Corvette

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For the automobile, see Chevrolet Corvette.

Image:Dupleix 1856-1887.jpg Image:CanadianCorvettes.jpg

A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, smaller than a frigate. Almost all modern navies use ships smaller than frigates for coastal duty, but not all of them use the term corvette.

1 Sailing vessels
2 World War II
3 Modern Corvettes
4 See also
5 Further reading
6 External links

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Sailing vessels

The original corvettes were a form of sloop-of-war. The french navy used the term corvette to describe a small frigate armed with 20 guns.

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World War II

The modern corvette appeared during World War II as an easily built patrol and convoy escort vessels. The British naval designer William Reed drew up a small ship based on a whale catcher design which could be produced quickly in large numbers. Future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, had a hand in it reviving the name "corvette". The first were the Flower class (because the Royal Navy ships were named after flowers) though ships in Royal Canadian Navy service took the name of smaller Canadian cities. Their chief duty was to protect convoys in the North Atlantic and on the routes from the UK Murmansk carrying supplies to the Soviet Union. The Royal Australian Navy built 60 corvettes, including 20 for the Royal Navy (crewed by Australians) and 4 for the Royal Indian Navy. These were officially described as Australian Mine Sweepers, or Bathurst class corvettes and were named after Australian towns.

Later in World War II the Royal Navy introduced the Castle class, some of which remained in service until the mid-1950s.

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Modern Corvettes

After the attack on the USS Cole, modern navies began to see the importance of smaller, more maneuverable vessels that could operate close to shore, as well as at sea. These ships could defend a country's assets and interests far away from its own shores, with sophisticated weapons and surveillance equipment. But since they were smaller and cheaper than frigates and destroyers, they could more effectively combat the kind of small attack craft utizilized in the attack on the USS Cole. Around the same time, navies operated by smaller countries, such as the United Arab Emirates began to realize that their offshore patrol vessels were lacking the ability to defend themselves in a modern war, especially against air attacks.

Typical corvettes today are between patrol vessels and frigates in both size and capability. They have a displacement between 490 and 2,500 metric tons and measure 55-100 meters in length. They usually are armed with medium and small caliber guns, surface-to-surface missiles, and surface-to-air missiles, and underwater warfare weapons. Many can accommodate a small or medium ASW helicopter.

Possibly the most advanced corvette today is the Swedish Navy's Visby-class corvette. It is the first operational warship to extensively utilize stealth technology, although other countries, such as Germany, Poland, Russia, and Israel, are developing similar vessels. The United States is developing a Littoral Combat Ship, which will be very similar to a corvette.

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