Talk:List of corvette and sloop classes of the Royal Navy
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Sailing warships - sloops-of-war edit
The naval sloop originated in the mid 17th century, so many vessels in this category served in the Royal Navy before the advent of steam power in the mid 19th century, comprising a number of 'classes' of sloop built to a common design, as well as numerous vessels built to individual designs ('classes of one vessel', in effect). This list could run to many hundreds of ships - and I should be interested to learn if colleagues felt it should comprise listings of sloop classes as well as listings of individual sloops.
The term 'corvette' was not introduced into the Royal Navy until the 1830s; until that date all small Sixth Rates (below 28 guns) were defined as 'post ships', while unrated vessels were all classes as 'sloops-of-war'. 20th century terminology had, of course, very different meanings. The terms 'frigate' and (from the 1830s) 'corvette' both continued in official use through the introduction of steam power, and lasted until 1887 when both terms were replaced by the new term 'cruiser'.
Rif Winfield 19:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)