i never heart of flying frigates :)

Hey bud this is the fighters, bombers, and recon section..

Well yeah he's got the wrong section, but the difference from a frigate and a destroyer is that a frigate is a single role platform and a destroyer is a multi-role platform. However most navies have their own interpretations... and I may actually hae got it the wrong way round. :D

That's not even true. The distinction between destroyer, frigate, cruiser etc. is quite meaningless and has been for decades.

In the RN a Destroyer is the single role platform and the Frigate the multirole platform. other navies do it differently. It's when it refers to size and displacement that the distinction becomes pointless.

Eh? So I did get it the wrong way round then.

Nope, sorry RM-Nod, but Yimmy had it right, (and sorry fitz, but it is a distinction that's used in the RN). The distinction was created by the Admiralty Board Minutes and Memorandum 167/135 of 1950, now in the Public Records Office in Kew. It was decided that something had to be done to rationalise the names of types of ships under development. All ocean-going escorts, including converted destroyers, were to be frigates, split into anti-submarine and anti-air. Mutli-role ships were destroyers if they could keep fleet speeds, or sloops if they couldn't. Thus, today, the 42 is a destroyer, as it is both equiped for area air defence, as well as carrying a sub hunting helicopter, whereas the 22s and 23s, which only have the latter (despite being superior anti-surface platforms) are frigates..

So why then is Type 45 a Frigate - not to throw a wrench into the works or anything.

The Type 45 is a destroyer, not a frigate. It's primary mission is fleat air defence, however it also carries an ASW helicopter.

I got into the same debate about the USN's DD(X) future combatant: for all intensive purposes, the ship possesses the hull size and firepower of many medium cruisers, but its multi-role capability has it labeled as a destroyer..