Naval ship

HMS Invincible, a British aircraft carrier
USS Port Royal, an American cruiser
HMCS Algonquin, a Canadian destroyer
HMAS Darwin, an Australian frigate
Al-Fahaheel, a La Combattante-class fast attack craft of the Kuwaiti Navy
The "Baden-Württemberg", an F125-class frigate of the German Navy; currently the biggest frigates worldwide

A naval ship is a military ship (or sometimes boat, depending on classification) used by a navy. Naval ships are differentiated from civilian ships by construction and purpose. Generally, naval ships are damage resilient and armed with weapon systems, though armament on troop transports is light or non-existent.

Naval ships designed primarily for naval warfare are termed warships, as opposed to support (auxiliary ships) or shipyard operations.

Naval ship classification is a field that has changed over time, and is not an area of wide international agreement, so this article currently uses the system as currently used by the United States Navy.

Size

In rough order of tonnage (largest to smallest), modern surface naval ships are commonly divided into the following different classes. The larger ships in the list can also be classed as capital ships:

Some classes above may now be considered obsolete as no ships matching the class are in current service. There is also much blurring / gray areas between the classes, depending on their intended use, history, and interpretation of the class by different navies.

See also

Media related to Naval ships at Wikimedia Commons

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