Whats the major differences, or roles, of battleships, cruisers and destroyers?

Whats the major differences, or roles, of battleships, cruisers and destroyers?

 

Size mainly. Battleships > cruisers > destroyers in that department.

 

Battleships were traditionally the capital ships, but are now obsolete.

For which time period (WWI, WWII, Modern)? The answers are not consistent over time. I would also be tempted to split Modern into a pre Tomahawk and with Tomahawk categories.

Modern (1980+) era.

 

Interesting point re the tomohawk ... i'll have to do some reading.

Hey guys, my first post...

 

If I'm not mistaken the descriptions of Cruisers and Destroyers differ from nationality to nationality as well. The big gun battleship still rocks though.

Well, post-1980, AFAIK the only battleships in service were the Iowa class BB's with the USN. They were refitted with Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles, and Phalanx point defense guns. The idea was that they would serve as the centerpiece of a surface action group, typically composed of one BB, an Aegis CG, a Spruance DD, and a pair of frigates. The SAG would be deployed in areas which required a meaningful USN presence, but didn't actually warrant the attention of a carrier battle group. The battleships were also useful for shore bombardment both by gunfire and by Tomahawk missile strike, and were used for this purpose during Desert Storm.

 

On a related note, there is some discussion here of a rating system for modern surface combatants based upon the number of missiles they carry. Under this system, both the Ticonderoga class CG and the Arleigh Burke class DDG, among others, would be considered battleships.

 

Cruisers are a somewhat tricky concept, since many nations refer to their aviation ships as cruisers. In the case of the Soviet Kiev and Kusnetsov classes, this was apparently done in an effort to evade treaty restrictions on the passage of aircraft carriers through the Dardanelles, and the British Royal Navy referred to its Harrier carriers as "through-deck cruisers" in an attempt to slip the funding to build them past the more liberal members of their parliament. Other than aviation ships, cruisers are generally large, multi-mission capable surface combatants. AFAIK, barring a few WW2-era relics scattered about, only the USN (Ticonderoga class CG) and the Russian navy (former Kirov class BCGN) will admit to having any cruisers, but this is somewhat ambiguous, since the American Arleigh Burke and Zumwalt classes, as well as the Japanese Kongo class, could reasonably be considered cruisers rather than destroyers.

 

Destroyers are typically smaller than cruisers, and optimized for a particular role (AAW/ASW/ASuW), though they will usually still have lesser capabilities in the other roles. Again though, the title can be somewhat ambiguous. The Royal Navy calls its AAW ships destroyers and its ASW ships frigates, even though the frigates are sometimes larger than the destroyers, and the Zumwalt class 'destroyers' the USN is trying to build today will displace something close to twice as much as the Ticonderoga class cruisers. In many navies, destroyers are the most capable combatants in the fleet.

 

As you can see from the above, the answer to your question is rather muddy, and there's a fair amount of overlap among the classes and their functions ...