Corvette

For the automobile, see Chevrolet Corvette.

French steam corvette Dupleix (1856-1887)

Canadian corvettes on antisubmarine convoy escort duty during World War II.

A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, smaller than a frigate but larger than a coastal patrol craft. During the Age of Sail, corvettes were smaller than frigates and larger than sloops-of-war, usually with a single gun deck. Almost all modern navies use ships smaller than frigates for coastal duty, but not all of them use the term corvette. From the French corvair.

Sailing vessels

During the Age of Sail, corvettes were one of many types of smaller warships. They were very closely related to sloops-of-war. The role of the corvette consisted mostly of coastal patrol, fighting minor wars, supporting large fleets, or participating in show-the-flag missions. The British Navy began using small ships in the 1650s, which were referred to as sloops. The first reference to a corvette was with the French Navy in the 1670s.

Most corvettes and sloops of the 17th century were around 40 to 60 feet (12 to 18 meters) in length and weighed 40 to 70 tons (36 to 64 metric tonnes). They carried 4 to 8 smaller guns. Corvettes slowly increased in size and capability, until 1800 when they reached lengths over 100 feet (30 meters) and weight ranging from 400 to 600 tons (circa 365 to 544 metric tonnes). One of the largest corvettes during the Age of Sail was the American ship, USS Constellation, built in 1855. The ship was 176 feet (54 meters) long and carried 24 guns. It was so large that some naval experts consider it a frigate. It has also been referred to as a sloop-of-war.

In the Royal Navy, the corvette evolved into an un-rated vessel with a single gun deck and three square rigged masts (a sloop had two square-rigged and one fore-and-aft riged masts).

Steam Ships

Ships during the steam era became much faster and more maneuverable than their sail ancestors. Corvettes during this era were typically used along side gunboats during colonial missions. Battleships and other larger vessels were unncessary when subduing native peoples in the Far East and Africa.

World War II

The modern corvette appeared during World War II as an easily built patrol and convoy escort vessel. The British naval designer William Reed drew up a small ship based on the single-shaft Smiths Dock Company whale catcher Southern Pride, whose simple design and mercantile construction standards lent itself to rapid production in small yards unused to naval work, and 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 corvettes were the Flower class (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 to Murmansk carrying supplies to the Soviet Union.

The corvette was not however an ideal design for an anti-submarine escort; they were really too short for open ocean work, were lightly armed, were little faster than the merchantmen they escorted (especially with respect to faster German U-boat designs then emerging) and their single shaft meant that they were not particularly manouverable. Thus, the corvette was superseded in the Royal Navy as the escort ship of choice by the frigate, which was larger, faster, better armed and had two shafts. However, many small yards could not produce vessels of frigate size, so an improved corvette design, the Castle class, was introduced later in the war, some of which remained in service until the mid-1950s.

The Royal Australian Navy built 60 Bathurst-class 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 as Minesweeping Sloops by the Royal Navy, and were named after Australian towns.

Modern corvettes

South African frigate referred to by the SAN as a corvette SAS Mendi

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 utilized 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 540 and 2,750 tons (550 and 2,800 metric tons) and measure 180-330 feet (55-100 meters) in length. They usually are armed with medium and small caliber guns, surface-to-surface missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and underwater warfare weapons. Many can accommodate a small or medium ASW helicopter.

Current Corvette Classes

Many countries today operate corvettes. Some of them include Sweden, Germany, India, Israel, Poland, Turkey, Greece, and Russia. Countries that border smaller seas, such as the Baltic Sea or the Persian Gulf are more likely to build the smaller and more maneuverable corvettes.

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.

The United States is developing a Littoral Combat Ship, which will be very similar to a corvette.

The Turkish Navy is developing a modern indigenous corvette under Project Milgem. Construction of the first Milgem class corvette, TCG Heybeliada, began on 26 July 2005. TCG Heybeliada will be put to sea on 23 August 2007 and is scheduled to be completed by 25 October 2010, when it will start undergoing full sea trials before being officially commissioned. A total of twelve Milgem class corvettes will be built for the Turkish Navy, with possible exports to other countries. The design concept and mission profile of Milgem is similar to the Littoral Combat Ship of the United States.

The Hellenic Navy operates the Super-Vita class ships, which are 580 tons full load. The Hellenic Navy has categorised the class as fast attack missile craft. A similar vessel is the Kılıç class fast attack missile boat of the Turkish Navy, which is classified as a corvette by Lürssen Werft, the German designer of the ship.

See also

• List of corvette and sloop classes of the Royal Navy
• HMAS Castlemaine, a museum ship, Bathurst-class corvette
• HMCS Sackville, a museum ship, the sole remaining Flower-class corvette
• Braunschweig class corvette, The new class of corvettes of the German Navy

Further reading

• The collection Three Corvettes by Nicholas Monsarrat recounts the writer's World War II experiences on corvettes, starting as an inexperienced small-boat sailor and ending as captain.

• The novel The Cruel Sea also by Nicholas Monsarrat, which is about the life and death of a Flower-class corvette and the men in her, is regarded as one of the classic naval stories of World War II.

• The two books The Corvette Navy and On the Triangle Run by James B. Lamb give an autobiographical and historical perspective of life on Royal Canadian Navy corvettes in World War II. The author served on them for 6 years from Halifax to the beaches of D-Day.

External links

• battleships-cruisers.co.uk - Lists of ships, historic info, pictures...
  • Argentine Navy
  • Brazilian Navy wooden Corvettes
  • Danish Navy
  • French Corvettes
  • German Navy
  • Italian Corvettes
  • Royal Navy Corvettes
  • Uruguayan Navy
  • Other Navies Brunei, Moroccan Navy, Moroccan Navy corvettes
• Bathurst Class Corvettes
• Project 28 corvettes

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