HMS Viper
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.jpg) The HMS Viper |
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| Overview | |
| Type | destroyer |
| Shipyard |
Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. , Hebburn , Building No. 366 |
| Keel laying | Late 1898 |
| Launch | September 6, 1899 |
| Commissioning | Summer 1900 |
| Whereabouts | Accumulated and sunk on August 3, 1901 near Alderney |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
344th ts |
| length |
64.1 m (210 ft 3.5 in) |
| width |
6.4 m (21 ft) |
| Draft |
2.9 m (9.75 ft) |
| crew |
68 men |
| drive |
4 Yarrow boilers |
| speed |
33.8 kn |
| Armament |
1 × 76 mm / L40-12pdr-12 cwt Mk I cannon |
| Sister boat |
Velox ex Python |
| similar |
Cobra |
The HMS Viper was a destroyer of the British Royal Navy and the first warship with turbine drive . It was procured as a test boat for this new ship propulsion system. In 1900 it was considered to be the fastest ocean-going vehicle in the world. After less than a year of service, the Viper was lost on August 3, 1901, when it ran onto a rock in fog near Alderney .
Building history
The Royal Navy's 16th HMS Viper, ordered in 1898, was a single boat designed to test the steam turbine as a possible drive for faster destroyers. As early as 1896, the British Admiralty tried to develop faster destroyers than the "thirty-knotters", which had been the standard since 1895, which were surpassed by boats in other countries with a top speed of 30 knots (kn) . With the Albatross , Arab and Express she ordered boats from various manufacturers that were supposed to exceed this speed with conventional steam engines. The convincing presentation of the steam turbine- powered Turbinia at the fleet parade in 1897 led to the order of a turbine-powered destroyer, the HMS Viper , from Charles Parsons' Marine Steam Turbine Company in Wallsend on March 4, 1898 before the faster boats mentioned were completed. Parsons commissioned the Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. shipyard in Hebburn to build the hull , where the Viper's keel was laid before the end of 1898. Hawthorn, Leslie had built destroyers for the Royal Navy since 1895 and most recently built "30-knotters" of the so-called Mermaid class.
The Viper's turbines, supplied by Parsons, drove four shafts, each with two screws. The outer shafts were driven by the high pressure turbines of the respective turbine set, while the low pressure turbines acted on the inner shafts. However, special turbines for reversing could also be switched on the inner shafts; there were no special turbines for the cruise. Four Yarrow boilers supplied the turbines with steam. The exhaust steam came through three chimneys. The maximum speed agreed in the order was 31 knots, although Parsons considered at least 34 knots to be possible.
The Viper was armed with a single 76 mm / L40-12pdr-12 cwt gun on a platform above the boat's command post. In practice, the gun platform was also used as the boat's command bridge. In addition, there were five 57 mm / L40-6pdr cannons and two individual 45 cm torpedo tubes , the standard armament of the destroyers of the Royal Navy at the time.
The Viper was launched on September 6, 1899. When it was accepted, it reached the agreed speeds. In a test of her fuel consumption on August 16, 1900, she reached 31.017 knots over an extended period and a high-speed test on August 31, 1900 over a mile gave 33.57 knots, making her the fastest destroyer in the world. Reports indicate that the Viper was likely able to achieve even higher speeds in tests, such as 35.5 kn or even 36.858 kn.
The boat reached very high speeds on test drives with low vibration, but the fuel consumption was very high. The turbines were optimized for high speeds and very inefficient at lower speeds. The Viper was of little value for use with the fleet . From her base in Portland she could reach Alderney and carry out surveillance drives there in order to break off such a mission after 24 hours in order to take over new fuel at the base.
The loss of the viper
On August 3, 1901, the Viper ran from Portland on a search drive as part of the annual fleet exercise. Around noon, she arrived at the Casquets 13 kilometers west of Alderney, the reconnaissance area assigned to her. The visibility was mostly good, even if there were small banks of fog. The Viper spotted the enemy ship. In the evening the ship ran into the fog on a rock point recognized too late under water.
The destroyer was once again free to but immediately on Renonquet Reef 49 ° 44 ' N , 2 ° 16' W aground. The commanding officer and the navigator had not carefully followed up their courses in the fog. The crew was rescued by a pilot boat. The Royal Navy blew up the non-retrievable wreckage in order not to reveal the details of the construction to foreign powers.
| Surname | Launch | in service | Shipyard | End of service |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HMS Cobra | June 28, 1899 | (May 8, 1900) | Armstrong-Whitworth | September 19, 1901 broken at Cromer |
| HMS Velox ex Python |
February 11, 1902 | . June 1902 | Hawthorn, Leslie & Co | October 25, 1915 by a mine hit |
| HMS Eden | March 13, 1903 | . June 1904 | Hawthorn, Leslie & Co | June 18, 1916 by collision |
| HMS Albacore | June 9, 1906 | May 3, 1909 | Palmers | August 1, 1919 demolished |
| HMS Bonetta | January 14, 1907 | May 3, 1909 | Palmers | June 7, 1920 demolished |
| HMS Stour | June 3, 1905 | December 1909 | Cammell Laird | August 30, 1919 demolished |
| HMS test | May 6, 1905 | December 1909 | Cammell Laird | August 30, 1919 demolished |
The loss of the comparative destroyer HMS Cobra, which was only purchased in May 1900, on September 18, 1901 before its final commissioning, led to the purchase of the Python , which Hawthorn, Leslie & Co had started on their own account and which came into service as HMS Velox in 1902 and was the only turbine destroyer for a long time the Navy was. It initially had expansion machines for the march, later marching turbines. Both installations failed.
When the order was awarded for the destroyers of the River class , which were procured from 1902, a turbine-powered boat, the HMS Eden, was also ordered. It was only with the following coastal destroyers of the cricket class and the large destroyers of the tribal class that the steam turbine became the standard drive of the Royal Navy torpedo carriers in 1906/1907.
The shipyards of Cammell Laird and Palmers had previously modified turbine-powered river-class boats for their own account, which the Royal Navy bought in 1909. Of these, however, the Palmer boats were classified in the B class on August 30, 1912 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Lyon: The First Destroyers , p. 30.
- ^ A b c d e Friedman: British Destroyers: From Earliest Days to the Second World War , p. 59.
- ^ TD Manning: The British Destroyer , p. 43.
- ^ Friedman, p. 292.
- ^ Lyon, pp. 98f.
literature
- Norman Friedman: British Destroyers: From Earliest Days to the Second World War . Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley (2009), ISBN 978-1-84832-049-9
- David Lyon: The First Destroyers , Caxton Editions, London (2001), ISBN 1-84067-364-8
- TD Manning: The British Destroyer , Putnam & Co. Ltd, London (1961)
- Antony Preston: Destroyers , Hamlyn, ISBN 0-600-32955-0
Web links
- Photo of the accidental viper retrieved November 21, 2013
- Early Destroyers, accessed November 21, 2013
- Sinking of the Viper (French) accessed November 30, 2013