Editing Frigate (section)

===Super-heavy frigates===
[[File:USS Constitution underway, August 19, 2012 by Castle Island cropped.jpg|thumb|{{USS|Constitution}}.]]
The first 'super-heavy frigates', armed with 24-pounder long guns, were built by the naval architect [[Fredrik Henrik af Chapman|F H Chapman]] for the Swedish navy in 1782. Because of a shortage of ships-of-the-line, the Swedes wanted these frigates, the ''Bellona'' class, to be able to stand in the battle line in an emergency. In the 1790s the French built a small number of large 24-pounder frigates, such as {{ship|French frigate|Forte|1794|2}} and ''Egyptienne'', they also cut-down (reduced the height of the hull to give only one continuous gun deck) a number of older ships-of-the-line (including {{ship|French ship|Diadème|1756|2}}) to produce super-heavy frigates; the resulting ship was known as a [[Razee|''rasée'']]. It is not known whether the French were seeking to produce very potent cruisers or merely to address stability problems in old ships. The British, alarmed by the prospect of these powerful heavy frigates, responded by rasée-ing three of their smaller 64-gun battleships, including {{HMS|Indefatigable|1784|2}}, which went on to have a very successful career as a frigate. At this time the British also built a few 24-pounder-armed large frigates, the most successful of which was {{HMS|Endymion|1797|6}} (1,277 tons).{{sfnp|Gardiner|2000|pp=40–42}}{{sfnp|Gardiner|Lavery|1992|p=40}}

In 1797, three of the [[United States Navy]]'s [[original six frigates of the United States Navy|first six major ships]] were rated as 44-gun frigates, which operationally carried fifty-six to sixty [[24-pounder long gun]]s and 32-pounder or 42-pounder carronades on two decks; they were exceptionally powerful. These ships were so large, at around 1,500 tons, and well-armed that they were often regarded as equal to ships of the line, and after a series of losses at the outbreak of the [[War of 1812]], secret [[Admiralty (United Kingdom)|Admiralty]] instructions ordered British frigates (usually rated at 38 guns or less) to never engage the large American frigates at any less than a 2:1 advantage. {{USS|Constitution}}, preserved as a [[museum ship]] by the US Navy, is the oldest commissioned warship afloat, and is a surviving example of a frigate from the [[Age of Sail]]. ''Constitution'' and her sister ships {{USS|President|1800|2}} and {{USS|United States|1797|2}} were created in a response to deal with the Barbary Coast pirates and in conjunction with the [[Naval Act of 1794]]. [[Joshua Humphreys]] proposed that only [[live oak]], a tree that grew only in America, should be used to build these ships.<ref name="Archibald, Roger 1997">Archibald, Roger. 1997. Six ships that shook the world. American Heritage of Invention & Technology 13, (2): 24.</ref>

The Admiralty, concerned by repeated defeats in single-ship actions, responded to the success of the American 44s in three ways. They built a class of conventional 40-gun, 24-pounder armed frigates on the lines of ''Endymion''. They cut down three old 74-gun Ships-of-the-Line into ''rasées'', producing frigates with a 32-pounder main armament, supplemented by 42-pounder carronades. These had an armament that far exceeded the power of the American ships. Finally, {{HMS|Leander|1813|2}} and {{HMS|Newcastle|1813|2}}, 1,500-ton spar-decked frigates (with an enclosed waist, giving a continuous line of guns from bow to stern at the level of the quarterdeck/forecastle), were built, which were an almost exact match in size and firepower to the American 44-gun frigates.{{sfnp|Gardiner|2000|pp=48–56}}