Mendoza class

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flag
Mendoza- class
The Tucumán 1938
The Tucumán 1938
Overview
Type destroyer
units 3
Shipyard

J. Samuel White , Cowes

Order 1927
Launch from July 1928
period of service

1929-1962

home port Puerto Belgrano
Technical specifications
displacement

Standard : 1595  ts
maximum: 2154 ts

length

102.11 m (335 ft) overall
101.2 m (332 ft) pp.

width

9.68 m (31.75 ft)

Draft

3.81 m (12.5 ft)

crew

160-196 men

drive
speed

36 kn

Range

4500 nm at 14 kn

Armament

5 × 4.7-inch (120-mm) MK.IX cannon
1 × 3-inch (76-mm) flak gun
2 × 2 pdr pom pom
6 × 21-inch (533-mm ) -Torpedo tubes (2 × 3)

Fuel supply

500 ts

The Mendoza- class was a group of three destroyers built in Britain for Argentina . They were part of the first part of a modernization program for the Argentine Navy in the 1920s.
The destroyers remained in service until early 1962.

draft

The design of the three Argentine destroyer was based on the British Flottillenführern type Thornycroft , which had been built at the end of the First World War. All three boats were built by J. Samuel White & Co in Cowes on the Isle of Wight .

The ARA Cervantes , the first modern destroyer of the Argentine Navy

Before they came into service, the Argentine Navy had already acquired two similar boats in Spain. Since the flight of the Whale Plus Ultra over the South Atlantic in 1926, Argentina has sought to acquire modern Spanish destroyers. Spain did not hand in any of the finished destroyers, but finally agreed on May 25, 1927 to hand in the first two of the Churruca- class destroyers under construction at the state shipyard in Cartagena . This class was built according to the Admiralty plans for flotilla commanders of the V and W classes . The new buildings planned as Churruca and Alcalá Galiano came into service with the Argentine Navy as Cervantes and Juan de Garay on September 3, 1927 and were transferred to their new home in January 1928.

The boats commissioned by White in 1927 based on the Thornycroft design were very similar and hardly differed from the original design of the Thornycroft leaders for the Royal Navy , from which the Royal Navy had received five boats between 1917 and 1925, also known as Shakespeare - Class (HMSs Shakespeare , Spenser , Wallace , Broke , Keppel ) were designated.
The 335 foot long destroyers had two chimneys flattened on the sides, were powered by two Parsons turbine sets with a gear stage and the La Rioja achieved a new world record for a ship with a displacement of 1595 tons on a six-hour test drive at almost 39.4 knots . The boats, named after Argentine provinces, were equipped with standard British weapons. Their five 120mm cannons were the British standard for destroyers until the war began. There were also two 21-inch triple torpedo tubes. They carried a 76-mm cannon and two individual pom-pom guns, as well as four machine guns for anti-aircraft defense, and had two depth charges.

Tucumán , Mendoza and La Rioja

After the Argentine naval transporter Bahia Blanca , formerly a Hamburg-Süd steamer, had transported transfer and acceptance crews to Europe, the three destroyers were transported together to Argentina in October 1929, covering the Lisbon - Puerto Belgrano (5800 nm) route non- stopped. There they were referred to as "Exploradores".

The five Argentine Exploradores were reinforced in 1938 by seven Buenos Aires- class destroyers delivered from Great Britain , which corresponded to the British G-class and had a standard displacement of 1375 ts.

Since Argentina was one of the few states that remained neutral during World War II, the Mendoza- class boats were not involved in acts of war. However, modernization was not possible until the late 1940s to the 1950s. They received modern sensors and the medium 120 mm cannon and the 76 mm anti-aircraft gun were replaced by three modern 40 mm Bofors twin anti-aircraft guns.

On April 1, 1962, after more than 32 years of service and little modernization, the three destroyers were decommissioned and scrapped. They were replaced by three Fletcher-class destroyers delivered from the USA : Almirante Brown ex USS Heermann (DD-532), Espora ex USS Dortch (DD-670), Rosales ex USS Stembel (DD-644).

The boats

Surname Launch in service off-duty
ARA La Rioja (E-4) February 2, 1929 July 23, 1929 April 1962
ARA Mendoza (E-3) July 18, 1928 January 24, 1929 April 1962
ARA Tucuman (E-5) October 16, 1928 May 3, 1929 April 1962

Similar destroyers in other navies

Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom, svg

The Royal Navy had the aforementioned five Shakespeare- class boats , three of which were still in service in 1939, but HMS Wallace was converted into an anti-aircraft escort boat (WAIR). The HMS Keppel survived the world war. In addition, the Royal Navy received eight flotilla leaders of the very similar Scott class, of which the HMS Scott was lost in World War I and the HMS Bruce was sunk as a target ship in 1939. The other six boats survived, mostly used in Geleitzugsicherung, the Second World War, including in 1933 RAN used HMAS Stuart .

Flag of Spain (1931-1939) .svg

After handing over the first two Churruca- class boats to Argentina, the Spanish Navy received 16 newbuildings in three lots. 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.

Flag of Romania.svg

Two more destroyers based on the Thornycroft-Leader ( Shakespeare- class) plan were built at the Pattison shipyard in Naples for Romania . However, they received Swedish Bofors cannons and a fire control system from Siemens . Regele Ferdinand and Regina Maria were extradited in September 1930. During the Second World War, they were the most powerful units of the Axis powers in the Black Sea. In 1944 Romania had to cede the two boats to the Soviet Union, but received them back in 1951 as D.21 and D.22 . Before 1970, both boats were canceled.

literature

  • MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War 2 . Cassell Publishing, 1988, ISBN 1-85409-521-8 .
  • Guillermo J. Montehengo: An Argentinian Naval Buildup in the Disarmament Era. In: Warship 2002-2003. Conway's Maritime press.

Web links

Commons : Mendoza-class destroyer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence