Arabe class

Arabe class
Destroyer of Arabe class
Overview
Type	destroyer
units	12
Shipyard	six Japanese shipyards
Keel laying	January to March 1917
Launch	May to August 1917
delivery	until November 1917
Namesake	Tribes in French overseas territories
Decommissioning	1933 to 1936
Technical specifications
displacement	700 t
length	83 m over everything, 79.4 m pp
width	7.3 m
Draft	2.3 m
crew	91 men
drive	4 steam boilers , 3 triple expansion machines 10,000 hp , 3 screws
speed	29 kn
Range	1600 nm at 15 kn
Armament	1 × 120 mm L / 40 rapid fire gun 4 × 76 mm 12 pounder rapid fire guns 4 × 45 cm torpedo tubes
Fuel supply	102 ts coal, 118 ts oil
Sister ships	10 destroyers of the Kaba class

The twelve French Arabe- class destroyers were replicas of the ten Japanese Kaba-class destroyers . Since France did not have enough shipyard capacities in the First World War and another procurement was ruled out, twelve boats were ordered in Japan in 1916. In 1917 they were transferred by Japanese crews to the Suez Canal, where they were taken over by the French Navy for use in the Mediterranean.
Between 1933 and 1936 the boats retired from the service of the French Navy and were scrapped.

Building history

When the First World War broke out , the French Navy was the newest destroyer to have six Bison-class boats (756/855 t, 1913/14). At the beginning of the war, the four destroyers of the Aventurier class (930/1250 t), which had almost been completed for Argentina, were confiscated , which proved to be extremely unsatisfactory. Three boats of the Enseigne Roux class (850/1075 t) were under construction , two of which were completed in 1916. The lack of larger destroyers led to the confiscation of the Greek boats for the French Navy and, on November 12, 1916, to the conclusion of a contract with Japan for the delivery of twelve replicas of the Kaba-class to Port Said . Of the type ordered in the Japanese naval emergency program of 1914, ten boats from eight shipyards were delivered to the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1915 . The twelve boats for France were built by six shipyards involved in the first series, which each completed two boats. The four naval shipyards had each built one of the Japanese boats, the two private shipyards involved were the only ones who had also built two boats for the Japanese navy.

The French boats hardly differed from their Japanese predecessors. Their oil supply was slightly lower and the penultimate 8 cm (actually 7.6 cm) gun was installed as an anti-aircraft gun on the French boats. Construction of the new series began in January to March 1917, from May to August 5, all boats were launched and by October 1917 they were all completed. On August 1st, the first convoy of 5 boats was assembled in Sasebo for transfer to Port Said. The Algérien , Annamite , Arabe , Hova and Tonkinois formed the first group to arrive in Port Said on September 15, 1917.

Mission history

After the first five boats had arrived in Port Said on September 15, 1917, the French Navy had taken over all twelve boats by the end of the year and used them in the Mediterranean. Eight of the Japanese sister boats had been escorting from Malta between southern France and the theaters of war on the Mediterranean since May 1917. In June 1918, Kabyle , Sakalave and Sénégalais secured submarines on the march to Mudros . On July 1, 1918, the Algérien served as flotilla leaders in the 3ème escadrille de contre-torpilleurs in Corfu , the Arabe , Hova , Marocain , Tonkinois , as well as the Cavalier and Janissaire of the Chasseur class (450/510 tons). At the 11ème escadrille de contre-torpilleurs in Taranto , the other boats of the Arabe class with the Touareg as flotilla leader as well as the Annamite , Bambara , Kabyle , Sakalave , Sénégalais and Somali were used.

The Algérien

In 1919 all twelve boats moved to the "Escadre du Nord". The ongoing conflicts led to the relocation of some boats back to the Mediterranean. In June, the Bambara was used with the armored cruiser Ernest Renan and the gunboat Décidée to defend Syria. In November 1920, the Algérien , Sénégalais and Sakalave belonged to the French units alongside the battleship Provence , the armored cruiser Waldeck-Rousseau and several gunboats that accompanied the withdrawal of the Wrangel army from the Crimea via Constantinople to Bizerta . In December the Marocain accompanies the workshop ship Kronstadt (later Vulcain ) of the Wrangel fleet from Constantinople to Bizerta.

From 1924, Arabe and Sakalave were used near Ceuta during the Reef War . On October 25, 1925, the arabe ran aground at Cap des Trois Fourches on the Moroccan coast, but was quickly brought back. On January 18, 1930, the Arabe collided with the Aviso Ailette near Cherbourg and was badly damaged. She reached the port and was ready for use again after three months of repairs.

Final fate

In 1933 the Bambara and Annamite were the first boats to be removed from the fleet list. In 1935 and 1936 the same was done for the other boats, which were then scrapped in Brest or Lorient until 1938.

List of the Arabe class

** all boats had a two-letter identifier on the hull

**	Surname	Shipyard	Keel laying	Launch	completion	fate
AG	Algeria	Naval shipyard , Yokosuka	1.1917	5.1917	8.1917	deleted in 1936
ON	Annamite		1.1917	7.1917	9.1917	deleted August 17, 1933
FROM	Arabe	Naval shipyard , Kure	1.1917	5.1917	8.1917	deleted June 16, 1936
BM	Bambara		1.1917	7.1917	9.1917	deleted August 17, 1933
HV	Hova	Naval shipyard , Sasebo	1.1917	5.1917	8.1917	deleted June 14, 1936
KB	Kabyle		1.1917	5.1917	10.1917	deleted June 14, 1936
MR	Marocaine	Naval shipyard , Maizuru	1.1917	5.1917	9.1917	deleted July 24, 1935
SV	Sakalave		3.1917	7.1917	10.1917	deleted June 14, 1936
SL	Sénégalais	Kawasaki Shipbuilding , Kobe	3.1917	5.1917	9.1917	deleted June 14, 1936
SM	Somali		3.1917	7.1917	10.1917	deleted July 24, 1935
TK	Tonkinois	Mitsubishi Heavy Industries , Nagasaki	2.1917	6/9/1917	7.1917	deleted June 14, 1936
TO	Touareg		2.1917	August 5, 1917	9.1917	deleted May 24, 1935

literature

• David Evans: Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 . US Naval Institute Press, 1979, ISBN 0870211927 .
• Stephen Howarth: The Fighting Ships of the Rising Sun: The Drama of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1895-1945 . Atheneum, 1983, ISBN 0689114028 .
• Paul G. Halpern: A Naval History of World War I . Routledge, 1994, ISBN 1857284984 .
• Spencer Tucker: The European Powers in the First World War . Taylor & Francis, 1996, ISBN 081533351X .

Web links

• battleships-cruisers.co.uk: French Arabe class . Retrieved January 22, 2012.
• navypedia.org: Arabe destroyers . Retrieved January 22, 2012.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur algérien
2. ↑ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur annamite
3. ↑ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur arabe
4. ↑ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur bambara
5. ^ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur hova
6. ^ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur kabyle
7. ↑ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur marocain
8. ↑ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur sakalave
9. ↑ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur sénégalais
10. ^ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur somali
11. ↑ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur tonkinois
12. ^ Site "Pages 14-18": torpilleur touareg