In the “Great Age of Sail”, the term sloop-of-war applied to a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term sloop-of-war encompassed all the unrated combat vessels, regardless of rig. This includes the very small gun-brigs (inset image), cutters, and bomb vessels, among others.
The term has also been applied to more modern vessels, but on this website we limit it to the age of sail. The rating system mentioned is British, and in the same period other navies would use different terms or have different thresholds. For instance, the closest French equivalent is “corvette”, which included vessels carrying up to 24 guns. For the sake of uniformity, we’re using the British system to classify the models on our website regardless of nationality.
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