Cruiser

A cruiser is a warship of significant, but not the greatest, power. The term goes back into the age of sail, although the usage differed from even the 20th century. Beyond that basic statement, the characteristics and roles of cruisers have varied greatly since the beginning of the 20th century, when the term was applied with some degree of formalism.

The word "cruiser" was first used in English in 1651. Cognates in Dutch, Portuguese, and French meant "crossing", as in crossing back and forth across the entrance to a harbor to enforce a blockade, or crossing an ocean.

One of today's challenges is that the definitions of three warship types — cruiser, destroyer, and frigate — have had changing and overlapping definitions, and even overlapping realization. The "frigate" of the age of sail had a role comparable to many modern cruiser roles, but a modern frigate is an escort vessel lighter than a destroyer or cruiser. Literally the same hull is used for the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, the retired land attack and antisubmarine-optimized Spruance-class destroyers, and for the multirole but extremely strong antiair Burke-class destroyers.

Classic Roles

Classic roles included:

• Foreign station ships, independently deployed, looked out for national interests around the world. In addition to an extensive gun armament, the station ship had self-repair capability, long range, and "first-responder-to-disorder" equipment such as small arms for the crew and an extensive boat outfit. The disorder could be a revolutionary situation or a natural disaster.
• Sea denial ships, using their pre-deployed location, attacked other nations' trade routes. Counter-raider merchant ship escorts would, in turn, try to stop enemy sea denial ships.

ast scout cruisers or via launching and retrieving smaller vehicles such as float planes).

Evolved roles

Reconnaissance

Scouting is a traditional role. In WWII, the UK used cruisers, with radar and greater speed than battleships, to shadow capital ships and coordinate strikes. The Soviet Union assigned some of its cruisers, in the fifties and sixties, a similar role against U.S. carrier battle groups.

The "C" in CV reflects the fact some of the first aircraft carriers were armed with cruiser caliber guns for self-protection and thus thought of as part of the cruiser family. The CVs lost their gun armament in favor of more aircraft but depended on gun cruiser protection (prior to all weather/day/night aircraft) when night/fog/bad weather left a carrier helpless against enemy surface combatants.

Anti-air warfare

In WWII, the CLAA type, a light cruiser with an exceptionally large number of 5" guns, met with only limited success. Had radar control been more advanced, they might have had a chance. The most significant advantage of this design was that it was larger and had better sea-keeping characteristics than a destroyer, so it could escort carriers under any weather conditions.

Modern cruisers are the key escorts and escort command vessels in CVBGs.

Command ship

• Group
• NCA

Land attack

Gunfire support was long a role of cruisers, where many believe their 8" and 6" guns were superior to the larger guns of battleships. The cruiser guns were faster-firing, as or more accurate, and their smaller shell size allowed them to fire in closer proximity to friendly forces.

With the advent of the Vertical Launch System on U.S. Ticonderoga class (i.e., CG 52 and higher), the ships gained a significant, if expensive, land attack capability using the BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile.

Ballistic missile defense

• TBMD
• SM-3

Experimental variants

Perhaps the most common experiment of the past was a gunship-aircraft/floatplane carrier, a concept that has revived significantly with helicopters.

Sailing cruisers

The Royal Navy categorized sailing ships (i.e., three-masted_ from the most powerful 1st rate to the light 6th rates; smaller fighting vessels, such as sloops and brigs, were not "rated". Parliamentary documents of 1694 show that 5th and 6th rates were detached to "cruise" to protect friendly shipping, and to find hostile vessels. Ships of these rates had long endurance and high speed. They held to the general principle that they could run from any vessel heavily armed enough to defeat them, but were armed well enough to pursue and neutralize pirate and other commerce raiders. Their captains had sufficient rank to be trusted on independent operations.

While they could not survive in line of battle, they had important roles in fleet operations, as couriers, rescue vessels, scouts, and, after the Battle of the Saintes (1782), were often used as command ships that would not be tied to the line or a tempting target.