Aviso
Encyclopedia
Dispatch boat
Dispatch boats were small boats, and sometimes large ships, tasked to carry military dispatches from ship to ship or from ship to shore or, in some cases from shore to shore...
or advice boat, survives particularly in the French navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
, they are considered equivalent to the modern sloop
Sloop-of-war
In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...
.
The Dictionnaire de la Marine Française 1788 – 1792 (by Nicolas-Charles Romme) describes avisos as "small boats designed to carry orders or advices".
French World War I avisos, used also during World War II, had displacement 300-700 tons, speed 13-20 knots, main armament usually of two 100 mm guns, two 138 mm guns or four 100 mm guns. In English nomenclature they are often referred to as sloop
Sloop-of-war
In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...
s. Colonial avisos, such as the Bougainville class
Bougainville class aviso
The Bougainville class was a type of colonial aviso or sloop of the French Navy of the 1930s that were designed to operate in remote locations of the French Empire....
, intended for overseas
service, were larger.
The Portuguese Navy
Portuguese Navy
The Portuguese Navy is the naval branch of the Portuguese Armed Forces which, in cooperation and integrated with the other branches of the Portuguese military, is charged with the military defence of Portugal....
also built avisos to operate in the Portuguese Colonial Empire
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...
. The Portuguese built 1st Rate avisos (Afonso de Albuquerque
NRP Afonso de Albuquerque
The NRP Afonso de Albuquerque was a warship of the Portuguese Navy, named after the 16th century Portuguese navigator Afonso de Albuquerque. She was destroyed in combat on 18 December 1961, defending Goa against the Indian Armed Forces invasion....
class) of 2400 tons and 2nd Rate avisos (Gonçalo Velho and Pedro Nunes classes) of 1200-1700 tons. In 1932, the Portuguese Flower class sloop
Flower class sloop
The Flower class comprised five sub-classes of sloops built under the Emergency War Programme for the Royal Navy during World War I, all of which were named after various flowers...
s were also classified as 2nd Rate avisos.
Modern avisos have grown to become combat-capable ships, smaller in size than a corvette
Corvette
A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...
, but larger than patrol ships. They typically have roles in anti-submarine warfare and coastal defence
Coastal defence and fortification
Coastal defence , Coastal defense and Coastal fortification are measures taken to provide protection against attack by military and naval forces at or near the shoreline...
. In NATO classification they are usually recognized as corvettes.
See also
- Flores class sloopsFlores class sloopsThe Flores class sloops, HNLMS Flores and Soemba were gunboats in the Royal Netherlands Navy during World War II. They were in several ways the most successful surface ships of the Dutch navy during the war....
- Dutch colonial avisos officially rated as "Kanonneerboot" (gunboats) - HNLMS Johan Maurits van NassauHNLMS Johan Maurits van NassauHNLMS Johan Maurits van Nassau, named after John Maurice of Nassau, was a Dutch sloop that served in the early part of World War II, when it was sunk...
- improved Flores class sloop - USS Erie (PG-50)USS Erie (PG-50)USS Erie was the lead ship in a class of two United States Navy patrol gunboats. Launched and commissioned in 1936, she operated in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea until torpedoed and fatally damaged by a German submarine in 1942.-Prewar:...
and USS Charleston (PG-51)USS Charleston (PG-51)USS Charleston , the fourth vessel to carry her name, was the second of two -class patrol gunboats. Launched from the Charleston Navy Yard on 25 February 1936, and commissioned on 8 July 1936, under the command of Captain Robert King Awtrey, and was part of the Atlantic Fleet.-Inter-war...
- US Navy gunboats similar to colonial avisos - D'Estienne d'Orves classD'Estienne d'Orves classThe A69 type Avisos are small warships mainly designed for coastal anti-submarine defence, but are also available for high sea escort missions . Built on a simple and robust design, they have an economical and reliable propulsion system which allows them to be used for overseas presence missions...
- modern French avisos