Guard ship

[1] A port or major waterway may be assigned a single guardship which would also serve as the naval headquarters for the area.

For this purpose, Admiral Edward Vernon was able to assemble a fleet of eight fully armed and provisioned guardships within ten days of the Royal Command.

[2] The fleet was so quickly assembled that it reached the Spanish West Indies on 22 October, one day before war was formally declared.

However, in the modern age, recently the Royal Navy has deployed many ships to guard the Falkland Islands from the threat of Argentine invasion, HMS Clyde guarded the islands for her whole active service life, replaced by HMS Forth in 2020, a role she holds to this day.

In Soviet terminology, a guard ship (сторожевое корабль, storozhevoj korabl') was a small, general purpose patrol and/or escort vessel.