Some nations, such as Spain and Germany, officially have no destroyers although many of their frigate ships are almost identical to what other nations would class as a destroyer vessel.