Ship class

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A ship class is a group of ships of a similar design.

In the course of building a class of ships, some changes may be incorporated into the design. Equally having built a class of ships, some more of a similar design may be built later. In these cases one ship might be considered to be of a different class, or the ships would be grouped into sub classes - (see County class cruiser for an example)

Ships in a class often have names linked by a common factor: e.g. Trafalgar class submarine names all begin with T (Turbulent, Tireless, Torbay); and Ticonderoga class cruisers are named after US battles (Yorktown, Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Anzio).

Class names

The principal navies of the United States and Europe have slightly different traditions in naming classes of ship.

In the United States Navy, a class is always named after the lead ship; that is, the first ship of that class to be approved by Congress—almost (but not quite) without exception the ship of the class with the lowest hull number.

In European navies, a class is named after the first ship in commission, regardless of when that ship was ordered or laid down. In some cases, this has resulted in different class names being recorded in European references from their American counterparts - for example, European references report the Colorado class battleships of the United States Navy as "Maryland-class", since USS Maryland (BB-46) was commissioned over two years before USS Colorado (BB-45).

The Royal Navy has managed to have a dual system operating over the years. While some classes of ships have been given a name after that of the first in commission, they have also had class names because the ships names all had something in common. If all the ships started with the same letter then you have instances such as the Amphion class of submarines which are also known as the "A" class. Classification by letter also helped to conflate similar smaller classes of ships as in the case of the C class destroyers of 1913 whose names spread across the alphabet. The names could have something more than the initial letter in common. The Tribal class frigates could have been named because all the ship names are of those of tribes not because of an HMS Tribal. The class is also known as the Zulus after HMS Zulu. To cloud matters further there were two earlier "Tribal" classes, the Tribal class destroyers of 1905 which were "F class" destroyers and Tribal class destroyers of 1936 which are known as the Afridi class after HMS Afridi]].

Since the end of the Second World War, RN ship classes have also been known by their "Type Number", The Type 42 destroyers, which are named after British cities are known as the Sheffields.

Russian (and Soviet) ship classes are formally named by the numbered project that designed them. That project sometimes, but not always, had a metaphorical name, and almost always had a NATO reporting name. In addition, the ships of the class would be numbered, and that number prefixed by a letter indicating the role of that type of vessel. For example, Project 641 had no other name, though NATO referred to its members as Foxtrot class submarines. One boat of that class was B-427—the "B" standing for bolshaya, meaning "large"—which also bore the name Scorpion. In contrast, Project 667AM was known in Russia as Navaga, a type of cod, and was given the NATO reporting name Yankee II. One boat of that class was K-219—the "K" standing for kreyserskaya, "cruiser"—which had no other name. An odd coincidence in ship naming is the Bars-class submarine (NATO reporting name "Akula")—the boats reported in NATO sources as Typhoon class submarines (the fictional Red October was one)—are referred to by the Soviet/Russian forces as Akula class!

The West German Navy (Bundesmarine) used a three-digit type number for every class in service or in advanced project state. Modifations are marked with a single letter postfix. After reunification the German Navy (Deutsche Marine) kept the system. Informally classes are also traditionally named after their lead ships. Template:Detailsde:Schiffsklasse