B-Class (1912)

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Laird 30-knotter or B- class
HMS Virago from the first series of the Laird 30-knotter
HMS Virago from the first series of the Laird 30-knotter
Overview
Type destroyer
units 24
Order 1894 to 1899
Launch 1895 to 1901, 1906/1907
Commissioning from 1897
Whereabouts four losses in 1901, 1904, 1914, 1917
demolition 1919 to 1921
Technical specifications
the laird boats
displacement

350-415 tn 1.A.
355-415 tn 2.A.
465–540 tn 33kn
360–420 tn Orw
385–435 tn

length

~ 66.5 m above sea level / 64.9 m pp.
73.0 m above sea level / 71.6 m pp. 33kn

width

6.6 m
7.2 m 33 kn

Draft

2.9 m
3.1 m 33 kn

crew

56–69 men
74 men 33 kn

drive
speed

30 kn
31 kn 33 kn

Range

3000 nm / 10 kn / 95 t (130 t 33 kn )

Armament
Laird boats
household 1894/1895

Quail , Sparrowhawk , Thrasher , Virago

Budget 1895/1896

Earnest , Griffon , Locust , Panther , Seal , Wolf

Budget 1896/1897

Express ( 33-knotter )

Purchased in 1900

Orwell

Acquired in 1901

Livery , Sprightly

The B-class of the Royal Navy , formed in the summer of 1912, comprised of the 74 torpedo boat destroyers of the “30-knotter” class and corresponding “specials” supplied from 1897 to 1903, the 24 boats with four funnels. The three chimneys came in the C class , the two chimneys in the newly formed D class .

Most of the four-chimney boats had been delivered by the Laird Brothers shipyard in Birkenhead when they were fourteen. Another seven came from Palmers , two of which, however, were only bought in 1909 by the shipyard. Armstrong , Doxford and J. & G. Thomson each delivered a boat . Of the 24 boats built in 1912, 22 were still around. In 1901, the Armstrong-built HMS Cobra (test boat for turbine propulsion) was lost before it was finally commissioned . In 1904 the HMS Sparrowhawk sank on the China Station . In the First World War, two more destroyers were lost due to accidents. The remaining boats were scrapped between 1919 and 1921.

history

HMS Ferret , the Royal Navy's first laird destroyer
HMS Banshee ,
first boat of the 2nd Laird series

The Laird Brothers shipyard in Birkenhead was one of the first manufacturers of torpedo boat destroyers. The four Laird “30-knotter” destroyers of the Quail class were already the third order from the Royal Navy to the shipyard after the two “26-knotter” of the Ferret- type and the three “27-knotter” of the Banshee- type. With the torpedo cannon boat Almirante Lynch , she had also built the first warship to successfully use a self-propelled torpedo when the Almirante Lynch sank the rebel's flagship , the armored frigate Blanco Encalada , in the Chilean civil war of 1891 .

Like the five forerunners, the fourteen “30-knotter” delivered by the Laird shipyard had four chimneys. In addition to the first series of four boats for the Royal Navy, Laird also built four similar destroyers for the Chilean Navy ( Capitán Orella , Capitán Muñoz Gamero , Teniente Serrano and Guardiamarina Riquelme ), which thus had the most modern torpedo ships in South America. Another order followed for six boats for the Royal Navy, which were delivered by autumn 1898 and had no difficulty in reaching the required speeds.

The next order for Laird was part of an attempt by the Royal Navy to get even faster boats based on the old Havock design . Orders for a test boat each were awarded to Thomson ( Arab ), Thornycroft ( Albatross ) and Laird ( Express ), which were also referred to as the "33-knotter" because this speed was to be achieved. With a total length of 73 m, the Laird-Boot Express was 6.5 m longer than the previous boats and had a different hull shape. Despite the additional 3000 hp, it did not reach the required speed. Extensive tests with different propeller shapes did not help. With the same armament, the boat was insignificantly faster, but had an expensive, sensitive and initially unreliable machine.

In 1900 the Royal Navy acquired the Orwell speculative building , which had already been completed, from Laird , and in 1901 two more boats, Lively and Sprightly, which the shipyard had started on their own account and which differed only slightly from the admiralty orders.

The four chimneys of other shipyards

The Arab Thomson

The first four-chimney engine ordered by the Royal Navy from another shipyard was the 33-knotter Arab (470 t, 70.7 m, 30.7 kn) from Thomson in Clydebank, which also failed to achieve the required higher speed. The Arab came into service as the last "33 (30) -knotter" ordered by the Navy.

The turbine boat Bonetta by Palmers

The order for a boat ( Spiteful , 400 t, 67.1 m, 30 kn) followed at Palmers, where eight three-chimney boats had already been ordered. The individual order was followed by an order for three more boats and in July 1901 the purchase of the completed, similar speculative building Kangaroo . The Navy acquired two more speculative structures from the shipyard in 1909 ( Albacore , Bonetta , 440 t, 65.7 m, 26.5 kn, turbine drive), which had elements of the River class that had been built in the meantime and were intended to compensate for losses. Palmers delivered the largest number of “30 knots” to the Royal Navy with a total of 15 boats.

The Success built at Doxford

As with the Palmer boats, the two middle chimneys of the Success (380 t, 65.7 m, 30 kn) ordered from Doxford were close together. This shipyard had also previously delivered three "30-knotters" with three chimneys.

In May 1900, the Royal Navy bought Armstrong's test turbine boat Cobra , which had already been launched, but which was lost on the journey to the final equipment on September 19, 1901.

When the Royal Navy then introduced letters as the class designation for their destroyers in 1912, the "30-knotter" and the remaining experimental structures for higher speeds were converted to the new D- (two), C- (three) or with according to the number of their funnels four chimneys classified in the B-class . The latter consisted of 22 boats from four shipyards (13 from Laird, seven from Palmers and one each from Doxford and John Brown, formerly Thomson).

commitment

The first major public appearance of the new boats took place on June 26th, 1897, when the first "30-knotter" Quail , Sparrowhawk , Trasher and Virago completed by Laird alongside the buildings of other shipyards at the fleet parade in honor of the Diamond Jubilee of the British Queen Victoria on the Spithead attended.

The school flotilla for destroyers in Devonport usually served as a transit station for the boats coming into service. The wolf was after the fall of the Cobra tested extensively in Portsmouth and charged to check whether the Admiralty designs are sufficiently stable. In August 1907 the cruiser Attentive collided with the Quail , the bow of which was badly damaged. From 1910 the now outdated destroyers were mainly used for school purposes and in units of the 2nd line.

Assignments abroad

The international tensions of 1898 resulted in the dispatch of the older destroyer Rocket and the new Quail to the North America station. To safeguard British interests, the squadron formed three combat groups. The Quail was used together with the flagship Renown and the cruisers Intrepid and Pearl . The Quail remained in the West Indies and was involved in the blockade of Venezuela with the cruisers Retribution and Charybdis and the German Imperial Navy . In 1903 the destroyer returned home.

When the Boxer Rebellion broke out in China in 1900, the older torpedo boat destroyers Handy , Hart and Janus as well as the 30-knotter Fame (Thornycroft), Otter (Vickers) and Whiting (Palmers) were among the units deployed there. The Laird destroyers Sparrowhawk and Virago were among the reinforcements sent. Both stayed at the China Station . However, the Sparrowhawk was lost off the mouth of the Yangtze on June 17, 1904 . The Virago was to be separated in 1914, but remained in service as a guard boat in Hong Kong until May 10, 1919 because of the outbreak of war .

Several of the four chimney destroyers were in use in the Mediterranean fleet , such as the Earnest and Griffon as early as 1900, and in 1901 the Thrasher , Locust , Panther , Seal , Orwell , but also the Palmer boats Myrmidon and Kangaroo . The quail was also used there from October 1904 to 1906.

War missions

The flagship of the 7th DF, HMS Skirmisher

In July 1914, the Royal Navy was mobilized for a test. Of the 22 existing B-class destroyers, twelve belonged to the 7th destroyer flotilla ( Quail, Thrasher , Earnest, Locust, Panther, Seal, Wolf , Orwell, Lively, Sprightly , Success , Arab ) led by the reconnaissance cruiser HMS Skirmisher , plus nine destroyers of the C-class and eight cricket-class torpedo boats . The old cruiser Leander served as the tender .

The Trasher succeeded on February 8, 1917 in sinking the German submarine UC 39 three nautical miles south of Flamborough Head . She surprised the surfaced submarine attacking a steamer and shot at it. When the submarine tried to dive, it was badly damaged by a depth charge. Back on the surface, the German boat was shot at again. 17 (?) Men of the crew were captured and two British prisoners of war were freed. Seven Germans died, including the commandant. The attempt to tow the submarine failed.

When the flotilla last stationed in the Humber was disbanded as the "East Coast Forces" at the end of February 1919, the Quail , the Locust and the Arab were still with this unit. Among the last 19 destroyers in the flotilla were the Bullfinch , Leopard and Silvia , three of the C-class destroyers, which also belonged to the 7th DF from 1914.

From November 1917, Earnest , Griffon , Seal , Orwell , Lively and Sprightly were in addition to two destroyers of the C and D-class as well as the Zephyr of the A-class in the Irish Sea Hunting Flotilla, where they were used against submarines and until the end of the war Smugglers remained in service.

HMS Cricket , sp. TB.1

The 8th Destroyer Flotilla, initially stationed in southern England, had 12 old destroyers in 1914, including the Express , Peterel and Albacore of the B class and twelve torpedo boats of the cricket class. With this flotilla, which moved early to the Firth of Forth, Express and Peterel stayed until July 1917, when they were used with the East Coast Convoy Flotilla.

The 6th Destroyer Flotilla deployed on the canal, later part of the Dover Patrol , had eleven Tribal-class destroyers and 6 old destroyers in 1914 , including the Myrmidon , the Syren and the Kangaroo of the B-class, of which the latter two still joined in 1918 of the unit, the Syren were, however, as a decommissioned reserve boat.

Two B-class boats were lost in accidents during the war. The Success used in the 7th Destroyer Flotilla stranded in a storm on December 27, 1914 off Fife Ness and was the first British loss of a destroyer in World War II. As the second boat of the class, HMS Myrmidon of the 6th destroyer flotilla was lost in the canal after colliding with the steamer Hambourn on March 26, 1917 , with a man drowning.

Final fate

All boats were decommissioned in 1919 and then scrapped in the following two years.

The boats

Surname Construction no. Launch in service commitment off-duty
Laird
HMS  Quail
606
09/24/1895
06.1897
7thDF Humber
07/23/1919 for demolition
HMS  Sparrowhawk 607 October 8, 1895 06.1897 Jun 17, 1904 sunk off China
HMS Thrasher 608 November 5, 1895 06.1897 Nore Local Flotilla November 4, 1919 for demolition
HMS Virago 609 11/19/1895 06.1897 China station 10.10.1919 for demolition
HMS earnest 621 11/7/1896 11.1897 IrishSea Hunting Flo. 01/07/1920 for demolition
HMS Griffon 622 11/21/1896 11.1897 IrishSea Hunting Flo. 01/07/1920 for demolition
HMS Locust December 5, 1896 07.1898 7thDF Humber October 6, 1919 for demolition
HMS Panther 01/21/1897 01.1898 6thDF Dover June 7th, 1920 for demolition
HMS Seal March 6, 1897 05.1898 IrishSea Hunting Flo. March 17, 1921 for demolition
HMS Wolf 2.06.1897 07.1898 2nd DF Londonderry 07/01/1921 for demolition
HMS Express 629 12/11/1897 02.1902 2nd DF Londonderry March 17th, 1920 for demolition
HMS Orwell 633 09/29/1898 01.1900 IrishSea Hunting Flo. 07/01/1920 for demolition
HMS Lively 640 07/14/1900 04.1902 IrishSea Hunting Flo. 07/01/1921 for demolition
HMS Sprightly 639 08/25/1900 03.1902 IrishSea Hunting Flo. 07/01/1921 for demolition
Palmer's
HMS Spiteful
734
01/11/1899
02.1900
Portsmouth Local Flotilla
09/14/1920 for demolition
HMS Peterel 745 03/30/1899 07.1900 7th DF Humber 08/30/1919 for demolition
HMS Kangaroo 753 12/29/1899 bought 07.1901 6th DF Dover 03/23/1920 for demolition
HMS Myrmidon 751 05/26/1900 05.1901 6th DF Dover May 26th, 1917 sunk after a collision
HMS Syren 752 December 20, 1900 02.1902 6th DF Dover 09/14/1920 for demolition
HMS Albacore 786 10/9/1906 purchased May 3, 1909 Liverpool Local Flotilla August 1st, 1919 for demolition
HMS Bonetta 787 01/14/1907 purchased May 3, 1909 U-boat tender 14th SubFl. Blyth June 7th, 1920 for demolition
Armstrong
HMS Cobra
674
06/28/1899
purchased May 8, 1900
Sep 19, 1901 dropped
Thomson
HMS Arab
299
02/09/1901
01.1903
7th DF Humber
07/23/1919 for demolition
Doxford
HMS Success
282
03/21/1901
05.1902
7th DF
27/12/1914 before Fife Ness accrued

literature

Web links

Commons : B-Class Destroyer (1912)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Test results of the eight first 30 knotters from Laird ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in The Engineer , 1.1897  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gracesguide.co.uk
  2. ↑ Test drives of the wolf ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in The Engineer , 3.1898  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gracesguide.co.uk
  3. ^ Quail , 1895 on Naval Database
  4. ^ A b Sparrowhawk , 1895 on Naval Database
  5. ^ Trasher , 1895 on Naval Database
  6. ↑ a b Virago , 1895 on Naval Database
  7. ^ Spaniards and British Evening News , May 10, 1898
  8. ^ Trouble in Venezuela Singleton Argus , February 13, 1902
  9. ↑ Logbooks of the Virago
  10. ↑ Lyon, p. 62
  11. ^ Herzog: U-Boats , p. 98
  12. ↑ 7th Destroyer Flotilla on dreadnoughtproject.org
  13. ↑ Royal Navy Destroyer Flotillas, November 1918