Accounts are divided as t…

Initial trials were with paddle-driven vessels, but these had numerous disadvantages, not least that the paddle wheels restricted the numbers of guns that could be mounted on the broadside.

Following the success of the Lyme and Unicorn in 1748, the mid-century period saw the simultaneous introduction in 1756 both of sixth-rate frigates of 28 guns (with a main battery of 24 nine-pounder guns, plus four lesser guns mounted on the quarterdeck and/or forecastle) and of fifth-rate frigates of 32 or 36 guns (with a main battery of 26 12-pounder guns, plus six or ten lesser guns mounted on the quarterdeck and/or forecastle). The name originated at the end of the 16th century, the first \"frigats\" being generally small, fast-sailing craft, in particular those employed by Flemish privateers based on Dunkirk and Flushing. The initial meaning of frigate in English/British naval service was a fast sailing warship, usually with a relatively low superstructure and a high length:breadth ratio - as distinct from the heavily armed but slow \"great ships\" with high fore- and after-castles. These establishments are often referred to in service slang as stone frigates . Width 36 cm. Fully rigged masts, open gun ports. In the 1830s, new types emerged with a main battery of 32-pounder guns. For ships before the 1745 Establishment, the term 'class' is inappropriate as individual design was left up to the master shipwright in each Royal dockyard. convoy protection. HMS Vengeance was originally the 48-gun French Navy frigate La Vengeance and lead ship of her class. In addition they were too small to sail in the line of battle. During the 1840s, the introduction of steam propulsion was to radically change the nature of the frigate. However, from 1739 almost all fifth and sixth rates were built under contract and were thus to a common class.

barracks, naval air stations and training establishments) as "ships" and names them accordingly. On 29 September Honyman and his squadron attacked a division of 26 enemy gun boats. The post ships, generally of 20 or 24 guns, were in practice the continuation of the earlier sixth rates.

The exceptions were the final three below – Note that frigate names were routinely re-used, so that there were often many vessels which re-used the same names over the course of nearly two centuries. Length 100 cm. Leda ' s design was based on the French Hébé, which the British had captured in 1782. For over half a century from the 1690s, the main armament of this type was the 6-pounder gun, until it was replaced by nine-pounder guns just prior to being superseded by the 28-gun sixth-rate frigate. HMS Leda, launched in 1800, was the lead ship of a successful class of forty-seven British Royal Navy 38-gun sailing frigates. So the application of the screw propellor meant that a full broadside could still be carried, and a number of sail frigates were adapted, while during the 1850s the first frigates designed from the start to have screw propulsion were ordered. All thirteen were rebuilds of earlier 40-gun ships (Those fifth-rate ships were not frigates in a stricter sense, being two-deckers, but they were mostly used in the same way, e.g.

(Hébé herself was the name vessel for the French Hébé-class frigates. In the middle of the 18th century, those ships had a more powerful armament than the frigates at that time (these were nine and 12-pounders equipped), that consisted of 18-pounders on the gun deck. This was a Roebuck class Frigate (1781), part of a twenty-ship group, 44 guns, 5th rate.

Height 84 cm. Royal Navy ranks, rates, and uniforms of the 18th and 19th centuries were the original effort of the Royal Navy to create standardized rank and insignia system for use both at shore and at sea. The engagement lasted several hours until the gunboats took refuge off the pier in On 21 October Honyman sighted a convoy of six French sloops, some armed, under the escort of a gun-brig. Subsequently, the term was applied to any vessel with these characteristics, even to a Fifth rates were essentially two-decked vessels, with their main battery on the lower deck and a lesser number of guns of lesser power on the upper deck (as well as even smaller guns on the quarter deck).

Later in the century, with the advent of the 18-pounder frigate (the first British 18-pounder armed frigate, HMS The American Revolution saw the emergence of new fifth rates of 36 or 38 guns which carried a main battery of 18-pounder guns, and were thus known as "heavy" frigates, while the French Revolutionary War brought about the introduction of a few 24-pounder gun armed frigates. Although iron hulls were used for some warships in the 1840s, almost all the paddle frigates were wooden-hulled. The following classes were launched as sailing frigates but converted to steam when still active in c. 1860. Before 1714, many small sixth rates carried fewer than 20 guns, and these have been excluded from this list. To distinguish between vessels bearing the same name, the following list affixes the Sixth rates were single-decked vessels, with a battery on the (single) gun deck, and usually some lesser guns on the quarter deck.