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Description
As the wars in the Pacific and Atlantic kicked off, the US Navy found itself short on purpose-built escorts for convoys, possessing less than fifty vessels suitable for the job (all converted from older destroyers) and unwilling to strip modern destroyers from fleet escort duties. Accordingly, designs were drawn up and keels were laid for the first ships of a class of almost two hundred new frigates. Possessing long range, a moderate speed of 28 knots, and the newest sonar equipment of the USN, the ships had a fairy unusual armament of 3"/70 guns, possessing lengthened barrels but otherwise identical to their 50-caliber counterparts. These guns had difficulties with magazine loading due to the cramped interiors of the turrets, but later modifications rectified this issue, and a later version of the 3"/70 (the 3"/70 Mark 45) avoided the magazine issue entirely by mounting a single barrel in a dual-feed system with a rate of fire nearly double that of the original version, but that is a story for a different ship. These ships were fairly successful during the war, and were responsible for 107.5 sinkings of U-Boats and Japanese submarines. Postwar they were widely sold and retained well into the 1980s.

Finished that frigate. Next up: a cruiser of some kind for a certain country.

Description
As the wars in the Pacific and Atlantic kicked off, the US Navy found itself short on purpose-built escorts for convoys, possessing less than fifty vessels suitable for the job (all converted from older destroyers) and unwilling to strip modern destroyers from fleet escort duties. Accordingly, designs were drawn up and keels were laid for the first ships of a class of almost two hundred new frigates. Possessing long range, a moderate speed of 28 knots, and the newest sonar equipment of the USN, the ships had a fairy unusual armament of 3"/70 guns, possessing lengthened barrels but otherwise identical to their 50-caliber counterparts. These guns had difficulties with magazine loading due to the cramped interiors of the turrets, but later modifications rectified this issue, and a later version of the 3"/70 (the 3"/70 Mark 45) avoided the magazine issue entirely by mounting a single barrel in a dual-feed system with a rate of fire nearly double that of the original version, but that is a story for a different ship. These ships were fairly successful during the war, and were responsible for 107.5 sinkings of U-Boats and Japanese submarines. Postwar they were widely sold and retained well into the 1980s.

Finished that frigate. Next up: a cruiser of some kind for a certain country.