Flotilla comes from the Spanish flota, meaning fleet, and carries the sense of a little or small fleet. It traditionally groups lighter combatants such as destroyers, torpedo boats, and torpedo-boat destroyers. Modern usage may describe four to nine ships, while First World War destroyer flotillas could exceed twenty vessels. At Jutland, Royal Navy flotillas also included light cruisers designated as destroyer leaders. The term describes a type of organization more reliably than a fixed ship count.
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Flotillas group destroyers and other small combatants
The term flotilla links a small fleet to destroyers and torpedo craft, with Jutland showing how large these formations once became.