Well, my paper is supposed to be about taxonomy, and it's too late to change it to something else (like tanks, or aircrafts; in hindsight, I should have written about either of those instead...). :-\
Luckily, I will not write about destroyers, corvettes and/or frigates (especially after you've pointed out the difficulties in using taxonomy for them). If I understand my books correctly, frigates in US Navy are larger than destroyers, while "in the rest of the world", they are between corvettes and destroyers.
Speaking of torpedo boats and destroyers: I thought their developments were pretty straight forward; instead, I see now that there were several sub-types depending on requirements of speed, range, weight etc, even what company/shipyard built them made a difference.
Le gasp! Won't somebody stop this foolness! :
I guess calling them "hunters"/"jaeger schiff" (in Swedish, destroyers are called "jagare") would be too aggressive as well... I guess "medium class escort vessel" would be all right.
