Board Thread:Event Community Discussion/@comment-28069733-20170521154728/@comment-32389360-20170526150425

Actually I have some suggestions to close the gap, but before that some historical refernces to give context:

The designation "DE" was originally assigned to Destroyer Escorts of World War II. The "DE" designation was changed to mean "Ocean Escorts" for those convoy escorts of the 1950s-1970s starting with the USS Dealey (DE-1006) class and ending with the USS Knox (DE-1052) class, but this was a seldom-used term. The DANFS entry for USS Knox herself describes her as "the prototype in a new class of destroyer escorts" while the Naval Vessel Register (NVR) currently lists all DE-designated ships as simply "Escort" including those built during World War II. As stated above, existing Guided Missile Escorts (DEG) were redesignated as Guided Missile Frigates (FFG) and those Escorts (DE) still in commission were redesignated as Frigates (FF) on 30 June 1975.

The "PF" designation was originally used for World War II frigates of the Asheville (PF-1) and Tacoma (PF-3) classes. In the 1970s, it was proposed to designate what became the Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7) class as PF which would have then meant "Patrol Frigates." In the end, these ships were designated simply as "Frigates."

1. We follow the Standard Nomemclature for Naval Vessels: General Order No. 541 (1920), so lets determine if changes like the United States Navy 1975 ship reclassification apply or not (the following points depend on this one mainly).

2. Either we classify them as Escorts (or Ocean Escorts) with the tag (DE). Pre-30 June 1975

3. Classify them as Frigates (FF). Post-30 June 1975

3. We follow the source Tsubakura obtained and classify Escorts with the tag (EV). Even though EV is informal it still can be used since this is one source that does not discriminate to very specific standards as Destroyer Escorts (DE), Patrol Frigates (PF) and Frigates (FF) do (A document is very important, doesn't matter if it isn't from the USN or the ONI as long as it contributes to find a middle ground to classify all of them into a main category, unless the Kancolle STAFF starts being specific with other classes, that's another story).