Steam frigates (including screw frigates) and the smaller steam corvettes, steam sloops, steam gunboats and steam schooners, were

steam-powered A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be tra ...

warships that were not meant to stand in the

line of battle The line of battle is a tactic in naval warfare in which a fleet of ships forms a line end to end. The first example of its use as a tactic is disputed—it has been variously claimed for dates ranging from 1502 to 1652. Line-of-battle tacti ...

. There were some exceptions like for example the French

Napoléon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

class steam ship of the line was meant to stand in the line of battle, making it the world's first steam battleship. The first such ships were

paddle steamer A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses wer ...

s. Later on the invention of screw propulsion enabled construction of steam-powered versions of the traditional

ships of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two colum ...

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the slo ...

sloops A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

and

gunboat A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies. History Pre-steam ...

Evolution

First steam warships

The first small vessel that can be considered a steam warship was the ''

Demologos ''Demologos'' was the first warship to be propelled by a steam engine. She was a wooden floating battery built to defend New York Harbor New York Harbor is at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into New York Bay near the Eas ...

'', which was launched in 1815 for the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. From the early 1820s, the

British Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

began building a number of small steam warships including the armed tugs and , and by the 1830s the navies of America, Russia and France were experimenting with steam-powered warships. Hellenic

sloop-of-war In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term ''sloop-of-war'' enc ...

'' Kartería'' (Καρτερία;

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

for "Perseverance") was the first steam-powered warship to be used in combat operations in history. It was built in 1825 in an English shipyard for the revolutionary

Hellenic Navy The Hellenic Navy (HN; el, Πολεμικό Ναυτικό, Polemikó Naftikó, War Navy, abbreviated ΠΝ) is the naval force of Greece, part of the Hellenic Armed Forces. The modern Greek navy historically hails from the naval forces of vari ...

during the

Greek War of Independence The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. The Greeks were later assisted by ...

, on the order of Capt

Frank Abney Hastings Frank Abney Hastings ( el, Φραγκίσκος Άστιγξ) (14 February 1794 – 1 June 1828) was a British naval officer and Philhellene. Born to a noble British family, he served in the Royal Navy, seeing action at the Battle of Trafalgar ...

, a former

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

officer who had volunteered his services to the Hellenic Navy.

Frigate classification

The frigate and corvette were 'ships'. For a vessel to be called a 'ship' it had to have full rigging, i.e.

square rig Square rig is a generic type of sail and rigging arrangement in which the primary driving sails are carried on horizontal spars which are perpendicular, or square, to the keel of the vessel and to the masts. These spars are called ''yards'' and ...

s on three masts. If it had only

fore-and-aft rig A fore-and-aft rig is a sailing vessel rigged mainly with sails set along the line of the keel, rather than perpendicular to it as on a square rigged vessel. Description Fore-and-aft rigged sails include staysails, Bermuda rigged sails, gaff ...

on the mizzen mast, it was not a ship. Ships were classified as: ships of the line, frigates and corvettes. The upper limit for a ship to be still considered a frigate was that it had only one covered gun deck. If a ship had two covered gun decks, it was no longer a frigate, but a ship of the line. A confusing circumstance arose when in the early nineteenth century the forecastle and quarterdecks of most big ships were joined to become a complete flush deck above. These ships continued to be frigates, e.g

HMS Constance (1846) HMS ''Constance'' was a 50-gun fourth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy launched in 1846. She had a tonnage of 2,132 and was designed with a V-shaped hull by William Symonds, Sir William Symonds.Mariner's pp 64–68 She was also one of the last c ...

. The lower limit for a ship to still be considered a frigate was that its gun deck was covered. If a ship had only a single open gun deck it was considered to be 'corvette build'. If a ship had a single ''covered'' gun deck, it was at least a frigate. In general a frigate was commanded by a captain and a corvette by a lieutenant.

Paddle frigates

This first generation of steam warships were "paddle warships" (in the categories of frigate, sloop, gunvessel or other). They used

paddlewheel A paddle wheel is a form of waterwheel or impeller in which a number of paddles are set around the periphery of the wheel. It has several uses, of which some are: * Very low-lift water pumping, such as flooding paddy fields at no more than about ...

s mounted on either side or in the center. Paddle steamers were severely limited in the armaments they could mount. Paddle wheel propulsion also had very serious effects on sailing quality. The placement of the machinery and wheels in the middle of the ship conflicted with having the main mast there, and so the

sail plan A sail plan is a description of the specific ways that a sailing craft is rigged. Also, the term "sail plan" is a graphic depiction of the arrangement of the sails for a given sailing craft.> In the English language, ships were usually describe ...

of paddle frigates was less than ideal. Another characteristic that slowed down these vessels was that the paddle wheels would rotate in the water freely when the ship was sailing. The armament of paddle frigates compared badly with their sail-only counterparts. Paddle frigates could not have a traditional full

broadside Broadside or broadsides may refer to: Naval * Broadside (naval), terminology for the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their near simultaneous fire on naval warfare Printing and literature * Broadside (comic ...

because of the space taken by the machinery and the paddle wheels. The weight of the machinery and coal these ships carried was a perhaps even more serious problem. It meant that the designers had to limit the weight of all other 'cargo', including artillery. Therefore the armament of steam vessels had to follow a different concept: Because of their ability to move against the wind they could be assumed to be able to choose their distance to sail-only ships. Under these circumstances the very heavy guns that were deemed to fire too slowly for close-quarters combat did become useful because they had a high effective range. Meanwhile, the development of heavy shell guns like the

ML 8-inch shell gun The ML 8 inch shell guns of 50 cwt, 54 cwt and 65 cwt were the three variants of British cast iron smoothbore muzzle-loading guns designed specifically to fire the new generation of exploding shells pioneered in the early-mid nineteenth century b ...

provided a long range weapon that could sink a ship with a single hit. The only means to counter it was to develop heavier solid shot cannon that had an even higher effective range. All this generally led to equipping early steamers with only a few very heavy guns, both shell guns and solid shot guns. These were often mounted on pivots and slides. Paddle frigates were used extensively during the

Opium Wars The Opium Wars () were two conflicts waged between China and Western powers during the mid-19th century. The First Opium War was fought from 1839 to 1842 between China and the United Kingdom, and was triggered by the Chinese government's cam ...

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

and

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. An unintended quality was that the lack of broadside batteries gave them very spacious decks. Combined with being immune to contrary winds, this made them ideal for large scale troop transport. By 1870 most had been scrapped or sold into civilian service.

Royal Navy

By 1840 the Royal Navy had commissioned two ships that had been designed as steam paddle frigates. and the slightly larger had both been constructed to have a full battery on their gun deck, next to carrying guns on their upper decks. However, ''Gorgon'' was so deep in the water that her gun ports had to be shut permanently. ''Cyclops'' had been designed to carry 16 32-pounders on the main deck, but these could not be fitted. Both ships therefore failed to become true frigates, but were nevertheless very successful. The ''Cyclops'' would be taken as a model to build six more of these steam frigates (''Vulture'', ''Firebrand'', ''Gladiator'', ''Sampson'', ''Dragon'' and ''Centaur''). On 31 May 1844 the Admiralty then officially adopted the term 'Steam frigate'. All these ships became steam (paddle) frigates of the second class, except for ''Gorgon'', which became a sloop. The rating of ''Cyclops'' as a 'steam frigate' was surprising: she was rigged as a brig (with only two masts), and carried all her guns on the upper deck Other aspects did explain this classification. The ''Cyclops'' was commanded by a captain and had at least been planned to have a 'complete' covered gun deck. The crew of 175 men was a ''reduced'' crew. By counting 13 men for every two 32-pounders, the designed complement would be 175 + (8*13) = 284 men, almost matching that of a fifth rate frigate. Another reason to rate the Cyclops as a frigate was that with her size of 1,190 bm tons, she was of the same size as the fifth rate frigates like those of the

Seringapatam-class frigate The ''Seringapatam''-class frigates, were a class of British Royal Navy 46-gun sailing frigates. Design The first vessel of the ''Seringapatam'' class was . ''Seringapatam''s design was based on the French frigate , which the British had capt ...

of 1,150 bm tons. As the RN lacked a corvette category, the alternative would have been to rate her as a sloop, but even ship-rigged sloops did not get near her size. When the RN started to use the designation corvette, the Cyclops and her six near sisters were re-classified as corvettes in the 1850s. In 1844 the Admiralty also discerned steam frigates of the first class, these steam frigates had guns on two decks. The steam frigates of the 'first class' were comparable to regular fourth rate sailing frigates in terms of size, and got near them in armament. The first of these was the paddle steamer commissioned in 1843. She had been the sailing fifth rate frigate ''Penelope'' of 1829. In 1842 she was lengthened by 63 feet, and was fitted with the largest naval steam engines yet seen, generating nearly 700 horsepower. She had a 330 men crew, and was armed with 10 68-pounders on the main deck, and on the forecastle and quarterdeck: two 85 cwt pivot guns, 10 42-pounders carronades and 4 howitzers. Penelope was followed by even bigger ships like and . Other steam frigates first class, like were a bit smaller. Only five first class steam paddle frigates would be built by the Royal Navy. The RN also built some more steam frigates of the second class, surprisingly with guns on two decks.

U.S. Navy

The U.S. Navy likewise started with a general 'steamer' class. In 1842 it consisted of: The Fulton II of 4 guns, commissioned in 1837. The Union (with a horizontal submerged paddle). She was not yet armed, but would later also have 4 guns. The Poinsett (1840) was a smaller craft that would later be armed with 2 guns. By then the US navy already had the screw corvette

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

under construction. The first steam frigates of the United States were the USS

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

and

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

. These were two very big steam paddle frigates commissioned in 1841 and 1842. They each displaced 3,220t and had 10 big Paixhans guns. By 1850 the U.S. paddle steamers were divided in classes. The Mississippi was designated a steam frigate, and so where the Susquehanna and

Powhatan The Powhatan people (; also spelled Powatan) may refer to any of the indigenous Algonquian people that are traditionally from eastern Virginia. All of the Powhatan groups descend from the Powhatan Confederacy. In some instances, The Powhatan ...

, each with 9 heavy guns, and the San Jacinto and Saranac each with 6 heavy guns. The next class were the 'steamers first class', containing the Fulton, Michigan and Alleghany. Seven other steamers were 'less than first class'

Russian Navy

The Russian Tsarist Navy also had a sizable fleet of paddle steam frigates. The first of these were imported from America, but by the time of the Crimean War the Russians were producing their own steamships. The 1841 steam frigate

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and wes ...

had 16 guns on two decks, and was therefore comparable to the big frigates of the English and American navies. See also

List of Russian steam frigates List of Russian paddle and screw frigates, corvettes and clippers from 1836–1892. The format is: Name, number of guns (rank/real amount), launch year, fate (BU = broken up). This list includes only non-armoured vessels. Paddle frigates This se ...

French Navy

The first useful steam vessel of the French Navy was the

Sphinx A sphinx ( , grc, σφίγξ , Boeotian: , plural sphinxes or sphinges) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of a falcon. In Greek tradition, the sphinx has the head of a woman, the haunches of ...

of 160 hp and 913t displacement. She was used in the

invasion of Algiers in 1830 The invasion of Algiers in 1830 was a large-scale military operation by which the Kingdom of France, ruled by Charles X, invaded and conquered the Deylik of Algiers. Algiers was annexed by the Ottoman Empire in 1529 after the capture of Algie ...

. She was not very useful as a warship, but she was very useful for maintaining communications with Algeria. The subsequent campaign caused a huge demand for frequent and reliable communication with Algeria, and so about two dozen ships were built to the model of the Sphinx. The deplorable side effect was a stagnation in French steam vessel engineering. Continuing the Sphinx type meant that France was not developing something that resembled a steam frigate. Later on, the French state wanted to establish packet boat lines to New York, the West Indies and Brasil. The French navy wanted to have big steam frigates with heavy artillery. In 1840 these ideas were combined in a law that granted a credit of 28,400,000 francs for the construction of 14 ships of 450 hp, and 4 of 220 hp. The frigates built for this service soon proved to be no match for the ships of the

Cunard Line Cunard () is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its three ships have been registered in Hamilton, Berm ...

. A project that loaned four of them to a commercial company soon failed. The Gomer was the first of these large frigates, and created quite a sensation. She was 70.5 m long between perpendiculars, had a beam of 12.7 m and displaced about 2,800 t. On the trial run she was armed with 20 30-pounders on the main deck, and on the upper 2 * 22 cm and 2 * 16 cm and had a complement of 300 men. However, in actual use this artillery proved to be way more than what the Gomer could handle. It had to be reduced to 2 * 80 and 6 * 30. It meant that the Gomer had failed as a steam frigate. The same could be said of her (near) sisters of 450 hp, the Asmodéee and l'Infernal.

Screw frigates

Screw warships were built with steam engines and

screw propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

s for propulsion. The first functional propeller, a shortened version of the

Archimedes' screw The Archimedes screw, also known as the Archimedean screw, hydrodynamic screw, water screw or Egyptian screw, is one of the earliest hydraulic machines. Using Archimedes screws as water pumps (Archimedes screw pump (ASP) or screw pump) dates back ...

, was invented independently by

Francis Pettit Smith Sir Francis Pettit Smith (9 February 1808 – 12 February 1874) was an English inventor and, along with John Ericsson, one of the inventors of the screw propeller. He was also the driving force behind the construction of the world's first scr ...

and

John Ericsson John Ericsson (born Johan Ericsson; July 31, 1803 – March 8, 1889) was a Swedish-American inventor. He was active in England and the United States. Ericsson collaborated on the design of the railroad steam locomotive ''Novelty'', which com ...

in 1835. The technology of propeller or 'screw' propulsion was proven by 1845 after the Royal Navy evaluated the performance of Smith's seagoing steamship in comparison with their own fleet of paddle steamers. The basic fighting capabilities of the screw warship were almost as good as those of the traditional sailing ship. Apart from spending weight on machinery and coal, the screw ship retained the full broadside battery lay-out. It therefore had a nearly as powerful armament as a sail-only ship. Unlike the paddle ship it had no vulnerable paddle-boxes. The ability to pick a fight or to evade a fight was what made the screw frigate superior to any sail-only ship. The screw frigate retained a full

sail-plan A sail plan is a description of the specific ways that a sailing craft is rigged. Also, the term "sail plan" is a graphic depiction of the arrangement of the sails for a given sailing craft.> In the English language, ships were usually describe ...

, and this was not only due to conservatism. The primary reason was a lack of coal supplies around the globe. This was an especially important consideration for frigates, which often operated independently on the far side of the world. The insufficient reliability of early steam engines was also a reason to maintain at least some sails. An often overlooked reason to have sails was the cost of coal. In 1848 the sail frigate was estimated to cost 64 GBP daily to operate. , of the same weight of armament, was estimated to cost 88 GBP daily. But, the latter was without the cost of coal, estimated at 4 pounds 5 shillings per hour of steaming. The 'screw frigates', built first of wood and later of

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...

, continued to perform the traditional role of the frigate until late in the 19th century. By the late 1840s many navies were building screw-driven warships or converting sailing ships to include screw propulsion. In 1852 the French navy commissioned the ''

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

'', the first screw driven battleship. With that all sailing warships had gotten a screw driven equivalent.

Royal Navy

By the time that the Royal Navy launched its first screw frigate, , it already had two screw sloops in commission. The 9 gun sloop , launched in 1843, was designed by

Isambard Kingdom Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "one ...

and featured an advanced two-bladed propeller that influenced the design of his later passenger steamer . ''Amphion'' had 28 32-pounders and 8 heavier guns. The size and armament of British wooden screw frigates then rapidly increased. of 1853 was 65 m long, displaced 3,125 t, had twenty-eight

8 inch 65 cwt 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...

shell guns and twenty-two 32-pounders. The RN's first battleship designed for steam propulsion was . She was 70 m long, displaced 4,614 t, and had thirty-four 8-inch 65 cwt and fifty-six 32-pounders. In 1852–1853, the distinction between battleship and frigate was still a matter of size and number of gun decks. The improved screw propeller invented by Brunel also enabled the Victorian Royal Navy to extend the service life of obsolete sail-powered

. and , first commissioned during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...

, were fitted with

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

boilers in 1845 for the

Franklin expedition Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain (Royal Navy), Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, and , and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sect ...

. The paddle sloop was later rebuilt with a propeller for service in the

. In the late 1850s the screw frigate began to take a different form than traditional ships of the line. The RN's last battleship, the 91 gun laid down in 1858, was 75 m long and displaced 5,700 t. The screw frigate was much smaller at 3,915 t, but nevertheless much longer at 87 m. This development of much longer frigates culminated in of 1858. ''Mersey'' had 40 heavy shell guns, reached an overall length of over 100 m and displaced 5,463 t. A wooden construction proved to be too weak for a ship of this length. The next steps were frigates with an iron or composite hull: the armored frigate and the unarmored frigate.

French Navy

The ''Pomone'' of 1842 was the first French screw frigate. She was 52 m long, 13.5 m wide, and had a slightly changed sail plan of a 46 gun frigate. She had 18 30-pounders on the gun deck, and 8 80-pounders and 8 other guns on the upper decks. The engine of the ''Pomone'' was 220 hp, giving her a speed of 7.5 knots. Using both sail and engine she could make 10.5 kn. Sailing before the wind, however she reached 12 kn without engines. The French navy next built the ''L'Isly'', converted a number of sailing frigates, and built a range of successful corvettes. In 1852 a program for a number of first rate frigates was started. The ''Impératrice Eugénie'' class of 5 ships was built according to a design by

Henri Dupuy de Lôme Stanislas Charles Henri Dupuy de Lôme (; 15 October 18161 February 1885) was a French naval architect. He was the son of a naval officer and was born in Ploemeur near Lorient, Brittany, in western France. He was educated at the École Polytechn ...

Georges Baptiste François Allix Georges Baptiste François Allix (27 July 1808 in Gasny - 29 May 1881 in the same commune) was a Military engineering, military engineer in the French Navy. In particular, he was the designer of the screw frigate ''La Souveraine'', launched in Lor ...

designed the ''Souveraine''. On average these ships displaced 3,800 t and reached 12 kn on trials. In 1857 the French government decided to have 6 big and 14 smaller frigates.

Armored frigates

From 1859, armor was added to ships based on existing

and

ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two colu ...

designs. The additional weight of the armour on these first

ironclad warship An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by iron or steel armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. T ...

s meant that they could have only one gun deck, and they were technically frigates, even though they were more powerful than existing ships-of-the-line and occupied the same strategic role. The phrase '

armoured frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

' remained in use for some time to denote a sail-equipped, broadside-firing type of

ironclad An ironclad is a steam engine, steam-propelled warship protected by Wrought iron, iron or steel iron armor, armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships ...

. For a time, they were the most powerful type of vessel afloat. Towards the end of the 19th century, the term 'frigate' fell out of use. Armoured vessels were designated as either 'battleships' or '

armoured cruiser The armored cruiser was a type of warship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was designed like other types of cruisers to operate as a long-range, independent warship, capable of defeating any ship apart from a battleship and fast eno ...

s', while unarmoured vessels including frigates and sloops were classified as 'unprotected cruisers'.

Survivors

The only surviving screw frigate is the

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

Jylland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...

''. The steam sloop HMS ''Gannet '' spent many years as a

training ship A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old hulks used to house classr ...

and is now preserved at Chatham. The Dutch steam frigate HNLMS ''Bonaire'' is currently undergoing restoration as a

museum ship A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small numb ...

. ARA ''Uruguay'' of the Argentinian navy is the last surviving steam and sail

. The Japanese frigate ''Kaiyō Maru'' was rebuilt as a museum ship in 1990.

References

* * *

Notes

External links

{{Commons category, Screw frigates Naval history Ship types