Scott class

Scott- class
The HMS Montrose
Overview
Type	destroyer
units	8th
Shipyard	6 by Cammell Laird , Birkenhead 2 by Hawthorn Leslie , Hebburn -on-Tyne
Order	1916-1918
Launch	from October 1917
period of service	1918-1945
Whereabouts	1918 Scott lost in war
Technical specifications
displacement	Standard : 1580  ts maximum: 2053 ts
length	98.3 m (322.5 ft) overall
width	9.68 m (31.75 ft)
Draft	3.81 m (12.5 ft)
crew	164 men
drive	4 Yarrow boilers , Parsons turbines, two with Brown Curtis turbines 40 - 43,000 HPw, 2 shafts
speed	36.5 kn
Range	5000 nm at 15 kn
Armament	5 - 12 cm / L45 Mk.I cannons 1 - 76 mm / L45 anti-aircraft gun 2 × 3 21-inch torpedo tubes
Fuel supply	500 ts

The Royal Navy received eight flotilla of Scott class for a Admralitätsentwurf. Six of the boats were built by Cammell Laird & Company, Birkenhead, and the other two by R. & W. Hawthorn, Leslie & Company , Hebburn on Tyne.
The John I. Thornycroft & Company shipyard delivered five similar Shakespeare-class boats between 1917 and 1925 . Two more boats of each of these classes were ordered in 1918 and canceled again in December 1918 after the end of the war.

Following the example of the Scott class, 18 destroyers were built in Spain from 1928 in three lots until 1951, of which the first two were handed over to Argentina after completion .

Design and construction history

The eight flotilla leaders of the Admiralty draft for the V- and W-class destroyers, built from 1916 and 1919, were built parallel to the five Shakespeare -class flotilla leaders built at Thornycroft according to a shipyard design . An external distinguishing feature were the two relatively thin, round and equally high chimneys compared to the laterally flattened and different high chimneys of the Thornycroft buildings.

The six boats built at Cammell Laird were powered by Parsons turbines ; the two boats built by Hawthorn Leslie had somewhat more powerful Brown Curtis turbines and were about 0.5 kn faster. In April 1916, Cammell Laird had received the contract to build a prototype that would keep up with the V and W class destroyers at top speed. The shipyard had built the five previous Parker-class flotilla leaders in 1916, which had many details from British destroyer structures up until World War II, but only reached 34 knots with their propulsion system , while the R-class destroyers delivered at the same time could run 36 knots.

Scott class cracks

The size of the new flotilla commander largely corresponded to the previous class, but had a higher freeboard than the Parker 's last ship . Compared to the normal destroyers of the V and W class, the Scott class boats were 4 m longer and 1 m wider and for the first time had five 12 cm cannons (4.7 "/ 45 (12 cm) BL Mk.I). Each two cannons were positioned one above the other at the ends of the ship, the fifth cannon was raised between the funnels, a 76 mm / L45 anti-aircraft cannon Mk.VIII and (also for the first time) two 21-inch triple torpedo tubes behind the funnels and in front of the rear deckhouse with the two rear, overshot cannons (the Shakespeare class supplied by Thornycroft was armed identically).

In April 1916, Cammell Laird received the order for the prototype, HMS  Scott , that of the new class, which was launched in October 1917 and did not enter service until 1918 after the first Shakespeare- class boats . In December 1916 two more boats ( Bruce , Douglas ) were ordered, which were delivered before the end of the war. In April 1917, five more construction contracts were awarded, two of which went to the Hawthorn Leslie shipyard, which had last built the HMS Marksman as a flotilla leader . These five boats, ordered in 1917, were delivered by the two shipyards from September 1918. As the last ship of the class, Cammell Laird delivered the HMS Malcolm in December 1919 . Two orders for two more boats placed in April 1918 were canceled in December 1918 because the war ended.

The Scott- class flotilla leaders

Surname	Launch	in service	off-duty
HMS Scott	October 18, 1917	1918	Sunk August 15, 1918
HMS Bruce (D81)	02/26/1918	05/30/1918	Sunk 22nd November 1939 as a target ship
HMS Douglas (D90)	June 8, 1918	September 2, 1918	Out of service in February 1945, sold for demolition in March 1945
HMS Montrose (D01)	06/10/1918	09/14/1918	Badly damaged in June 1944, sold for demolition in July 1945
HMAS Stuart (D00)	08/22/1918	December 21, 1918	October 1, 1933 ==> RAN, April 27, 1947 out of service
HMS Campbell (D60)	09/21/1918	December 21, 1918	August 1945 out of service, sold for demolition in February 1947
HMS Mackay (D70)	December 21, 1918	May 19, 1919	August 1945 out of service, sold for demolition in February 1947
HMS Malcolm (D19)	05/29/1919	December 14, 1919	May 1945 out of service, July 1945 sold for demolition

six boats were built at Cammel Laird, only Montrose and Stuart were built at Hawthorn Leslie.

Mission history of the class

The prototype HMS Scott , named after Sir Walter Scott , was lost after a few months of service in World War I on August 15, 1918, 10 nm off the Dutch coast due to a mine hit. c At the end of October 1918, the Scott- class flotilla commanders were distributed as follows: The 21st destroyer flotilla of the Grand Fleet had eight M-class destroyers and three flotilla commanders: in addition to the Faulknor-class HMS Botha and the single ship HMS Swift , the was also owned HMS Douglas of Scott class for flotilla. In addition to 26 destroyers, the 10th destroyer flotilla of the Harwich Force had four flotilla commanders: in addition to the two Shakespeare- class boats in service (HMS Shakespeare , HMS Spenser ), there were the HMS Bruce and the HMS Montrose of the Scott class. The four other boats in the class were not yet in service and the HMS Malcolm had not even launched.

The HMS Bruce (D81) was the pilot boat of the 8th Destroyer Flotilla in Port Edgar on the south bank of the Firth of Forth , the destroyer base of the Atlantic Fleet, and then came to the reserve. In 1939 the Bruce was only used as a target ship and sunk on November 22, 1939 in this task near the Isle of Wight in the channel .

The HMS Douglas (D90) had been in the reserve since 1921 when she was put into service by reservists in August 1939 for a survey of the fleet by the king and then remained in service. In September 1939 she went to Gibraltar for the 13th Destroyer Flotilla. In addition to the security tasks on the convoys through the stationing area, operations with the Force H were also carried out in the summer of 1940 after the surrender of France . In August 1940 the boat was relocated to the Home Fleet and from February 1941 carried out escort duties in the Escort Group B2. On April 28, 1941, the Douglas sank the German submarine U 65 . In January 1942, in very bad weather, the Douglas collided with the US destroyer USS Mayo on the ON 55 convoy . After makeshift repairs, it was overhauled in Iceland and converted into a short range escort . The foremost gun and the one between the funnels were removed.

HMS Douglas after renovation

In June 1942, the HMS Douglas was operational again and secured the supply tanker RFA Gray Ranger for the escort vehicles of the Northern Sea convoy PQ 17 and the convoy QP 13 in the opposite direction. Then it was used again in the area of ​​the western access roads . From September 11, 1942, with the escort group B2 she led (SRE HMS Veteran , HMS Saladin , HMS Skate and the former American HMS  Leamington ) , she reinforced the security of the 70-ship convoy SC 42 , which had already lost 14 ships the submarine group Markgraf . Because of this reinforcement and sea scouts coming from Iceland, the German submarines were only sunk two more times. In July 1943, Douglas secured the fast convoy Faith with the frigate Moyola and the Canadian destroyer Iroquois , which consisted of the troop transporters Duchess of York (20,021 GRT) and California (16,792 GRT) as well as the ammunition transporter Port Fairy (8,072 GRT) and troops and Should bring equipment to Sierra Leone . On the evening of July 11, 1943, the convoy was about 300 nautical miles west of Vigo , on the northwest coast of Spain three Maritime Patrol aircraft of the type Focke-Wulf Fw 200 ( "Condor") of the combat squadron 40 attacked. The two troop carriers were hit by bombs and went up in flames. Both ships were abandoned by their crews. In the early morning of July 12, the Douglas sank both ships with torpedoes at 41 ° 15 ′ 0 ″  N , 15 ° 24 ′ 0 ″  W to avoid luring submarines through the fires. The security units succeeded in largely taking the crews and passengers of both ships on board. Of the more than 1000 soldiers on the two ships, only 57 lost their lives, with a total of more than 100 dead including another air strike on the remaining units the following day. On October 31, 1943, the Douglas was still involved in the sinking of U 732 west of Gibraltar. From 1944 the boat secured convoys in her home waters in preparation for the invasion and to supply the Allied troops on the mainland, until it was decommissioned in February 1945 and sold for demolition in March.

The HMS Montrose (D01), used by the Harwich Force before the end of the war , the first boat of the class completed by Hawthorn Leslie, was moved to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1919 , where it remained for ten years. In March 1920, she was used together with the sister boat Stuart to evacuate White troops under Denikin from Novorossiysk . In 1921 both boats with other units of the Mediterranean Fleet observed the Greco-Turkish War and the Montrose was used in the Black Sea to prevent the feared Soviet maritime support of the Turks . From 1930 to 1932 the boat was one of the active units of the Home Fleet and then went into reserve. Shortly before the start of the war it was overhauled and put back into service with reservists in August 1939. In September 1939, the HMS Montrose became the leader of the 17th destroyer flotilla in Plymouth . In January 1940, the boat moved to the 16th destroyer flotilla in Harwich . In May the boat was used from Dover to evacuate Dunkirk and transported 925 soldiers on May 28, but could only be used once damaged by a collision with the sister ship Mackay . On July 27, 1940, the HMS Montrose was attacked by German aircraft while securing deminers off Aldeburgh and badly damaged. It was repaired in Chatham and was not operational again until February 1941.

HMS Montrose with 6 pdr twin tower

At the beginning of September 1942, the Montrose with her sister boats Campbell and Malcolm belonged to the security of the 39-strong Russia convoy PQ.18 . Since January 1943, the boat was used again to secure the coastal convoys in the North Sea. On the night of February 18, it fought northeast of Great Yarmouth against boats of the 6th German Schnellboot Flotilla, which wanted to lay a mine lock. In this case, S 71 by shelling of Montrose and the escort destroyer HMS Garth (L20) is stopped, and finally by a ramming the Garth sunk. During this battle, the Montrose probably already led a 6 pdr (57 mm) twin turret in place of the 12 cm bow cannon in the A position, with which it and its sister boats Campbell and Mackay as well as five W-class destroyers 1942 were equipped. The weapon developed for coastal defense was better suited to fighting speed boats because of the higher rate of fire than the 12 cm cannons, of which the boat only led two. The anti-aircraft armament now consisted of a 4-inch cannon and two 2 pdr guns .
From May 1944, the Montrose trained for the planned landing in Normandy with the destroyer HMS Whitshed and two corvettes. On June 6, this group escorted twelve Landing Ship, Tank (LST) and 27 Landing Craft, Tank (LCT) to the Gold Beach landing section . While the reinforcement convoy was being put together, the Montrose collided with a US freighter on June 7, 1944 and was badly damaged. A repair of the old boat was postponed and then in January 1945 a total loss of the boat was determined. In January 1946, the HMS Montrose was sold for demolition, which finally took place in Blyth.

The HMS Stuart (D00), completed in December 1918, was used like her sister ship the Montrose in the Mediterranean fleet, where the sister ships were used in the Black Sea in 1919/1920. In March 1920 they took part in the evacuation of white troops from Novorossiysk under the protection of British battleships, where they took the troops from the port with other British destroyers and Russian boats, such as the captain Saken , and brought them to the transports off the coast which also formerly belonged to German ships like the Hannover and the Rio Negro .
In October 1933, the flotilla leader was surrendered to Australia.
=> see HMAS Stuart

Also in December 1918, the HMS Campbell (D60) built by Cammell Laird came into service. She was used in the Atlantic Fleet until 1925 and then came to the reserve. In 1939 she was put back into service with reservists and from September 1939 she was used in the 19th Destroyer Flotilla in Harwich, which secured convoys on the British east coast. From March 1940, it was used in anti-submarine defense on the western access routes to the United Kingdom, but was used in April to support the units deployed off Norway. She brought troops to Molde and Åndalsnes and was involved in the evacuation of Harstad . From July onwards, she was deployed again in the North Sea, and on November 19, 1940 she rammed the German Schnellboot S 38 and captured 19 shipwrecked people. During the defense of the coastal escort FS 50 , she mistakenly took the destroyer escort HMS Garth under fire and damaged it considerably.

HMS Campbell 1942

In January 1942, the Harwich Flotilla was renamed the 21st. When channel breakthrough of the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the Prinz Eugen succeeded in Campbell with the HMS Vivacious and HMS Worcester and the sister ship Mackay guided destroyers HMS Whitshed and HMS Walpole get hold of the 16th Destroyer Flotilla of the German ships and an (unsuccessful) torpedo attack to drive.
At the beginning of September 1942, the Campbell secured the 39 ships of the Russia convoy PQ 18 from Loch Ewe to Iceland with the sister ship Malcolm , two Hunt escort destroyers and five anti-submarine trawlers . In the convoy, which was very carefully secured this time after the disaster with PQ 17 , the Malcolm was in charge of the local security and the sister ships Campbell , Montrose and Mackay as well as the similar Broke and Keppel were in charge of remote security. Afterwards used again in the North Sea, the Campbell sank with the Garth on November 29, 1942 S 38 . In the course of the North Sea missions, the boat's radar system was continuously modernized and its bow gun replaced by a 6 pdr (57 mm) twin turret, which had proven itself through its rate of fire in fighting speedboats and also had sufficient penetrating power. In May 1944, the Campbell with the destroyer Vivacious and two trawlers formed the security group for a group of landing craft for the Sword landing section in Normandy and also secured reinforcement transports to the landing forces until July 1944, in order to then return to the North Sea and canal security. On May 13, 1945, the HMS Campbell was one of the escort ships that accompanied the Norwegian Crown Prince Olav on the HMS Apollo to Oslo. The old destroyer was decommissioned in August 1945 and sold for demolition in February 1947, which took place in Rosyth.

6pdr twin tower

The HMS Mackay (D70) was originally supposed to be named Claverhouse . The boat, completed by Cammell Laird in June 1919 after the end of the war under construction number 850, was the first unit of the Royal Navy called Mackay and served in the Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets between the wars. In 1938 the boat joined the Home Fleet's 2nd submarine flotilla. After the outbreak of war, the Mackay was assigned as a flotilla leader of the 11th destroyer flotilla in Plymouth, which with the destroyers Vanquisher , Vansittart , Vimy , Walker , Warwick , Whirlwind and Winchelsea of the V and W classes, the canal exit and the south-western access roads to the British Isles secured. In late May 1940, the Mackay moved to Dover to take part in the Dunkirk evacuation ( Operation Dynamo ). On her first voyage on the 26th she brought 581 soldiers to Dover. After another successful voyage the following day, she collided with the sister ship Montrose off Dunkirk on May 28 and ran aground. The damaged screws had to be repaired in the dock so that the boat could only be used again when Brest was evacuated ( Operation Cycle ).

In July 1940, the Mackay was assigned to the 16th destroyer flotilla in Harwich to secure the coastal escort, where it remained almost continuously until the end of the war. When the German heavy units broke through the canal on February 12, 1942, they were at sea with the units named at Campbell for an exercise and the six boats attacked the Germans unsuccessfully. Only the Worcester was badly hit in the attack (17 dead, 45 injured, temporarily unable to move).

Loading the 6 pdr guns

From March to August 1942, the Mackay was converted into a short range escort with renewed modernization of the radar and fire control system and improved anti-aircraft weapons. The nose gun was also replaced on her by a 6 pdr twin turret developed by the army. The Mackay also came as some of her sister boats in securing the convoy PQ 18 in the Arctic Ocean are used. On October 23, 1943, she sank a German outpost boat and two speedboats with the destroyer Worcester and the destroyer escort Pytchley . Until April 1944 she remained in the North Sea to secure coastal traffic and to defend against light German naval forces in order to then also form an escort group with a destroyer and two corvettes to secure the landing forces in Normandy. In July 1944 she returned to the North Sea Service. From May 1945 the Mackay came to occupy Norwegian ports and supported the minesweepers off Drontheim , for example . In August 1945 the boat was decommissioned and sold in February 1947 for demolition, which took place in Charlestown (Fife) .

The HMS Malcolm , which was also ordered in April 1917, was not launched at Cammell Laird until May 29, 1919 and was commissioned on December 14, 1919 as the last flotilla commander of the class. Initially deployed with the 5th destroyer flotilla of the Atlantic Fleet, the Malcolm was assigned to the reserve early on. In September 1939, the Malcolm flotilla leader of the 18th Destroyer Flotilla in Portsmouth, which performed similar tasks to the sister boat Mackay with the 16th Destroyer Flotilla with the destroyers Amazon , Ambuscade , Achates , Antelope , Arrow and Anthony of the A-Class . In May 1940 the Malcolm also came to Dover to help evacuate British troops from the continent. On May 15, 1940, the first deployment in Operation Ordnance to Hoek van Holland took place . From May 26 to June 4, the boat made eight trips to Dunkirk as part of Operation Dynamo. As of July, the Malcolm was one of the units that monitored the Dutch, Belgian and French coasts and was supposed to recognize and obstruct German preparations for landing. She was part of a group led by the cruiser HMS Cardiff . On August 14, 1940, Malcolm and the destroyer HMS Verity were attacked by six navy outpost boats (former fish steamers) and three speedboats , sank one outpost boat and one speedboat. On September 10, 1940, Malcolm and the destroyers Wild Swan and Veteran attacked landing craft in Ostend and two days later shelled Boulogne while advancing along the French coast. At the end of the month, the Malcolm was assigned to the units to secure the convoys across the Atlantic . In the following twelve months, the boat secured 29 Atlantic and 3 Gibraltar convoys, ten of which were attacked. She was involved in two larger convoy battles. From February 1941 she was the lead ship of the newly formed 8th Escort Group. On May 10th, the Malcolm rescued eleven castaways from the Empire Caribou sunk by U 556 . Malcolm then reinforced the security of the attacked convoy HX 126 with the 8th EG , which had already lost six ships. They succeeded in repelling all further attacks and preventing further casualties as well as severely damaging U 74 , which had to break off its journey. In June 1941, the Malcolm and her group (destroyers Scimitar , corvettes Arabis and Violet and the minesweeper Speedwell ) from HX 133 lost five ships in one night; In the following four days all further attacks could be stopped and the Malcolm was involved in the sinking of U 651 on June 29, 1941 . 45 men from this boat could be saved. On August 11, 1942, the Malcolm from Gibraltar ran as a destroyer accompanying the aircraft carrier HMS Furious with Keppel , Venomous , Wolverine and Wrestler towards Malta . Near the Balearic Islands, Spitfires took off from the carrier and flew to the besieged island to strengthen the air defense there. On August 12, the Malcolm was attacked by the Italian submarine Dagabur , which was sunk by the Wolverine when it tried to attack the unit again. With some of her sister ships, the boat was then involved in securing the convoy PQ 18 , but was soon withdrawn from the convoy protection again. In November 1942, the Malcolm was selected next to the HMS Broke for Operation Terminal , during which the two British destroyers with US rangers on board were to penetrate the port of Algiers on November 8th . Both boats were discovered early and taken under fire by the French coastal batteries. Malcolm received severe hits, had ten dead and a great many wounded on board. Three of the four boilers failed. She could only walk four knots and pulled back. Even if the attack did not go according to plan, the main objective of preventing damage to the port facilities was achieved. After repairs at home, the boat was ready for use again in March 1943 with a Hedgehog launcher , only two 12 cm cannons, six anti-aircraft weapons and modern tracking devices and moved via Gibraltar to Freetown to secure convoys from there to Gibraltar. It returned home in 1944, but was not used on the landing in Normandy and was decommissioned in May 1945 and scrapped in Barrow from the end of July 1945 .

Replicas and similar boats

According to the Scott- class plans , 18 Churruca- class boats were built in three lots between 1928 and 1951 in Spain , the first two of which were given to Argentina.

The destroyer Alava (D-52), the last boat built in Spain

The first batch of seven new buildings was launched from 1928 to 1933. The second batch of seven more destroyers was launched between 1935 and 1937. All boats were used on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War . The Almirante Ferrándiz was sunk on September 29, 1936 near Gibraltar by the Spanish national heavy cruiser Canarias . Two more temporarily failed boats could be repaired. On March 6, 1938, the destroyers Sanchéz Barcáiztegui , Lepanto and Almirante Antequera succeeded in sinking the Spanish national heavy cruiser Baleares through a common torpedo fan in a night battle near Cabo de Palos .
After the civil war, two more boats were built, some of which are run as a separate class and were used by the Spanish Navy until 1951. From 1957, the Churruca- class destroyers were eliminated . The post-war Liniers ship was the last boat to go out of service in 1982.

In addition to Scott- class boats, the Royal Navy received five similar Shakespeare- class flotilla leaders from 1917 to 1925 . In 1939 three of them were still available. The HMS Wallace was of this type, he was the only flotilla leader who was subjected to the so-called WAIR conversion to a fast escort boat with strong anti-aircraft armament. The HMS Broke was lost in November 1942 after its use in Algiers ( Operation Terminal ). Only the HMS Keppel survived the Second World War.

The Cervantes of the Argentine Navy, first foreign replica of the Scott- class

Argentina ordered three new buildings according to the plans of the Shakespeare class in Great Britain, which were built as the Mendoza class by J. Samuel White & Co in Cowes with Parsons turbines and delivered in 1929 and remained in service until 1962.
In advance, the Argentine Navy received the first two newbuildings of the Spanish Churruca class according to the admiralty draft as Cervantes and Juan de Garay , which came into service with the Argentine Navy on September 3, 1927 and were transferred to their new home in January 1928. In 1955, both boats were involved in the military coup against Perón and were not decommissioned and scrapped until 1960.

Two more destroyers based on the plans of the Thornycroft leaders were built for Romania at the Pattison shipyard in Naples . However, they received Swedish Bofors cannons and a fire control system from Siemens . Regele Ferdinand and Regina Maria were delivered in September 1930 and deleted before 1970.

literature

• Bodo Herzog: 60 years of German submarines 1906-1966 . JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1968.
• Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH (Herrsching 1968), ISBN 3-88199-0097
• Alexander Bredt (Ed.): WEYERS Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1941/1942 , Lehmanns Verlag (Munich / Berlin), 1941
• MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War 2 . Cassell Publishing, 1988, ISBN 1-85409-521-8 .

Web links

Commons : Scott- class Destroyers  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

• SCOTT leaders (1918-1919) (English) accessed August 19, 2013
• SHAKESPEARE CLASS DESTROYER LEADERS accessed October 18, 2013
• HMS Scott accessed October 21, 2013
• HMS Douglas accessed October 18, 2013
• HMS Douglas (D 90 ) accessed October 21, 2013
• HMS Douglas accessed October 31, 2013
• HMS Montrose, accessed October 21, 2013
• HMS Montrose (D 01 ) accessed October 21, 2013
• HMAS Stuart (D 00) (Engl.) Accessed October 21, 2013
• HMS Campbell, accessed October 18, 2013
• HMS Campbell (D 60 ) accessed October 21, 2013
• HMS Mackay accessed October 21, 2013
• HMS Mackay (D 70 ) accessed October 21, 2013
• HMS Malcolm accessed October 18, 2013
• HMS Malcolm (D 19 ) accessed October 21, 2013

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 12 cm / L45 Mk.I
2. ↑ a success that has long been attributed to the corvette Gladiolus
3. ^ Rohwer: Seekrieg , p. 162
4. ^ Rohwer, p. 372
5. ↑ ^{a b} Rohwer, p. 46f.
6. ^ Rohwer, p. 332
7. ↑ 6pdr 10cwt-twin
8. ^ Rohwer, p. 219
9. ↑ CB Koester: The Liberation of Oslo and Copenhagen: a midshipman's memoir (PDF; 625 kB)
10. ^ Rohwer, p. 396.
11. ^ Rohwer, p. 46ff.
12. ^ Rohwer, p. 134
13. ^ Rohwer, p. 270
14. ^ Rohwer, p. 283
15. ^ Rohwer, p. 301
16. ↑ Weyer, pp. 178f., 380, 382
17. ↑ Weyers Flottentaschenbuch:, pp. 38f., 256
18. ↑ Weyer, pp. 150f., 354