Editing Ship class (section)

===United States===
{{see also|United States ship naming conventions}}<!-- References from this page are likely to be helpful -->
{{Essay-like|section|date=July 2018}}
For the [[United States Navy]], the first ship in a class to be authorized by [[United States Congress|Congress]] is the designated class leader and gives the name to the class, regardless of the order in which the ships of that class are laid down, launched or commissioned.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/index_ships_list.php |title=USN Ship Designations|website=Navweaps.com |date=18 May 2016 |author=Guy Derdahl and Tony DiGiulian |access-date= 10 June 2016}}</ref> Due to numbering conventions, the lead ship often has the lowest hull number of its class. (During [[World War II]], the award of construction contracts was not always congruent with completion, so several ships had higher hull numbers than later ships.)<ref>Lenton, H. T. ''American Submarines'' and ''American Fleet and Escort Destroyers'' (Doubleday, 1973).</ref>

Before the 1920s, naval vessels were classified according to shared characteristics.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/g/general-orders/general-order-no-541-1920-standard-nomemclature-naval-vessels.html |website= www.history.navy.mil |title=Standard Nomemclature for Naval Vessels: General Order No. 541, 17 July 1920 |author=Navy Department, Office of Naval Operations|access-date=11 July 2018}}</ref> {{Citation needed span|text=However, naval historians and scholars retro-apply the current convention to historical naval vessels sharing similarities, such as those of the [[American Civil War]], where the [[Union Navy]] built several vessels in series, which can be termed "classes" as presently understood. Common examples include the {{sclass|Passaic|monitor|0}} [[Monitor (warship)|monitor]] and the {{sclass2|City|ironclad}}, among many others, for the Union side, and [[CSS Columbia|''Columbia'' class]] or [[CSS Richmond|''Richmond'' class]], for those ironclads in service with the [[Confederate States Navy]]. Generally accepted by military historians and widely used in the more recent books, webpages and papers on the subject matter (most notably the releases of [[Osprey Publishing]]), these latter-day classifications are sometimes considered "semi-official" (although they are not). Contemporary records, such as the "[[Official Records of the War of the Rebellion|Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion]]" (Series 2, Volume 1, Part 1), show that the modern nomenclature was not in use at the time.|date=April 2024}}

The unofficial retro-applying of ship classes can occasionally lead to confusion. For example, while American works consistently adhere to the ''City''- and ''Columbia''-class monikers, works of British origin refer to the same classes as [[USS Cairo|''Cairo'' class]] and [[CSS Tennessee (1863)|''Tennessee'' class]] respectively, in compliance with the modern Royal Navy naming conventions.{{cn|date=July 2018}}

By the time the United States entered World War II, the current naming convention was in place, though it remains unclear as to exactly how and when the practice originated.{{cn|date=July 2018}}