Large Destroyer
The large destroyer was a type of warship from the First and Second World Wars and as such a special form of the destroyer . It differs from the latter mainly in its more powerful artillery armament .
history
Development in the First World War
The development history of the large destroyer is closely linked to the technical and tactical development of the destroyer. The small and fast reconnaissance cruisers (Scouts) of the Royal Navy can be regarded as forerunners . With the introduction of the turbine drive in destroyer construction, the tactical possibilities of the boats increased due to the increase in speed - at the same time the previous performance of the existing "scouts" was no longer sufficient. Admiral Jacky Fisher , the reorganizer and initiator of a comprehensive modernization program for the Navy, foresaw that the new large and fast destroyers of the Tribal class of 1905 were a leap in quality that would have to be accompanied by an equally fast but larger command vehicle. Then Cammell Laird built the HMS Swift in Birkenhead . Swift is considered to be the forerunner of all major destroyers. The significantly higher price compared to normal destroyers, however, kept the British Admiralty from commissioning further ships of this size until 1913.
From 1910 onwards, several South American navies commissioned very large and powerful destroyers, such as the Chilean Almirante Lynch class or the Argentine La Plata class , from experienced European shipyards as part of the ABC (Argentina, Brazil, Chile) competition . In the traditional thinking of European naval tacticians, these vehicles were considered to be too big and too expensive for European waters, but a rethink began afterwards. The British first recognized the value of a larger vehicle that could perform management tasks and, with its greater platform stability, could provide support for smaller boats. In building program in 1913 and 1914 the British Admiralty had the seven flotilla of Marksman class building, where in 1915 the similar six ships of the Parker-Class followed. Building on these classes, another 22 flotilla leaders of the V-class , Shakespeare and Scott-class were appointed by the end of the war in 1918 .
At the same time as the British considerations, the Italian Regia Marina made similar considerations and ordered the small flotilla leaders of the Poerio class and, at the same time, the large flotilla leaders of the Mirabello class as early as 1914 . After the start of the war in 1915, four ships under construction for the Romanian Navy were confiscated and assigned to their own naval forces as the Aquila class . These boats were armed with three 15 cm guns and, like the reconnaissance cruisers, were classified as Esploratori (reconnaissance aircraft).
On the German side, too, the Imperial Navy was quickly convinced of the value of large boats after the consistently very positive experience with the B 97 series boats, which were originally built according to Russian plans . In addition, there was a chronic shortage of fast and powerful reconnaissance vehicles, which the few existing modern cruisers from the Magdeburg class onwards were only able to remedy to a limited extent - in addition, these were urgently needed for the deep-sea fleet . In 1916 the Reichsmarineamt gave a total of 12 large boats to various shipyards as an official draft in 1916. Due to a lack of manpower and material, only the SMS V 116 , officially known as the Large Torpedo Boat , could be completed by the end of the war . It was delivered to the victorious powers together with the boat S 113 , which was only completed after the end of the war . There, the boats encouraged the designers in France and Italy to design and build, in addition to smaller destroyers, very powerful and fast large destroyers.
From 1911 onwards, the Russian Navy built other major destroyers with its prototype boat Nowik and the Novik classes derived from it , of which a total of 57 boats had been ordered by 1916. The Austro-Hungarian Navy also had the relatively large Tátra-class boats built for the narrow and narrow Adriatic region .
Development up to the Second World War
According to the Washington Treaty of 1922, each participating state was allowed to build part of the destroyer tonnage to which it was entitled for particularly heavy ships.
As a result, Japan began developing destroyers with a main armament of six 12.7 cm cannons in the hope of compensating for its numerical inferiority. Although these so-called "special type" destroyers meant a considerable leap in size and combat power at the time, the development in other navies had reached a similar level by the beginning of the Second World War. From the Japanese side, only the loner Shimakaze, completed in the war, and the large anti- aircraft ships of the Akizuki class can be considered real large destroyers .
France gave several classes of contre-torpilleurs with a main armament of five 13-, later five or eight 13.8-cm cannons under construction, which were intended for use against Italy. There were six classes of French destroyers, which are included in the class of large destroyers. These are the six ships of the Chacal class , the Guépard class , the Aigle class , the Vauquelin class , the Le Fantasque and the two ships of the Mogador class . Especially the ships of the Le Fantasque and Mogador classes were characterized by sensational performance data and achieved z. T. speeds of over 40 kn .
The Italian answer was initially the light cruisers of the Condottieri classes with eight 15.2 cm guns and later the Capitani Romani class with eight 13.5 cm guns. These latter Italian light cruisers, initially classified as Esploratori Oceanici ocean reconnaissance cruisers, surpassed their French counterparts in terms of both firepower and performance, as they could run at speeds of up to 42 kn (approx. 77 km / h ).
Before 1941, Yugoslavia also had a large destroyer equipped with four 14 cm guns, the Dubrovnik .
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A latecomer to this development was the Soviet Union , which initially commissioned a single ship, the Tashkent , in Italy before it began building the large-scale destroyer of the Leningrad class itself . These ships carried five or six 13 cm guns.
Some German destroyers of the Second World War, the Z 23 to Z 39 , were again given extremely heavy armament consisting of five 15 cm guns. However, the so-called scout cruisers of the Z-Plan already went beyond the dimensions of the large destroyers.
commitment
First World War
The destroyers built served their purpose by and large. The Italian ships were used more for reconnaissance. There is no operational experience for the only German large destroyer V 116 .
The major destroyers played no essential role in this conflict.
Second World War
The French ships alone really proved their worth. Due to the course of the war, they operated not only in the European marginal seas, but also in the Indian and Pacific Oceans .
A basic problem of all units was their over-breeding: Their armament was too heavy for the relatively small hulls, which made them bad seagoing ships and in turn impaired the platform stability of the guns. Also, the big gun caliber made the main artillery to antiaircraft too cumbersome, thus special FlaK -Bewaffnung had to be carried (which again meant extra weight). Furthermore, they were unarmored, which meant that they lacked stability for confrontation with larger units. After all, one of the biggest disadvantages was their mostly inadequate operating range or driving range. Ultimately, the cost-benefit ratio was unbalanced; H. the ships were relatively expensive with a strong crew, although they were supposed to be used as destroyers, with the latter in turn taking into account a loss during operations - which was not acceptable with the complex construction and the crew strengths of large destroyers.
The French and Italian ships were reclassified as light cruisers shortly after the outbreak of war, which was actually not justified due to the lack of armor, but reflects the uncertainty about their possible uses.
Time after 1945
After the Second World War, this type of ship was no longer built, with the exception of only two units of the Capitani Romani class , which were, however, completed as normal destroyers with lighter armament. This corresponded to the tendency to increase the size of all destroyers of the post-war fleets, the dimensions of which already reached or even exceeded those of the earlier large destroyers.
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Jean Moulin: Les contre-torpilleurs type Guépard 1928–1942. Marines Éditions 2010, ISBN 2-357-43049-4 .
- ↑ J. Lassaque: Les contre-torpilleurs de 2,880 tonnes du type Mogador . Marines éditions. ISBN 2-909675-21-1
- ^ John Jordan: The Contre-Torpilleurs of the Mogador Class . In Jordan, John (ed.). Warship 2007. Conway, London 2007, pp. 45-60. ISBN 1-84486-041-8 .