United States Navy
Perry Class Frigate
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The Oliver Hazard Perry Class Guided Missile Frigate, a.k.a Perry Class frigate is a class of warship designed as general-purpose, low-cost vessels to replace large amount of decommissioned WWII vessels. In Admiral Zumwalt’s “high low fleet plan”, Perry class serves as the low capability vessels while Spruance Class DDGs serve as high capability vessels; in order to protect amphibious landing forces, merchant convoys from submarines and aircrafts. It is also worth mentioning that Perry Class frigates were later part of US navy’s Carrier Strike Groups.
The Perry Class frigates were designed primarily as anti-aircraft and anti-submarine warfare guided-missile warships intended to provide open-ocean escort of amphibious warfare ships and merchant ship convoys in moderate threat environments in a potential war with the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries. They could also provide air defense against 1970s- and 1980s-era aircraft and anti-ship missiles. They can also conduct independent operations to perform such tasks as maritime interception operations.
Spruance Class Destroyer
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The Spruance Class Destroyer, named after WWII U.S Navy Admiral Raymond A. Spruance was developed to replace American’s WWII era destroyers like Allen M.Summer and Gearing Class Destroyers. Spruance class was originally designed to escort a carrier group with a primary anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission, with point defense anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) missiles and limited anti-ship warfare. 24 members of the class were upgraded with Tomahawk cruise missiles for land attack later.
Spruance Class Destroyers received “DD” (destroyers) in hull classification symbol system instead of “DDG” (Guided Missile Destroyer) due to its lack of anti-aircraft capabilities compared to CGs (Guided Missile Cruisers) and DDGs.