What do other navies of the world use for ship designations, if anything at all?
For instance:
USA uses USS and USN
Britain uses HMS
Canada uses HMCS
And also, what do they stand for?
HMS = Her Majesty’s Ship
HMCS = Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship
HMAS = Her Majesty’s Australian Ship
The RAN (Royal Australian Navy) uses HMAS
USS = United States Ship (?)
USN = United States Navy (?)
Amongst merchantmen…
RMS Titanic was a Royal Mail Ship
MS is merchant (or motor) ship (with a diesel engine)
SS is a steam ship
GTS is gas turbine ship
Turning to the Navies…
HMS is His/Her Majesty’s Ship (Submarine)
RFA is Royal Fleet Auxiliary
HMY is (or was) His/Her Majesty’s Yacht.
RRS is Royal Research Ship
USS is United States Ship
UGC is Coast Guard Cutter
USNS is United States Navy Ship (for auxiliaries)
Oh heck, I found a list here…
Or here…
http://www.seawaves.com/prefixes.htm
(Gee I thought US Army transports had some unique designation. I guess I was wrong.)
Interesting that neither of those lists have entries for Russia or China. Anyone know what those are?
I looked around for Russia’s Navy designations, even went to the Navy’s home page and poked around, and couldn’t find a darn thing.
If you’re into historical trivia - North America briefly had another designation in the 19th Century “CSS” - Confederate State Ship.
The husband has a picture of the CSS Hunley for his computer wallpaper - the first submarine used in warfare.
My Boss is related to the designer.
Nope, Bushnell’s Turtle attempted to sink a British ship in 1776, Link .
Nice sig. You might want to check out my homepage.
Thank you, I am just trying to get the word out.
From Paul in Saudi’s link:
The USS ships (generally warships) are operated by the Navy.
The USNS ships may be (specialized) cargo ships operated by the Navy or ships owned by the government (or chartered from civilian firms) through the Military Sealift Command that are crewed by civilians.
The USCGC prefix is carried by all Coast Guard vessels, whether they are warships, ice breakers, tug boats, or buoy tenders.
The US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the US Geologic Survey (USGS) each have small fleets. The ships of all these agencies are generally prefixed by R/V, (Research Vessel).
Training ships carry the prefixes T/S, (Training Ship), T/V, (Training Vessel), or MTS (Moored Training Ship). (The MTS designtor is given to retired nuclear ballistic missile submarines used for training before sending crews out to the ocean.)
Missing, as noted by Paul, are U. S. Army vessels such as the LSV and LCU designs that carry the prefix USAV.
Russia does not appear to place honorifics on its ships’ names. I have never seen a Russian ship identified with any letter prefixes. Similarly, I do not believe that China places such labels on its ships.
Actually, I believed that giving such designations to ships was a british thing (and that the tradition was upheldin former british colonies). However, I never enquired about, so I could be totaly off base, but for instance, AFAIK, there’s no such designations in the french navy (or, if there’s one, for instance recorded by some international body, it’s never used : you’ll never read/heard “the French Republic Ship Jeanne d’Arc” but plainly "the Jeanne d’Arc)
So I would suspect that the OP, rather than asking what are the designations in other countries, should wonder whether such designations exist at all.
Nitpick: According to the USCG, “A ‘Cutter’ is basically any CG vessel 65 feet in length or greater, having adequate accommodations for crew to live on board.” It is only the Coast Guard vessels 65 feet or longer that have the designation USCGC. Smaller vessels are considered boats.
The one exception is the Coast Guard Academy’s 295’ sail training vessel, which is known as the USCG Barque Eagle.
True. Of course, that is true of all the small craft (work boats and patrol craft) for all of these services. The Navy Yard Patrol and Mark V special ops craft are given only numbers, not names, for example, even though they are longer than 80 feet. I have not encountered a Coast Guard tug, buoy tender, or ice breaker that was too small to be a cutter, although some of them carry Zodiacs and other small craft for particular tasks.
The Hunley was the first submarine to actually sink a ship, though. (Hunley also managed to get sunk [permanently*] in the process.)
- After killing a few crews by sinking in testing, then being salvaged and sealed up a bit better.