Corvette

A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, smaller than a frigate. Almost all modern navies use ships smaller than frigates for coastal duty, but not all of them use the term corvette. more...

Sailing vessels

The orginal corvettes were a form of sloop-of-war.

World War II

The modern corvette appeared during World War II as an easily built patrol and convoy escort vessels. The British naval designer William Reed drew up a small ship based on a whale catcher design which could be produced quickly 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 were the Flower class (because the 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 Murmansk carrying supplies to the Soviet Union. The Royal Australian Navy built 60 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 Bathurst class corvettes and were named after Australian towns.

Later in World War II the Royal Navy introduced the Castle class, some of which remained in service until the mid-1950s.

Modern Corvettes

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 utizilized 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.

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