IN 1888, the French produced ‘high seas’ (Haut-Mer) torpedo boats capable of operating outside their harbours. The English Channel in particular was likely to become far more dangerous. In theory, the threat was to the fleet rather than to the mass of shipping funnelled through the Channel, because the French had signed the 1859 treaty limiting their right to sink merchant ships on sight. However, if the British fleet could no longer blockade French Channel ports, then French commerce raiders might easily emerge. Something was needed that could catch French torpedo boats in the open sea. Once torpedo boats could operate in the open sea, they could cross the Channel. The real fear of a preemptive attack was, for example, reflected in British war orders prepared at the time of the Fashoda crisis (1898).
In February 1891, Fisher, now Controller, suggested that an enlarged torpedo boat might solve the problem. It did not have to be heavily loaded, because the French Channel ports were so close to possible British bases. Probably independently, in June, Thornycroft offered just such a craft, described in the previous chapter. Later, Yarrow pressed much the same idea.
Thornycroft’s prototype Daring had three boilers, the two foremost trunked into the slightly broader forefunnel. Both short funnels were later raised. These ships ad a twin torpedo tube aft. As in contemporary torpedo boats, its two tubes faced in opposite directions, so the tube did not have to swing around to engage a target on the opposite beam. For all later destroyers, the Admiralty distributed a standard armament arrangement to bidders. In 1902, the armament of these destroyers was set at one 12-pounder, three 6-pounders, and only the bow torpedo tube, with one torpedo carried; presumably their stability was limited.
The first six ships were ordered under the 1892–3 Estimates. Rear Admiral ‘Jacky’ Fisher became Controller in February 1892. Having suggested a year earlier that the only effective antidote to the torpedo boat was a large lightly loaded one, he soon asked the DNC to develop a twenty-seven-knot ship with powerful armament.1 The ship was initially described as a ‘seagoing torpedo boat of high speed’, and it continued torpedo boat practice, having alternative gun boat and torpedo boat armaments. The DNC set the armament and its arrangement: the ship would have a 12-pounder to deal with large French Haute-Mer torpedo boats. To achieve high speed, the ship had to be of limited size, and that in turn limited the complement which could be squeezed into her. That limited both armament (men to serve each gun) and power (men to feed each boiler). Given a limited number of guns, the DNC chose a secondary battery of 6-pounders rather than the 3-pounders that typically armed torpedo boats. As in contemporary torpedo boats, the new ship would have a fixed bow tube. In the torpedo boat version, comparable to a French Haute-Mer boat, it would have the bow tube plus a torpedo tube on either side of its conning tower, with two spare torpedoes, with a gun battery of one 12-pounder and one 6-pounder. In the gunboat version the torpedo tubes were replaced by two more 6-pounders. At the Controller’s suggestion, two additional 6-pounder positions were provided (with the necessary hull strengthening).
The Admiralty arrangement drawing dated May 1892 showed the 12-pounder atop the conning tower forward, with a 6-pounder atop the after conning tower and two 6-pounders en echelon, one well aft and to starboard. No approximate machinery arrangement was offered to the builders, since the point of the project was to use their specialist skills to cram sufficient machinery into a small hull. The DNC produced an approximate legend as a guide to evaluating designs offered by the various specialist builders, showing ninety tons of machinery and twenty-five tons of coal on trial (with a capacity of forty to fifty tons), for a total displacement of 226.1 tons. Estimated power, on which complement was based, was twice that of a torpedo boat: 3200ihp (twin-screw triple-expansion engines, two boilers in two stokeholds). Complement was set at forty, including twenty-six for the machinery (twenty-two stokers).2 There was some question as to whether the remaining fourteen were enough to handle the powerful gun battery. Fisher approved the forty-man complement (as a way of limiting overall size) on the ground that not all guns would be worked simultaneously.
The British torpedo gunboats were not really outclassed until the French began building fast high-seas torpedo boats of roughly destroyer type, three prototypes being authorised in April 1891. Launched on 15 June 1893, Chevalier was the third (the first, Mousquetaire, launched on 8 August 1892, made only 23.85 knots on her first trials). Chevalier is shown making 27.22 knots on 13 October 1893. She displaced 118 tons (135 tons fully loaded), about half as much as an early British destroyer. Rated speed was 24.5 knots (2200ihp).
Armament was two 18in tubes (four torpedoes) and two 37mm guns and dimensions were 143ft 9in wl × 14ft 9in × 4ft 9in. The timing of the French 1891 programme suggests that it triggered the first British destroyer programme. By this time some other torpedo boats had already achieved high speeds, but the high-seas boats presented the Royal Navy with special risks.
Yarrow completed the first British destroyers. The first, Havock, had two big locomotive boilers, each feeding one of two closely spaced funnels amidships (Yarrow may have considered this arrangement better, because it would make the boat’s course more difficult to estimate). Placing the boilers this way moved the stokeholds far apart at the ends of the boiler space. When Havock was given four water-tube boilers she had three funnels, the two middle uptakes (where the two original uptakes were) being trunked together. Like the other five prototypes, Havock had a fixed bow tube, eliminated in later British destroyers because it created unacceptable spray. Although in theory the ship would be controlled from the conning tower under the 12-pounder gun, in fact the gun platform became a bridge, and inevitably gun and bridge functions interfered with each other. One of two 6-pounders is visible on deck just abaft the break of the turtleback, and abaft it is a Berthon folding boat, standard in early British destroyers. Right aft is another 6-pounder. The twin deck tube is not visible, and may not have been fitted at this time. In 1902, the armament of these ships was set at one 12-pounder, three 6-pounders, and one bow tube, with no deck tubes (but three torpedoes were carried).
In Victorian livery with white topsides and a black hull, Laird’s prototype Ferret shows the forward gun platform evolving into a bridge, with the oblong cover for the chart table visible. The object between the third and fourth funnels is the glass cover for the chart table of the after steering position (the pelorus is visible). Unlike the other two firms, Laird placed its engines between the pairs of boilers, with a stokehold between each pair of boilers (and funnels at the opposite ends). The folding boat is visible abreast the forefunnel and the mast. Masts in early British destroyers were well separated from their bridges (which would have made signalling difficult), presumably to deny enemies clear understanding of the boats’ courses. In 1902, the armament of all destroyers less than 210 feet long (thirty-six ships, presumably all twenty-seven-knotters) was set at one 12-pounder, three 6-pounders, and only the after single revolving torpedo tube.
Builders were entirely responsible for machinery, but all arrangements had to be submitted to the Admiralty for approval. This time proposals were received from the six torpedo boat builders: Yarrow, Thornycroft, Palmers, Laird, White, and Hanna, Donald & Wilson.
The E-in-C wanted to ensure that the bids covered the two types of boilers which might be used, the locomotive boilers already in use and various water-tube types. Thus he recommending accepting Laird’s alternative of Normand boilers rather than the Thornycroft boilers already incorporated in the Thornycroft bid. White offered an experimental boiler.
Havock
Yarrow’s HMS Havock was the first British destroyer to be completed. She is shown as on trials, October 1895. As in contemporary torpedo boats, the twin tube aft had its tubes facing in opposite directions, so that a destroyer steaming into an enemy force could fire on either beam. Two more 6-pounders could be carried if the tubes were landed, leaving only the bow torpedo tube. In this drawing both the 12-pounder atop the conning tower and the three 6-pounders have shields. These shields were dismountable, early destroyers sometimes having them in place and sometimes not. The two narrow shapes on deck abaft the forward 6-pounders are folding Berthon boats, a typical fixture on board early British destroyers, HMS Havock was stricken in 1912 and scrapped.
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Havock INBOARD
HMS Havock had locomotive boilers. In an age of fast locomotives it seemed (wrongly, in the end) that their boilers were the key to lightweight machinery. As in any other kind of boiler, the point of the design was to bring as much water as possible into close contact with the heat generated by combustion. In this case that was done by leading the hot gas created by burning coal through a nest of fire-tubes immersed in a mass of water; steam droplets formed around the tubes and rose to the top of the boiler, from which steam was led off into the engine (many locomotives used separate steam domes above their boilers for this purpose, but the boilers shown here did not have them). Under forced draught, combustion was incomplete, pieces of hot coal being blown through the narrow tubes and up the funnel. Unfortunately most of the mass of water in the boiler was not close to the hot tubes, and the sheer mass of water took time to heat up. The boiler could not quickly respond to demands for either more or less steam. Locomotive boilers were never entirely reliable, as their tubes tended to leak. It was also difficult to reinforce so massive a structure to handle the higher steam pressure needed to achieve greater efficiency (boiler pressure was 180psi, probably the practical maximum with such boilers). By the time Havock was building, a variety of water-tube boilers offered a better alternative; she was conceived partly for comparative tests, just as turbines were installed on board destroyers and cruisers a decade later for comparisons with existing reciprocating engines. The engine room shows only the housing atop the cylinders (into which a steam pipe leads) and the condenser outboard. The boilers were back to back, leaving space at the ends for stoking. In contrast to normal Royal Navy practice, in which men slept in hammocks, the compartments for stokers (forward) and deck personnel had berths. Note also that the port propeller was slightly abaft the starboard propeller, probably because both were large-diameter, and would othewise have interfered with each other. The bow shows the internal torpedo tube which only the six prototype destroyers had. Note the chart table (with angled top) above the engine room, the after steering station being well abaft it. With the forward wheel inside the conning tower (which had little visibility), the ship was normally steered from aft, and the chart table may mark the usual conning position.
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Yarrow, Thornycroft and Laird each received a contract for two ships.
In HMS Havock, Yarrow placed one locomotive boiler in each of the two stokeholds. Each had a stoking space at one end and an uptake at the other, the two locomotive boilers pointing in opposite directions and their two funnels close together. For comparative purposes the firm’s HMS Hornet had eight water-tube boilers paired alongside each other (one uptake per pair) in the usual two stokeholds. As each stokehold had a boiler uptake at either end, the result was two closely spaced funnels between two more widely spaced funnels. Both this design and Thornycroft’s placed both deck torpedo tubes in one mounting, pointing in opposite directions, as in many torpedo boats. Later it was considered objectionable (in destroyers) to place the two deck tubes close together, as both might be disabled by a single shot. Havock was reboilered by Hawthorn Leslie with water-tube boilers in 1899–1900, giving her three funnels (two uptakes were trunked into the amidships funnel).
The rejected Hanna, Donald & Wilson design was similar to that of Havock, but with uptakes trunked into one tall funnel. Thomson, which dropped out before submitting a formal bid, offered another two-boiler design, also with uptakes trunked into a single funnel, reminiscent of its successful Destructor.
Thornycroft used three of its water-tube boilers, two of them in the forward stokehold, their stoking spaces at opposite ends and their uptakes trunked together, so the ship had two widely spaced funnels, the fore funnel slightly wider. In a 1900 letter to the Japanese navy ministry, Thornycroft claimed that the Admiralty particularly liked a two-funnel arrangement because it made destroyers difficult to distinguish from torpedo boats (there is no evidence of such a preference in the covers). The ship had Thornycroft’s patent twin rudders.
Laird’s twenty-seven-knotter Boxer was a slightly enlarged version of the firm’s prototype destroyer.
Yarrow’s twenty-seven-knotter Dasher is shown as modernised with four water-tube rather than two locomotive boilers, much as Havock had been (all three Yarrow twenty-seven-knot destroyers were refitted at Earle’s in 1899–1900). The broader (middle) funnel served two boilers, which were mounted end to end. Note the funnel bands, used to indicate a destroyer’s position within a flotilla. The contract for these ships carried the clause allowing the Admiralty to distribute a firm’s drawings among other builders to maintain best practices. Yarrow’s strenuous objections (after agreeing to the clause) caused it to drop out of Royal Navy destroyer construction. The firm’s insistence that it had invented the destroyer was probably associated with this controversy. The cone flying from the yardarm was probably part of a recognition system proposed in 1903 by the Portsmouth Signal School, using simple shapes indicating numbers. Two or more gave the destroyer’s pendants or a torpedo boat’s number. Trials showed that the shapes could be recognised effectively.
Laird placed four Normand boilers in four stokeholds, with engines between the forward and aft stokeholds. Each stokehold thus had a stoking space between the boilers, with uptakes at both ends. With the engines between the two stokeholds, the result was two pairs of funnels. Unlike the other two firms, Laird used single torpedo tubes, one over the engines and one well aft, just forward of the after gun.
Palmers’ rejected design used four du Temple water-tube boilers (three funnels). It was too cramped, with too little space for accommodation (meaning too few stokers), and too little access to machinery. White’s rejected design used twelve of its small (and untested) boilers in three stokeholds, the uptakes in each stokehold being trunked together.
By order of 30 August 1912, these and the twenty-seven-knotters were redesignated as the A class for convenience, although they were not of a uniform design.
The Admiralty saw destroyers as the subject of a rolling production programme, modified from time to time. Given the ‘free hand’ for builders, ships were characterised by the required trial speeds. Thus, the prototypes were twenty-six- or twenty-seven-knotters, and the initial production version was also characterised as a twenty-seven-knotter (the DNC described these as ‘ships of superior speed’). For these ships, the Admiralty sought to expand its production base. Not all firms could boast the expertise of Yarrow or Thornycroft in designing and building lightweight machinery, so the Admiralty circulated their drawings. Yarrow in particular later protested, claiming that its machinery incorporated proprietary information. The Admiralty disagreed vehemently, and for several years after 1895 Yarrow won no Admiralty contracts. Probably as part of its campaign, Sir Alfred Yarrow circulated the claim that he had invented the destroyer. Admiral Fisher’s 1891 memorandum seems to have been printed for Admiralty use in anticipation that the matter might lead to a Parliamentary debate (it did not). It was bound in the set of Papers for Parliamentary Debate, 1896–7.
Doxford’s twenty-seven-knotter Hardy shows her flotilla number (1) on her side in a photograph taken about 1900, as indicated by the combination of Victorian livery and weather cloth around the bridge/gun platform. The broader middle funnel carried two boiler uptakes. The forward torpedo tube was between it and the after funnel, the after tube being abaft the after funnel and the ship’s boat. Officers complained that weather cloths did little to protect them from the spray thrown up by turtlebacks.
Earle’s twenty-seven-knotter Snapper shows her after torpedo tube but not her forward one (between the third and fourth funnels). The firm’s thirty-knotters were similar, but had the middle pair of funnels trunked together. The big ventilators in this photograph mark the stokeholds, shared between pairs of boilers. Trials were protracted, vibration problems proving stubborn, and delays in completion (hence payment) seem to have contributed to the firm’s eventual bankruptcy.
The advent of the destroyer coincided with a new 1893 Naval Defence Act. The 1889 Act had expired, Gladstone was again Prime Minister, and he was still adamantly opposed to naval spending. Another press campaign forced him to accept a new five-year programme, approved in March 1893: seven battleships, thirty cruisers, eighty-two destroyers and thirty torpedo boats.3 The destroyer figure covered thirty-six twenty-seven-knotters ordered in 1893–4, forty-five thirty-knotters, and three faster ‘specials’ ordered under the 1893–4 to 1896–7 Programmes (it is not clear why the total increased to eighty-four).
One design question was whether to repeat the bow tube. It tended to create spray and its weight pulled the bow down in a seaway, but proponents argued that the ships would often be used as torpedo boats, and that only a bow tube gave them a chance of a snap shot against a large ship. Only four recent French torpedo boats did not have such a tube. For his part, Captain S A Beaumont of HMS Excellent (the gunnery school) thought the gun armament too weak; the weight of the stem tube could go instead into guns. In September 1892, Captain Hall, who was still in effect the chief Royal Navy staff officer, argued that the weight of the stem tube should go into ammunition, of which the prototypes had too little. The CO of Vernon (Captain W H May) recommended dispensing with the bow tube, but the DNO disagreed. Moving the tube onto the deck aft would congest ammunition supply to the after guns. The problem of the bow tube could be solved by using a lighter (14in) torpedo and a better-shaped bow cap. When the DNC asked the Controller for a ruling in September 1893, it was too late to do anything about the six prototypes already building.
There was no internal volume for more ammunition, but the weight could go into two more 6-pounders. In October 1893, Second Naval Lord (Sir Frederick Richards) chose Captain May’s solution, which was that since craft were intended ‘to clear the Channel of enemy’s Torpedo Boats’ (ie, not to act as torpedo boats themselves), they should have ‘a clean sharp stem with no projections calculated either to check their speed or throw water inboard when in chase’.
Eaird’s twenty-seven-knotter Contest, like the firm’s prototypes, had her engines between her pairs of boilers. One torpedo tube was above the engine room, the other abaft the after funnel and forward of the after 6-pounder gun. Note the enormous ventilators. The proportion of the ship’s length occupied by funnels suggests the extent to which these fast lightly-built craft were hulls wrapped around high-powered machinery.
Plans originally called for fourteen 1893–4 destroyers, beginning with three each from the two main specialist firms (Thornycroft and Yarrow). By postponing the first-class cruiser programme (Powerful class) to 1894–5 it was possible to increase that to twenty-five destroyers. Sixteen more were planned for the 1894–5 Programme, of which eleven were ordered as twenty-seven-knotters, to make a total of thirty-six twenty-seven-knotters.4 The other five projected ships were ordered instead as thirty-knotters (see below), supplemented by three others.
Thornycroft again offered a three-boiler design, in this case with the two-boiler room abaft the single-boiler room, and uptakes from Nos 1 and 2 boilers trunked together. The double torpedo tube was replaced by two single tubes, one between the funnels (closer to the forefunnel) and one well aft, forward of the after gun.
Yarrow offered a repeat Havock (two locomotive boilers) with two single tubes on deck. All three were reboilered with four water-tube boilers (hence three funnels) by Earle’s in 1899–1900.
Laird larger repeated its prototype (Ferret class), with somewhat increased scantlings to make up for increased stress due to greater length.
Armstrong (Elswick) used eight Yarrow boilers, one uptake per pair, in four boiler rooms, the uptakes from the after pair of the forward room and the forward pair of the after room being trunked together to form one of three funnels. The ships were apparently not well liked, and Armstrong was not asked to tender for thirty-knotters.
Earle’s used eight Yarrow water-tube boilers in two stokeholds, the uptakes from Nos 2 and 3 being separate but close together.
Fairfield used three Thornycroft boilers in two stokeholds, two boilers being in the forward stokehold. Their uptakes were trunked together, giving the ships two funnels.
Hanna, Donald & Wilson used a single relatively fat, short funnel (the only such destroyers of their era). Both torpedo tubes were abaft it. Both ships were later reboilered with four Reed boilers in two boiler rooms, the uptakes from Nos 2 and 3 boilers emerging close together but not trunked together. The firm’s twenty-seven-knotters took the longest to deliver, and apparently never made their twenty-seven knots, even after reboilering.
Hawthorn Leslie used eight Yarrow water-tube boilers in pairs, each pair having one uptake; the uptakes of Nos 2 and 3 boilers were trunked together so that the ship had three funnels.
Palmers used four Reed water-tube boilers in two boiler rooms; the uptakes of Nos 2 and 3 boilers were trunked together.
Thames Iron Works used three White boilers, with a large coal bunker between Nos 1 and 2 boilers. The forward torpedo tube was mounted atop it. Thus the ship had Nos 2 and 3 uptakes close together, No 1 being well forward of them.
White’s twenty-seven-knotter Conflict had three boilers, the two widely separated sharing a common stokehold and coal bunker. The ship is running trials, with torpedo tubes (note the shield on the one between first and second funnels) on board but not guns. Note the shelter right aft. Zebra, the sole ship built by Thames Iron Works, had a similar configuration but with vertical rather than slightly canted funnels. The turtleback destroyers resembled each other because the Admiralty distributed standard general arrangement drawings. Substantial differences in machinery arrangement are indicated by funnel arrangements, and there were considerable differences in hull lines and in internal details.
Thomson (Clydebank) produced a design with four Normand boilers in two stokeholds, the two middle uptakes being trunked together. Note that this firm was later acquired by the Sheffield steel firm of John Brown, changing its name accordingly.
Vickers used four Blechynden boilers in the usual two stokeholds, the middle uptakes being trunked into a single funnel. The forward boiler was slightly smaller than the others. Unusually among twenty-seven-knotters, they had their masts stepped forward of the fore funnel.
White used three of its own boilers, with a coal bunker between the two forward boilers. Engines were abaft the after boiler. The uptakes from Nos 2 and 3 boilers were close together (but separate), the uptake from the fore boiler being well forward, but also well abaft the bridge. Unfortunately the machinery was arranged so that the screws rotated opposite the usual direction, making the ships difficult to handle. White received no thirty-knotter orders.
Ships generally slightly exceeded their required twenty-seven knots on trials, but carried only thirty-five tons compared with the 120 tons carried in service. The difference typically equated to about three knots. For example, HMS Janus made 27.7 knots on trials, but only 23.4 knots at her original seagoing displacement. In September 1909, the twenty-seven-knotters were generally considered good for no more than 20–22 knots at 90 per cent power. It is not clear if these figures reflected a change to more realistic trials displacement.
In 1906, the CO of the China Station commented that ‘it is a matter of common knowledge and of experience that these destroyers cannot be freely handled at high speed in a rough sea without probable damage. At their age and in their present condition this practically amounts to a certainty.’ This was particularly bad for destroyers on a station (China) in which docks and repair facilities were rare. They were no longer fit to operate from an advanced base, or with a fleet.
However, the ships were not so very flimsy. In 1910, Banshee was nearly lost in a Mediterranean gale near Sicily when working with the fleet. The fleet constructor at Malta (W J Berry; later DNC) considered this about the closest approach to a loss that he had seen. Her survival showed the value of her high metacentric height and overall good stability. Even the battleships were rolling heavily. Banshee was constantly swept fore and aft by the sea, rolling so heavily that she sometimes put her davit heads under water. Everything secured above decks was torn away. Her CO kept her head slightly off the direction of the sea to keep his bridge from being swept away. A locker breaking adrift on deck smashed the nut fastening the dog securing a bunker (coaling) plate. When that washed away, the sea entered the bunker and the machinery space. Eventually all lights and circuits in the engine room were short-circuited. Although the ejectors were kept going, the water kept rising in the engine room, staying above the main bearings. The after stokehold had nearly five feet of water in it. The ship’s CO particularly commended his engineer for remaining continuously at his post, encouraging his men to stay at theirs, even though most of them were ‘nearly in a state of collapse from seasickness and lack of food’. Banshee had left Malta with her full coal allowance, so the extra weight in the bunker must have strained her hull. Remarkably, it appeared nearly uninjured, although there was some evidence that some strakes had been strained (butts pulled slightly apart). The situation was so bad that the battleship Cornwallis stood by during the night to save her crew if she foundered, as expected. Berry thought she had been saved by good maintenance, many worn plates having been removed, her garboards doubled, and her deck stiffened. She might have broken her back, given the extra load imposed by the water. Banshee and Bruizer had gone out with the battleships for practice in repelling a torpedo attack.
White’s Wizard is shown after a refit which trunked her two forward funnels together. She has the high topmast typical of British turtlebacks at this time, and the usual boom rigged from her mast to handle boats. The vertical pipe forward of the gun platform/bridge presumably served her galley, and the smaller vertical object atop the bridge is probably a semaphore. The ship was rebuilt in 1903–4, and her funnels trunked in 1910. As finally rebuilt, she had her forward torpedo tube between bridge and forefunnel instead of between forefunnel and middle funnel. Wizard was notorious for manoeuvring problems caused by propellers turning opposite to the usual direction.
For most builders, destroyers represented new technology; construction went slowly. The 1894–5 Estimates were framed on the understanding that progress payments on some of the forty-two ships already on order might be so slow that additional higher-performance ships could be ordered. In July 1894, the DNC pointed out that it was time to exercise that option. Successful ships had already been delivered by Yarrow, Thornycroft, and Laird. Yarrow was already complaining about his plans, but given the quality of his work to date, the DNC wanted him invited to tender for the new thirty-knotters. On 14 August, he asked the three builders for bids in three months, orders to be subject to Treasury approval. The main condition was a contract speed of thirty knots with a thirty-ton load out of a trial displacement of 280–300 tons. Bunker capacity would be at least eighty tons (compared to sixty tons for the previous ships). Complement would be about sixty-five (with accommodation for at least that number, without using galley spaces for messing and sleeping), compared to fifty for the previous ships, reflecting the increased boiler room complement associated with higher power for higher speed.
As before a single designation covered a large number of distinct designs. When class letters were assigned on 30 August 1912, four-funnel thirty-knotters became the B class, three-funnel ships the C class, and two-funnel ships the D class.
As before, the Admiralty supplied an armament arrangement: 12-pounders forward and aft plus four machine guns (0.45in Maxims, chosen over lin Maxims, not 6-pounders). It was argued that 6-pounders could not disable large torpedo boats, but machine guns could sweep away those on deck manning the ship’s guns and torpedo tubes. However, in December 1894, the DNO suggested further alternatives. If 3-pounders replaced the Maxims, one torpedo would have to be landed to compensate. Alternatively the two 12-pounders could be replaced by four 6-pounders plus the four lighter guns (the DNC pointed out that the overall arrangement of the ship allowed no more than eight gun positions). As the new ships were not much larger than twenty-seven-knotters, they had much the same internal volume for ammunition. Capacity in the earlier ships was set by the minimum four-gun configuration (three guns for chasing, plus one on the centreline aft), with one hundred rounds per gun. Since that filled the magazines, there were no more rounds when two more 6-pounders were mounted. A ship with four 6-pounders plus machine guns would have one hundred rounds per 6-pounder. The DNC could offer 150 rounds per 12-pounder if the other guns were 3-pounders, with their small rounds.
As the question was discussed, the machine gun was dropped as being too speculative; it would limit the number of boat-killing guns (the 6-pounder moved back into favour, the Ordnance Committee maintaining that it could destroy a torpedo boat). The DNC’s destroyer expert, Henry Deadman, pointed out in January 1895 that the builders were familiar with the existing arrangement. Both torpedo tubes could easily be retained. The twenty-seven-knotter already offered a maximum torpedo boat killing battery. The twenty-seven-knotter armament was retained. The DNO agreed. The following June (1895), the Controller asked that the after (6-pounder) pedestal be made suitable to take a 12-pounder, but the cost (1½ tons plus another 1½ tons when the heavier gun was mounted) was ruled out as prohibitive – which gives some idea of how delicate these designs were. Given the vibration experienced in the prototypes, it also seemed doubtful that a heavy 12-pounder could be handled from a stern position.
Some of the twenty-seven-knotters already carried full gun armaments and full torpedo armaments. In theory, guns were landed when torpedo tubes were put aboard because the ship should have needed more personnel than it could accommodate (and a new ship designed for full armament should be larger). However, it had already been decided that the thirty-knotters would not have any more personnel to handle their armament. The only real limit on twenty-seven-knotters was stability, which did not apply to all the ships.
Decoy
Thornycroft’s destroyer prototype Decoy is shown in February 1897 carrying her twin torpedo tube and three 6-pounders. Note Thornycroft’s trademark double rudder surrounding her two propellers. They created a kind of tunnel, which Thornycroft claimed improved efficiency and manoeuvrability. The chart table on the 12-pounder platform was the first step towards turning that platform into a bridge (later the chart table was relocated slightly to port to clear the 12-pounder when it was trained right ahead). Decoy also had a chart table (and pelorus) abaft No 1 funnel, to provide a conning position. The ship’s funnels were raised during her 1896–7 refit.
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Decoy INBOARD
Unlike Havock, Decoy had water-tube boilers (note their characteristic steam drums). In such boilers water in tubes is led through the hot gases of combustion. The narrower the tubes, the more of the boiler’s water is closer to the heat. Using tubes also reduced the total amount of water in the boiler. In a thermal sense, the mass of water has a kind of inertia: the more water, the more difficult to heat it up and to turn it down. Water tubes thus made boilers more responsive, and reduced startup time. Small tubes and drums could also handle high pressures and they could better withstand forcing, since the forcing was not applied to the tubes but rather to the furnace proper. Water-tube boilers were smaller and easier to install. The only important disadvantage was that stoking had to be more carefully done. The first water-tube boilers were proposed as early as the 1850s, and the French Navy began using large-tube Belleville boilers on board its warships in 1879. The decisive step for torpedo craft seems to have been the small-tube boiler; different designers used straight or curving tubes, the later more difficult to clean but exposing more water to the heat. Many of the boilers were associated with firms which also specialised in fast small ships: Thornycroft and Yarrow in the United Kingdom, Normand in France. With the introduction of warter-tube boilers, pressure rose to 300psi, was reduced to 210psi, and stabilised at about 250psi, a figure retained through the First World War. The Thornycroft boiler patented in 1885 had a steel steam drum at the apex of an inverted vee, connected to two water drums alongside the furnace. Thornycroft’s design differed from other water-tube boilers in that the tubes entered the steam drum above the water line (other builders preferred ‘drowned’ tubes). Large-diameter downcomers outside the furnace led water back from the steam drum to the two water drums to maintain circulation. Thornycroft used curved tubes. Yarrow’s alternative, patented in 1889, used straight tubes and had no downcomers. J W Reed (patented in 1893) used curved tubes and downcomers. J S White used double spirals of water tubes around the flues of his boiler. The sheer variety of boilers and other machinery led the Admiralty to demand standardisation. From 1906 on the two types used were Yarrow and White-Foster. Decoy’s Thornycroft boilers operated at 215psi; Laird’s Normand boilers operated at 200psi. The early Yarrow water-tube boilers in twenty-seven-knotters operated at 185psi. These coal-burning ships had to provide sufficient space for stokers to shovel coal into the boiler (and sufficient coal had to be stowed within reach of the boiler). Because stoking was hard manual labour, a ship had to accommodate numerous stokers just to maintain high speed. Both stoking space and living space enlarged a ship, increased her displacement, and made it more difficult for her to reach her high contract speed. Critics later pointed out that high trial speeds had been reached with unrealistically light loads (often not including even weapons), and also that ships could not possibly have steamed for long at high speed because they could not carry enough stokers. Note that there is a steering wheel inside the conning tower under the 12-pounder gun forward, but none on the gun platform above, which became an open bridge.
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More speed required much more power (probably 6000ihp rather than 3400ihp or 4000ihp on trials), hence more coal to be burned, and more stokers - who needed more space in a larger hull. The E-in-C doubted that the ships could sustain full speed for more than four hours; after that fires would have to be cleaned (of ashes) ‘and the labour of the men in the stokeholds will become very arduous’. No more than four firemen and two to three trimmers could work simultaneously in a stokehold, feeding its one boiler, so the two stokeholds would require eight firemen and five trimmers working watch to watch. These men would be working much harder than in conventional ships, the fireman handling 18–20cwt and the trimmer 30cwt per hour, compared to 12cwt for each in other ships. The E-in-C doubted that ‘many men will be able to remain on the fires at full speed for more than an hour at a time’. A four-hour run would require thirty-two firemen and twenty trimmers, but the overall size of the ship would limit total complement to sixty to sixty-five. The E-in-C pointed out that engineering complements were still based on the 3400ihp Havock, not having been increased even in the 4000ihp Boxer class, due to ‘the strong desire to keep the numbers as low as possible’. In the new ships, more stokers would be working on watch than would be resting, and no stokers at all would be available for other than machinery duties when off watch.
Plans initially called for invitations to tender for three ships from Thornycroft, three from Yarrow, and one from Laird. Once Laird had successfully delivered the twenty-seven-knotters Ferret and Lynx, it was decided that the three firms should be treated on the same footing, each being asked to tender for two or three destroyers. Eight ships were bought under the 1894–5 Programme.
Yarrow considered more tonnage (350–400 tons) necessary if it had to guarantee thirty-knots speed. In line with its protests against previous circulation of its drawings, it asked that, if the machinery were successful this time, it be compensated.5 Laird expected to exceed the displacement limit (309 tons with an eight-tons margin), considering this tonnage necessary for both steadiness and sufficient access to machinery. Thornycroft offered 315 tons.6 The DNC disliked these options and in February 1895, the three firms were asked to resubmit. Thornycroft and Laird offers of slightly faster repeat twenty-seven-knotters were turned down: all future destroyers would be thirty-knotters or faster, in view of the faster ships now being contemplated by other countries. For example, France was planning larger Haute-Mer boats.
Some of the twenty-seven-knotters exceeded twenty-nine knots on trials, confirming the Admiralty’s view that a thirty-knotter should not be too much larger. Now each firm was willing to stay within the 300-ton limit. Yarrow offered a 200-footer (5700ihp), which the DNC estimated would displace 285 tons, using special steel. Thornycroft proposed a 210-footer (260 tons; 5400ihp), also with high-strength steel; the DNC thought the displacement was underestimated by at least thirty tons, with too little power in that case. Laird offered a 207-footer (300 tons; 6000ihp). Its accommodation, all abaft the machinery, seemed too congested, and the DNC suggested that the ship be lengthened by six or seven feet. Unlike the other firms, Laird offered to use conventional mild steel. All three firms offered inverted triple-expansion engines with single low-pressure cylinders. The E-in-C saw increasing the number of cylinders as a way of reducing crippling vibration at high speed. He asked firms to consider replacing the usual single large diameter low-pressure cylinder with a pair of low-pressure cylinders, one at either end of the engine. He also wanted to hold engine revolutions per minute (rpm) down to 400, and to limit steam pressure.
Fairfield’s twenty-seven-knotter Hart had her two forward boiler uptakes trunked together, the boilers facing in opposite directions, so they were served by two separate stokeholds (one just abaft the bridge, indicated by a large ventilator on deck).
Unusually, her 6-pounder QF guns had shields, as did the 12-pounder atop her conning tower. Torpedo tubes were carried between the funnels and just forward of the after 6-pounder, but the after tube apparently was not mounted when this photo was taken. Hart and her two sisters were the first torpedo craft Fairfield built.
Thornycroft wanted to use three stokeholds (containing, fore to aft, one, two, and one boilers) to limit the ship to two funnels (two pairs of uptakes were trunked together) and to avoid some problems encountered in HMS Daring. The E-in-C considered it essential to limit the ship to two stokeholds for reasons of economy (presumably of personnel). In the end, the company was able to use three larger boilers arranged as in its twenty-seven-knotter, in two stokeholds.
The designs were provisionally approved in April 1895. Yarrow rejected the Admiralty price, so the eight destroyers were bought from Thornycroft (four) and Laird (four). Both builders had to lengthen their ships, Thornycroft to 213 feet (272 tons) and Laird to 213 feet (but still displacing 300 tons).7
Thornycroft’s three-boiler design had two funnels, in effect an enlarged version of its twenty-seven-knotter. In service its double rudders were particularly liked. They formed a sort of tunnel protecting the propellers when going alongside, and they made for good steering when going astern. The ships were criticised for Very indifferent accommodation’. In 1900, Commander Mark Kerr of the Medway Instructional Flotilla considered the Thornycroft bow shape the worst, because it threw up so much water over the bridge. In a seaway, the Thornycroft destroyers had to reduce speed before any others to avoid washing away the bridge rails, screens, and personnel.
Ardent
Thornycroft’s twenty-seven-knotter Ardent was a direct development of his Decoy. She is shown as fitted in April 1896 after refit at Malta. It is not clear whether the shields to the torpedo tubes were actually fitted; they appear in the plan view prepared by Malta Dockyard. The folding boats were ‘reindeer boats’ covered by reindeer hide rather than Berthon boats; they were smaller and less expensive, and they occur frequently in the official records of the time. Note the chart table and pelorus abaft No 1 funnel, forming a forward conning station with good visibility, well away from the conning tower (under the 12-pounder). As yet there was apparently no interest in providing a steering station on the 12-pounder gun platform. In theory, such ships had alternative gunboat (torpedo boat catcher) and torpedo boat armaments, but this drawing shows all the guns and both torpedo tubes.
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He also considered that Thornycroft’s cut-away sterns (for manoeuvrability) made them extremely difficult to steer in a following sea, making them liable to broach to, whereas Hawthorn Leslie destroyers steered and turned as well in better weather.
Thornycroft marketed equivalent designs to foreign navies. A ship of roughly thirty-knotter size and power was sold to Germany as the ‘division boat’ or torpedo boat leader D10. Like the firm’s prototypes, she had a bow tube in addition to two deck tubes; gun armament was five 50mm QF guns. Trial speed, presumably with a realistic load on board, was 27.73 knots. Thornycroft built six Murakomo (derived from the Angler thirty-knotter for the Royal Navy) and two enlarged Shirakumo class. Japanese yards built another seven Harusame class derived (by Thornycroft) from the Murakomos. The Harusames had the after 6-pounders replaced by 12-pounders, a modification which inspired a later British decision to mount more heavy guns in destroyers.
The Shirakumo design used a fourth boiler to achieve higher speed; like Yarrow destroyers, it had the two midships funnels close together a configuration the company’s naval architect S W Barnaby began to consider in December 1899. Contract speed was thirty-one knots. Much the same design was later built for Sweden as Magne. She had a different gun armament – five 57mm. Thornycroft competed with Yarrow for this order, Yarrow winning in August 1901 (with Mode), but a second ship (Magne) was ordered from Thornycroft a few years later. Unlike the Japanese ship, she was armed with five 57mm guns. She was apparently a better sea-boat than the Yarrow design.8
Hawthorn Leslie’s twenty-seven-knotter Sunfish is shown before 1900, when she was given higher funnels. Note her gun shields. Since she has all of her 6-pounders on board, she does not have the after torpedo tube, normally carried just forward of the after 6-pounder.
Vickers’ twenty-seven-knotter Starfish and her sisters were unusual in having their masts between forefunnel and bridge. The ship shows both her midships (between second and third funnels) and after (abaft the boat) torpedo tubes, and also appears to have all five 6-pounders on board. By about 1901 funnels had been raised above the level of the bridge. When this ship was built, the firm was the Naval Construction & Armaments Co Ltd, Barrow (later Vickers). Starfish was involved in the trials of the first British ASW weapon, a charge on a swinging boom. Experiments began in September 1900, using an ordinary forty-two-foot spar. A spar fixed ahead, as in a steam launch, was broken at a speed of eight knots. A spar fixed on the beam (charge at ten-foot depth) vibrated badly and broke at nine knots. A swinging outrigger projecting outward and down broke at 17.5 knots when tested on board the destroyer Teazer. One advantage was that the boom could not foul the propeller. Further tests with Starfish established that charges as large as 51 lbs. The 1904 Vernon annual report described an alternative, Captain Ogilvey’s ‘Otter’, a towed charge (contact-fuzed) intended to attack submerged submarines.
Thornycroft also designed the Italian Nembo class, which resembled the company’s thirty-knotters. These were built by the Pattison yard in Naples, with which Thornycroft was associated. In addition, the company tried but failed to sell turtle-back destroyers to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Italy, Russia and Spain.9
Laird offered the same arrangement as in the twenty-seven-knotters, but with four-cylinder engines (two LP cylinders). Its destroyers were criticised for their wide turning circles. They squatted excessively when at high speed. Exports amounted to one ship for Russia (Som or Boevoi) and two classes for Chile (four Capitan Orella class and two Capitan Merino Jarpa class). The Capitan Merino Jarpa class omitted a bow torpedo tube fitted to their predecessors. Boevoi had a lower rated speed (27.5 knots) despite having the typical thirty-knotter power plant, hence was presumably intended to run trials at realistic load. Unlike the Chilean ships, she had a reduced armament of one 11-pounder and five 3-pounders, with two 15in torpedo tubes.
Yarrow export designs may be compared to the thirty-knotters other builders produced for the Royal Navy. In 1894, Yarrow laid down the destroyer Sokol (or Pruitki) for Russia. She had eight Yarrow boilers in four stokeholds, the two middle funnels being close together (a sort of Yarrow trademark). She was the first destroyer in the world to exceed thirty knots on trials (1895). Russian yards built twenty-six repeat ships of the Puilki class, completed 1898–1903. They had four or eight Yarrow boilers. Speeds did not match that of the prototype. The twenty-two larger Boiki class were also built in Russia to a Yarrow design, with the usual four boilers and four funnels. They were completed 1902–5. Compared with British thirty-knotters, these ships had considerably less gun power, one 11-pounder and three 3-pounder (later replaced by a second 11-pounder).
Yarrow then built four armoured destroyers (Corrientes class) for Argentina in 1896–8. In contrast to the other ships, these had three boilers (in effect, the forward boiler in the forward stokehold was omitted), possibly as weight compensation for the protection, amounting to a waterline belt (0.5in to 0.8in) over boilers and engines. Armament was a 3in (14-pounder) forward atop the conning tower, three 6-pounders aft on the centreline, and the usual two single torpedo tubes. Rated speed was twenty-seven knots (4200ihp).
Yarrow reportedly developed the Ikazuki class for Japan from the Argentine Corrientes design; this was the first destroyer class in the Imperial Japanese Navy. The company built six Ikazuki class and two Akatsuki class, all with the characteristic closely paired midships funnels, in their case upright rather than raking. Sazanami of the Ikazuki class was described as an excellent sea-boat. Her mean speed on three-hour trials was 31.385 knots. Trial load was thirty-five tons (as in a thirty-knotter), and she required 390 revolutions per minute (rpm) to make her speed. A commentary in the Engineer mentioned that the installed margin of 100ihp per boiler was noticeable on trials. She had four Yarrow water-tube boilers feeding Yarrow four-cylinder engines. Armament matched British practice, but the Akatsukis had a second 12-pounder in place of the after 6-pounder.
Yarrow and Thornycroft built the first two Swedish destroyers, respectively Mode and Magne, the latter being considerably larger. On trial in 1902, Mode exceeded thirty-two knots, apparently using oil sprayed on her burning coal to increase boiler output. Both ships were more lightly armed than those in British service, with six 6-pounder guns.
Yarrow designed a destroyer for Portugal, possibly the twenty-five-knot Tejo built by Lisbon Dockyard.
The 1895–6 Programme included twenty ships. The first twelve orders went to Thornycroft (four), Laird (four), for repeat ships, and to Thomson (four).
Desperate
Thornycroft’s thirty-knotter Desperate is shown as completed (February 1897). Note the company’s trademark underslung double rudders, surrounding the twin propellers to form a kind of tunnel. On trial she just made her guaranteed speed (30.006 knots on 5901ihp at 276.6 tons). Note the chart table and pelorus, to conn the ship, between first and second funnels. Presumably it would have been used in conjunction with the wheel in the conning tower or that right aft, if the 12-pounder platform had to be used for gunnery, otherwise the latter functioned as the ship’s bridge: note the wheel and the chart table. Note too the booms swung out below the 12-pounder to handle the ship’s anchors. By this time Thornycroft was operating boilers at 220psi.
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Thomson’s twenty-seven-knotter Rocket shows the standard topmast added about 1901. The appearance of the firm’s thirty-knotters was similar. Thomson (Clydebank) was an important builder; it changed its name to John Brown when it was acquired by the Sheffield steel firm of that name. The uptakes of the two middle boilers were trunked together into the fatter middle funnel, as in many turtlebacks. Note the canvas covering the space usually occupied by the 6-pounder at the after end of the turtleback. All of the turtlebacks lacked sufficient crew space, and the canvas may have covered extemporised bunk space. Note also the structure built up aft. HMS Rocketwas disarmed for wireless experiments in 1910.
Armstrong’s twenty-seven-knotter Spitfire is shown passing Southsea Castle as she enters Portsmouth in 1898. This ship and her sister Spiteful were the only early destroyers built by Armstrong, which at the time was the greatest British arms producer. Neither was considered particularly satisfactory, and Armstrong was not invited to bid for the 1897–8 destroyers. These had limited stability; after a 1903 inclining experiment it was decided that they should carry only one torpedo each.
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Thornycroft’s thirty-knotter Foam is in post-Victorian livery, dressed overall, and painted matte black for concealment during a night attack. The Royal Navy experimented with various colour schemes for night invisibility. In addition to glint off the ship’s side, a destroyer moving at speed showed a white bow wave and she would probably throw burning embers up from her funnels (this problem disappeared with the adoption of oil fuel). Tactics therefore envisaged an approach at the lowest possible speed, the ships accelerating only when they were either near the target or visible. Note the screen in front of the wheel on the gun platform, incorporating a chart table. Until the middle of the First World War, British destroyers carried the wheel on the same level as the officers and the chart table. In the V & W classes and in leaders was the open bridge moved up one level, separating it from the ship’s wheel. In 1902, the armament of all destroyers more than 210 feet long was set at one 12-pounder, five 6-pounders, and two torpedo tubes, all smaller ships having reduced batteries.
Thomson produced, in effect, a stretched version of its twenty-seven-knotter, again with four Normand boilers and three funnels. The company exported two Furor and four Audaz class destroyers to the Spanish Navy. They were essentially British thirty-knotters with heavier gun armament: two 14-pounders, two 6-pounders, and two 1-pounder Maxim machine guns, plus two 14in torpedo tubes. Of the second series, Proserpina had two rather than three funnels.
On 1 October 1895, the DNC pointed out that it was time to order the remaining eight ships. The remaining orders being small, inquiries were to be limited to Yarrow, to Palmers (Jarrow), to Vickers (Barrow), and to Fairfield. Designs and tenders were due on 5 November 1895. This time Yarrow did not tender, because of its workload for foreign customers.10
Vickers’ thirty-knotter Avon is shown in 1906, in the black paint intended to make her difficult to see during a night attack. Note the external stiffening strakes on her turtleback. The large object on her lower mast is her chart table, which could be used from the aft extension of her bridge/gun platform. It had been moved from in front of the platform, where it obstructed the field of fire of the 12-pounder gun. The wide amidships funnel served the after boiler in the forward boiler room and the forward funnel in the after boiler room. The torpedo tubes were between the first and midships funnels and abaft the after funnel (in the later Vickers-built HMS Vixen, the forward tube was moved back to between the midships and after funnels).
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Laird’s thirty-knotter Wolf is shown as built, in Victorian livery. She was tested in a drydock in 1904 to confirm estimates of the stress and strain on a destroyer’s hull structure, as part of an investigation ordered after several ships broke up in severe weather. However, she was not tested to destruction, and she survived to fight in the First World War. By 1914, a tall topmast had been added, and she had a shorter mainmast, presumably to support a wireless antenna. Her sister, Seal, had a searchlight at the after end of her bridge/gun platform, which also carried the vertical pole of a semaphore used for visual signalling (preferred, in such lively ships, to flags). The approved depth charge armament (April 1918) was two throwers and eighteen charges, weight compensation being the after gun and the torpedo tubes. Ships so equipped, in addition to Wolf, were Albacore, Avon, Dove, Conflict*, Earnest, Express, Fervent*, Griffon, Kestrel, Lively, Opossum*, Orwell, Osprey, Porcupine*, Roebuck, Seal, Spiteful, Sprightly, Sun fish*, Thorn and Zephyr*. Asterisks indicate twenty-seven-knotters. In 1918, many ships were issued stick bombs which could be fired from their 12-pounder guns; they surrendered an additional 6-pounder gun when so fitted. By this time ships typically had four rather than the original five 6-pounders.
The Vickers thirty-knotters had four Thornycroft boilers, with Nos 2 and 3 uptakes trunked together as in the twenty-seven-knotters. The company was unsuccessful in exporting thirty-knotters.
Palmers offered much the same configuration as in its twenty-seven-knotter, with four boilers and three funnels. Its ships were considered good at sea, with good accommodation. In 1900, Mediterranean destroyer commander John de Robeck wanted the living arrangements in new ships to follow that of the Palmers and Hawthorn Leslie destroyers. Engineer officers apparently liked the Palmers destroyers better than any others. Twenty more destroyers were included in the 1896–7 Programme: seventeen thirty-knotters and three faster ‘specials’.11 These brought the total built under the new Naval Defence Act to eighty-four – two more than it included.
Doxford offered four boilers in two boiler rooms, with uptakes from Nos 2 and 3 trunked together.
Earle’s offered four Thornycroft boilers in two boiler rooms, with uptakes from Nos 2 and 3 trunked together. A tender for repeat ships in the 1897–8 Programme was rejected, because the two 1896–7 ships had not yet run trials.
Fairfield used four Thornycroft boilers in two stokeholds, with the middle two uptakes trunked together.
Hawthorn Leslie used four Thornycroft boilers in its 1896–7 destroyers, the middle uptakes being trunked together. These ships were about as well liked as Palmers. In 1900, Commander Mark Kerr (Medway Instructional Flotilla) considered these two ships ‘without doubt the best sea-boats’. The firm’s 1898–9 ships used Yarrow boilers, similarly arranged.
Earnest
Laird’s thirty-knotter Earnest is shown in 1909, as refitted at Chatham. During this refit the compass platform and chart table between first and second funnels was deleted, together with ready-service containers and the chart table on the 12-pounder gun platform. The shield to the forward gun may also have been deleted, but it may merely not have been installed at this time. The pole to port of the 12-pounder supported an electric light used for signalling. Unusually, each of the ship’s four Normand water-tube boilers (230psi) had its own uptake (trunking two uptakes together obstructed the smoke path and presumably reduced the draught produced by the funnel). Orwell (1897–8 instead of 1895–6 Programme) was very similar but slightly shorter (by 1ft 3in) and drew slightly less water (9ft 7in instead of 9ft 9in). Laird sold similar boats to Spain. Palmers used Reed boilers (250psi), which were soon rejected in favour of Thornycroft and Yarrow boilers.
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Palmers’ thirty-knotter Whiting is shown making 31.9 knots on trials. The firm’s twenty-seven-knotters were similar in appearance, both having four boilers with the middle pair of uptakes trunked together, and the engines abaft the boilers. Spiteful and four later ships (Kangaroo, Myrmidon, Peterel and Syren) had two separate funnels, close together, instead of the broader middle funnel. The main initial modification, common to all British turtlebacks, was to add a topmast (Bat had one by 1905). Flirt of this class was the first (in 1902) to have a searchlight mounted aboard, at the after end of the bridge. It proved satisfactory, the beam passing over the heads of those on the bridge. However, later the standard fit was a larger light on a raised platform (Bat may have been the first of this type so modified, by 1905). Some units without searchlights had a vertical semaphore pole on the bridge. During the First World War, an enclosed bridge was built at the after end of the gun platform, under the raised searchlight platform, and the fore and aft guns enclosed in tubs. The waist area occupied by two 6-pounders was plated in to add accommodation. These changes applied to most surviving turtleback destroyers.
Thomson’s Furor, seen on builder’s trials, was essentially its thirty-knotter built for the Spanish Navy. She was sunk at Santiago while trying to help the Spanish squadron there break out. Armament was two 14-pounders, two 6-pounders, two 1-pounder Maxim machine guns, and two 14in torpedo tubes. The four Audaz class (of which Pluton was sunk at Santiago) were slightly larger.
All three ‘specials’ were also four-boiler ships. Thornycroft placed its machinery abaft the boilers, bringing the uptakes from Nos 2 and 3 boilers close together. They were trunked into a single funnel, the ship having three. Thomson (also with machinery abaft the boilers) had the two uptakes separated, giving two closely spaced funnels between the forward and after funnels. Laird placed the engines between the two boiler rooms, so its Express had four funnels at equal intervals.
The ninety ships built under the 1892–3 to 1896–7 programmes apparently nearly fulfilled overall Royal Navy requirements: the initial 1897–8 Estimates showed only two ships. A supplement added four, including the prototype turbine destroyer Viper.12 The DNC was unwilling to take the next step up in speed until the three ‘specials’ had been completed and tested (Arab had not yet been begun, its builder, Thomson, still trying to achieve thirty knots in earlier ships).13 It appeared that the additional two or three knots cost about a third more in cost. Yet there was little reason to imagine that such ships would show similarly better speeds in anything but a flat calm; indeed, the limit of sea speed was generally set by conditions rather than by available power. It also seemed unlikely that the four new French destroyers, included in their 1897 Supplementary Programme, would be as fast as the thirty-knotters.14
The DNC informed potential bidders that conditions would be the same as those in the previous invitation to tender (February 1896), but that firms should feel free to offer higher speeds. Invitations were not sent to Thames Iron Works, Armstrong, White, and Hanna, Donald & Wilson. Yarrow again declined to tender. Thornycroft offered a repeat version of the Coquette class that it was already building, with somewhat increased power. Palmers offered to repeat its successful Star. Fairfield offered to repeat its Gipsy, which had not yet attained thirty knots, but was considered certain to do so. Laird offered a repeat of the Earnest class that it was already building, with improvements such as the use of high-tensile steel in some parts of its structure. Vickers offered a slightly enlarged and more powerful repeat version of the ships it had built, the DNC commenting that considerable machinery problems had so far prevented the company’s destroyers from making their designed speed. Earle’s proposed a slightly lengthened repeat Bullfinch, but none of its thirty-knotters had yet been completed. Having failed to reach contract speed with the five destroyers it had built (Brazen class), Thomson offered a considerably larger ship with the same machinery. The DNC noted that it still showed the crowded crews’ quarters that had been considered objectionable in the earlier ship. Hawthorn Leslie proposed a repeat version of its Cheerful, under construction, with Thornycroft boilers. Doxford proposed repeating its Violet, which was still building. Not surprisingly, the DNC chose Thornycroft, Palmers, Fairfield, and Laird, but it is not as obvious why Doxford was chosen.
The Palmers Spiteful (1897–8 Programme), its three ships of the 1898–9 Programme (Peterel, Myrmidon and Syren) and its single 1900–1 ship (Kangaroo) all had the middle uptakes separate, as closely spaced double funnels, unlike the trunked funnels of the company’s earlier ships. Peterel was laid down on spec, but offered to the Royal Navy as part of a three-destroyer bid.
Originally, the 1898–9 Programme would have included no destroyers, but in July 1898 the House of Commons approved a supplemental programme (1898–9 Estimates) of four battleships, four cruisers, and twelve destroyers. Initially, the idea was to get ships quicky by simply duplicating earlier thirty-knotters. However, First Lord Sir George Goschen suggested trading greater structural strength for speed, preferring a twenty-seven-knotter ‘which was less often in dock and less liable to accident to a thirty-knot vessel as liable to accident as these boats have been …’.15 The E-in-C and the DNC reassured him; ships were already quite strong, as demonstrated when they survived numerous collisions and other accidents.
Like the Palmers ships, Doxford’s 1898–9 destroyer Success had her two middle uptakes separate rather than trunked together.
The specification issued to bidders asked that the ships be arranged to burn either coal alone, oil alone, or a combination. Thornycroft in particular was asked to separate its torpedo tubes more widely. Prospective bidders were the five companies which had been selected the previous year, plus Yarrow (given its numerous foreign sales). The E-in-C suggested adding Hawthorn Leslie and Vickers, whose destroyers had recently run successful trials. By April 1899, tenders for all twelve destroyers had been accepted.16
Doxford’s thirty-knotter HMS Violet was essentially an enlarged version of the firm’s twenty-seven-knotter. Note the flotilla number on the bow. The small objects abaft the third funnel are small portable ventilators for living spaces, which would be removed prior to battle, as otherwise they would foul the torpedo tubes. Structures between the second and third funnel would seem to block the torpedo tube normally mounted there.
Hawthorn Leslie’s HMS Greyhound is shown in 1906 with a Devonshire class armoured cruiser. These and Palmers’ were considered the best of the thirty-knotters.
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Four more thirty-knot destroyers, already under construction, plus a second prototype turbine destroyer, were bought under the 1900–1 Programme.17
When the two prototype turbine destroyers were lost in 1901, the Admiralty sought immediate replacements, citing the rapid increase in French submarines as justification. Two destroyers were then building on spec at Cammell Laird, and in October 1901 the Admiralty bought them as HMS Lively and HMS Sprightly – in effect the last of the thirty-knotters. They were paid for partly under the 1901–2 Estimates and mainly under the 1902–3 Estimates.
The main service complaints were that engines and hulls were too flimsy, and that funnels were too short (hence flamed, giving away the position of an attacking destroyer at night). The River class (see Chapter 5) in effect answered the first. In reviewing designs, the DNC generally sought greater hull strength. He also pointed out that contractors had not skimped to save money; only a few cases (‘where the price was clearly extravagant’) was a contractor asked to reduce his tender price. ‘We have every reason to believe that the construction of TBD has on the whole been more profitable than that of any other type of vessel ordered by the Admiralty and this is shown by the great eagerness of the various Contractors to obtain orders for as many as possible.’ It seemed, moreover, that the Admiralty was getting better ships at lower prices than those charged to foreign buyers by British yards.
HMS Fairy was a Fairfield thirty-knotter. The company’s twenty-seven-knotters had their two forward boiler uptakes trunked together, but in these ships they were separate. Barely visible here is the upper part of the ship’s rudder, which was mounted directly on the stern. Note also the flotilla number on the bridge, and the boat-handling boom to the mast. On 31 May 1918, Fairy rammed and sank the much larger German submarine UC 75, sinking in the process.
Having withdrawn, in effect, from competition for Admiralty orders, Yarrow pursued export sales. The Japanese Sazanami (Ikazuki class) was its equivalent of the thirty-knotter: 220ft 9in × 20ft 6in × 5ft 3in (305 tons), with a rated speed of thirty-one knots (6000ihp), armed with the usual British weapons: one 12-pounder, five 6-pounders, and two 18in tubes. The Japanese later replaced the after 6-pounder with a 12-pounder, crediting this increased firepower with success in fights against Russian destroyers during the Russo-Japanese War. This experience in turn inspired the rearmament of British River class destroyers. Follow-on classes (Akatsuki, Shirakumo and Akebono) had similar funnel arrangments, which recalled that of the British destroyer prototype Hornet (contemporary Japanese destroyers of Thornycroft design could be distinguished by their raked funnels). Sazanami is shown before her delivery trip, as yet unarmed.
(photo by west & son of southsea
courtesy us navy)
Seas tended to wash up over the bridge platform built atop the conning tower. Individual officers had screens built around the bridges, up to eye level, without which it was impossible to navigate or to steer when steaming against a wind and head sea. The screens obstructed the field of fire of the 12-pounder, which shared the bridge. It also obstructed the searchlight on this platform, which was effective only when pointing abeam.
By June 1900, it was already being suggested that trial conditions were unrealistic. Of the Medway instructional boats, only Ariel had ever run twenty-eight nautical miles in one hour at service trim. The DNC had no objection to running trials at full load, the nominal speed of a thirty-knotter being reduced to 27–28 knots. Destroyer officers wondered whether destroyer hull forms were unduly influenced by the required maximum speed. The DNC’s destroyer specialist, Henry Deadman, replied that this was not the case, and that model tests and trials showed that small changes in hull form had practically no influence on power required at maximum speed for a given displacement. This was generally true for all small ships driven at speeds considerably greater than that for which their lengths were suitable.
By June 1900, funnels were being raised, and in new ships the specified height was thirteen feet.
As the thirty-knotters were entering service, the Germans began building seagoing torpedo boats which seemed roughly comparable, capable of somewhat higher speeds. In his 1898 report on the German fleet and its dockyards, Captain H B Jackson, who would soon be senior destroyer officer in the Mediterranean, reported that new Schichau destroyers made thirty knots on 6000ihp, compared with thirty knots for HMS Boxer at 4590ihp. The German (Schichau) ship was roughly comparable to a thirty-knotter in length and in displacement. Engineering reported that a Schichau destroyer built for China (Hai Lung) had a contract speed of thirty-two knots, but made 35.2 knots fully outfitted with thirty-five tons of coal (out of a sixty-seven-ton capacity) on board. She would make thirty knots with bunkers full at natural (not forced) draught, and 32.6 knots at full draught with bunkers full. Did the Germans know something British destroyer builders had missed? They seemed to be doing much better than the French, against which British destroyers were expected to fight. The DNC was compelled to answer, because the British press was asking why the Germans were doing so much better than the British.
Thomson’s Arab was a ‘special’ intended to make thirty-two knots, using four Normand boilers to generate 8600ihp. Like the other ‘specials,’ she failed to reach her designed speed. On her best single run, on 20 May 1901, she made 30.769 knots on 8250ihp at a displacement of 430 tons. She was delivered the following year, still not having made anything like her designed speed. This unhappy experience helped convince the Admiralty that high paper destroyer speeds were meaningless. Arab is shown in 1909. Between the two closely spaced midships funnels was the bulkhead between her two fire rooms, each of which contained two boilers with a stoking space between them. The searchlight, on a platform just above the bridge, was added about 1903 (it is visible in a 1904 photograph).
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The DNC was sceptical. On the given dimensions, no British hull form would give 35.2 knots at 230 tons for 6000ihp. If trial displacement was 280 tons, he could compare the supposed German data with that for HMS Boxer, the hull of which weighed ninety-eight tons and the machinery weighed another 114 tons (total 212 tons), and which developed 4540ihp on trials. For the Schichau boat, he estimated one hundred tons for the hull and 125 tons for machinery; equipment would weigh another thirty tons, and with twenty-five tons of coal trial displacement would be 280 tons, not 230 tons. Experience to date showed that British destroyers did not have unduly heavy hulls; their strength margins were thin. The DNC concluded that the published data were false – the ship could not get her claimed power on the given weight of machinery and it was apparently impossible to get the 35.2 knots even on 230 tons. British thirty-knotters were about twenty feet longer than the Schichau ships, with the same beam, hence should be easier to drive. The DNC noted that comparable German ships were credited with only thirty knots at 200 tons.
Albatross
HMS Albatross was Thornycroft’s version of the 32–3 knot ‘special’. She is shown in January 1901, having been completed the previous July. Albatross made 32.29 knots on trials. She had four Thornycroft boilers (240psi), the uptakes from the middle pair being trunked together into the middle funnel. Besides raising pressure, the output of a boiler could be increased by enlarging its grate (fuel-burning) area. Boilers were rated in terms of pounds of steam produced per square foot of grate. This increase was limited, as long as boilers burned coal, by the ability of human stokers to feed the furnace. Thus, for coal-burners, more power meant more boilers. The situation changed radically once oil fuel was adopted, not only because oil produces more heat per pound, but because the amount of fuel fed into each boiler could increase without providing more space in front of the furnace door, or more stokers to shovel fuel in. Note the chart table and wheel on the 12-pounder gun platform, which doubled as the ship’s open bridge – as in other British destroyers of this time. The three objects just abaft the forward 6-pounders are Berthon boats. Displacement: 380 tons light, 485 tons fully loaded.
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Albatross
HMS Albatross was Thornycroft’s version of the 32–3 knot ‘special’. She is shown in January 1901, having been completed the previous July. Albatross made 32.29 knots on trials. She had four Thornycroft boilers (240psi), the uptakes from the middle pair being trunked together into the middle funnel. Besides raising pressure, the output of a boiler could be increased by enlarging its grate (fuel-burning) area. Boilers were rated in terms of pounds of steam produced per square foot of grate. This increase was limited, as long as boilers burned coal, by the ability of human stokers to feed the furnace. Thus, for coal-burners, more power meant more boilers. The situation changed radically once oil fuel was adopted, not only because oil produces more heat per pound, but because the amount of fuel fed into each boiler could increase without providing more space in front of the furnace door, or more stokers to shovel fuel in. Note the chart table and wheel on the 12-pounder gun platform, which doubled as the ship’s open bridge – as in other British destroyers of this time. The three objects just abaft the forward 6-pounders are Berthon boats. Displacement: 380 tons light, 485 tons fully loaded.
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All early destroyers suffered from excessive spray forward. Yarrow seems to have been the first to try trunking uptakes as a way of solving the problem. The Austrian Huszar was an Akebono in which the first funnel was trunked aft above decks to bring it closer to the second funnel. It became possible to build a conventional bridge well abaft the turtleback, hence much drier. Huszar is shown, not yet armed, in the Thames in 1905 before delivery. The Austrian ships had one of their two torpedo tubes between the bridge and the turtleback. Austrian ordered eleven more ships, plus a replacement when Huszar ran aground and sank, and China planned twelve more; the only one built was taken over by Austria-Hungary on the outbreak of war. Yarrow used much the same technique in the eight Dutch Fret class (their first destroyers, with forecastles rather than turtlebacks) and in four Greek Thyella class destroyers (whose turtlebacks continued aft to nearly the bridge, hence did not have torpedo tubes forward). Yarrow’s seems to have been the first attempt to move uptakes, which were the major fixed items in topside arrangement. In 1903, in connection with further River class destroyers, the firm proposed this type of trunking not to move the bridge aft but to move the forefunnel away from the bridge to avoid smoking. The idea of rearranging uptakes would be revived during the First World War.
During the Boxer Rebellion, the Royal Navy captured one of the Chinese Schichau boats. Renamed HMS Taku, she could be examined to test the claims made two years earlier. In September 1900, the DNC asked for detailed particulars, including a body plan. She was far more lightly loaded than a British destroyer, with six 47mm (1.9in) Hotchkiss QF guns and two 14in torpedo tubes. Her hull was shallower than that of a comparable British ship, hence weaker. It also appeared that she was more lightly built than a British destroyer. Accommodation for officers was equal to that in British destroyers, but the seamen’s mess deck was so crowded that five fewer seamen had to be carried than in a British ship. The cooking galley on deck was very inconvenient in a seaway. Metacentric height compared well with British practice, but the range of stability was considerably poorer, and the maximum righting arm was at a smaller angle. In September 1904, her CO stated that at some time her hull had clearly been strained, and that even though defects had been made good, she was not fit for continuous steaming at high speed. He did not want to steam her continuously at more than twenty-four knots even in smooth water. In October, her CO reported that since going to sea the upper deck forward of her engine room had buckled considerably, particularly just abaft her funnels; the deck of the conning tower and the forward deck were distorted; the bulkheads of the forward and middle stokeholds were bulged (bunker door guides had to be eased back to be removed, the doors no longer being watertight), and rivets of the stay supporting the conning towers had torn the deck, causing leaks. Tank tests showed that the Taku hull form was not as well adapted to high speed as that of a British thirty-knotter. It is not clear how well Taku performed on British trials.
Viper, the first prototype British turbine destroyer, was built under a contract with the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Co Ltd, which tendered for one ship on 12 January 1898. The company subcontracted the hull to Hawthorn Leslie. Parsons guaranteed thirty-one knots, and contracted to try for higher speeds. The ship had four shafts, the two inner shafts carrying astern turbines, each with two tandem propellers, to absorb the power at high turbine revolutions without cavitation. Separate shafts were driven by high- and low-pressure turbines. No special arrangements were made for cruising at low speed. Turbines were abaft the four boilers (in the usual two stokeholds), and the uptakes from the two middle boilers were trunked together, giving three funnels.
On her official coal consumption trial, on 16 August 1900, Viper made 31.017 knots at 951.2rpm, more than twice the revolutions rate of a typical thirty-knotter. Estimated power output (there was no dynamometer to check) was 8400ihp. Displacement when leaving for trials was 385 tons. On 31 August, Viper made a mean speed of 33.57 knots at 1046.1rpm, at a displacement of 393 tons. Later, the ship reportedly made a mean speed of 36.858 knots at about 12,500ihp, making Viper by far the fastest ship afloat. The E-in-C later commented that in Viper and the second prototype Cobra the boilers were forced ‘to a much greater extent than had been done in any destroyers with reciprocating engines’.
Coal economy was poor at cruising speed. Turbines were efficient only at full speed. Also, propellers designed for thirty-six knots had so much blade area that they created considerable drag at low speed, as did the oversized propeller bosses and brackets needed to deal with full power. For simplicity, moreover, Vipers Yarrow boilers lacked the usual additions to improve economy at low speed. In an October 1900 letter to The Times justifying the ship’s design, Parsons pointed to the emphasis on maximum speed, with coal consumption clearly secondary.
Express
HMS Express was Laird’s version of the 32–3 knot ‘special’, shown as completed in December 1902. Completion was protracted, because she achieved no better than 30.97 knots on initial trials. She was considerably heavier than Albatross (465 tons light, 565 tons fully loaded), and had four French Normand boilers (240psi). The wheel on the bridge/gun platform, but not the chart table, is shown.
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HMS Viper was the first British turbine destroyer. She is shown on initial trials, as yet without armament. The chart table and steering stand on her gun platform are clearly visible.
The ship’s CO reported that, compared with other destroyers, Viper notably had little or no vibration except at very high speeds, and even then comparatively little. She could maintain her speed accurately, and she steered well. Because only the inner two shafts had astern turbines, unlike other destroyers she could not use her propellers to manoeuvre. She gathered and lost way relatively slowly because she burned so much coal below maximum speed (the CO asked for twenty more stokers, but the ship could accommodate only five), but she did so very smoothly compared to destroyers with piston engines. High fuel consumption at cruising speed would have been crippling in practice. Based at Portland, she had been unable to blockade Alderney (a typical exercise simulating covering a French torpedo boat base) for more than twenty-four hours.18
On trials, with all stokers working, she could make 31.5 knots for a short period, and she could maintain 30.5 knots for half an hour. With stokers working on a two-watch basis, she could maintain twenty-six knots. Ultimately the only way to maintain high speed would be to turn to oil fuel, which required many fewer stokers per boiler. Viper was further handicapped by Parsons’ use of separate turbine-driven air pumps for each boiler room, which had to be watched by their own stokers (in later ships the air pumps would be driven by the main shaft).
Alongside the first destroyers the Admiralty ordered 140-foot torpedo boats, which in appearance were miniature destroyers. This is Thornycroft’s builder’s model of TB 93, with the same bow tube and double deck tube as the company’s Daring. As in the destroyer, the two tubes of the deck mounting point in opposite directions. Note Thornycroft’s characteristic double rudder, forming a tunnel around the single propeller. This model is in the Science Museum, South Kensington.
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Viper was lost in 1901 when she ran aground at full speed during exercises to test her under service conditions. Commander Douglas Nicholson, in charge of the Portland destroyers, considered her no great loss. ‘The turbine is a very pretty toy, but until its expensive attributes are abated I don’t regard it as anything but a toy.’ The E-in-C thought the glass half full rather than half empty; the turbine would be well worthwhile as soon as its low-speed fuel consumption had been cured. Since he (and the Board) saw it as the engine of the future, he badly wanted to replace Viper.
Armstrong (Elswick) laid down a turbine destroyer on spec (as Yard No 674) about a year after Viper (26 June 1899). Compared with Viper, the ship was longer and beamier, and would be heavier.19 Elswick’s destroyer had been designed for export, with what the DNC considered inferior fittings and structure. Having failed to find a buyer, the company offered the ship to the Admiralty on 12 December 1899. She was bought (as HMS Cobra) on 9 May 1900, the same day as the Palmers on-spec destroyer Kangaroo. The Admiralty sought a guaranteed speed of thirty-four knots with forty tons of coal on board. Girder plates under the boilers had to be strengthened, but otherwise the design was accepted. The Royal Navy overseer at Elswick thought that her hull structure had been derived form that of the firm’s twenty-seven-knotters, and that it did not incorporate any later improvements. She was clearly substantially weaker than all other British destroyers, having no girders under the deck abaft her galley (on the slip her stern sagged). The ship was bought because experience with turbines was so badly needed. The contractors expected Cobra to burn thirteen tons per hour at full power, for which she would need twenty-four more stokers than the typical thirty-knotter. She had four funnels in two widely separated pairs, her turbines between her two boiler rooms. She had three propellers on each of four shafts.
On trials at Newcastle on 21 August 1900, Cobra, which was substantially larger than Viper, averaged 31.121 knots at 1049.5rpm (average) on six runs. She broke up near Cromer on her delivery voyage in September 1901, prompting formation of a committee to review the strength of all existing British destroyers. When lost, Cobra displaced an estimated 490 tons, which increased stresses, but not, it appears, to the point that she should simply have broken up. She might have struck floating debris just before breaking up.20
To reduce low-speed fuel consumption, Parsons proposed adding small reciprocating engines for cruising. He showed the Controller a model of this arrangement and in July 1901 formally offered a destroyer embodying it. Hull and fittings would be similar to those of Viper, boilers somewhat smaller. Guaranteed speed was thirty-two knots (Parsons expected thirty-three knots), and displacement would be about 350 tons. At thirteen knots, fuel consumption would be 10cwt/hour. A few days later, Parsons offered a turbine version of the thirty-knotter. The E-in-C questioned the complication involved in adding reciprocating engines. Parsons had laid down another destroyer on spec (originally named Python), her hull subcontracted to Hawthorn Leslie, on 10 April 1901, before either Royal Navy destroyer had been lost.21 She incorporated his cruising engines (150ihp each).22
Both turbine test ship having been lost (under circumstances having no bearing at all on their power plants) in October 1901 First Lord called for further turbine test ships. The Royal Navy badly wanted to adopt turbines, so it urgently needed test experience. The Controller listed four options to gain the necessary experience – (1) the Royal Navy could buy the Parsons on-spec destroyer, which would be ready about March 1902; (2) two of the new River class destroyers could be ordered with turbine engines; (3) a third-class cruiser could be fitted with turbines; (4) a torpedo boat could be fitted with turbines.
Although the point was not made, it was necessary both to gain experience with the turbine itself and to compare it to reciprocating engines in comparable ships. Thus the choice was to buy the Parsons on-spec destroyer for the quickest trials while installing turbines in a new third-class cruiser (Amethyst) and in a new River class destroyer (Eden; see Chapter 4). On 6 November, the Admiralty asked Parsons for particulars, the soonest possible date of completion, and the lowest possible sale price. Negotiations continued to May 1902. The ship became HMS Velox, and on contractor’s first sea trials, on 25 July 1902, the mean of the best pair of trial runs was 33.127 knots. Of the special features, the bow rudder did give her better manoeuvrability when going astern. However, she was considered unseaworthy because her condensers were above her waterline. They had to be filled by a bilge pump before starting the circulating pump and opening the inlet and discharge valves. Astern speed was only five knots, and even that could not be attained without warning the engine room in advance. She was considered unhandy because she could not manoeuvre using her engines (the astern engines were on the inner shafts, as in Viper). Given her designers and builders, Velox had the same overall machinery arrangement as Viper, with three funnels.
Velox was the first ship affected by a change in trials policy, running her official speed trials with bunkers practically full (120 tons compared with the twenty-five tons of the thirty-knotters). Her contract speed was therefore fixed at twenty-seven knots rather than thirty knots.
Meanwhile, Parsons proposed using cruising turbines instead of reciprocating cruising engines. These small HP and IP engines were permanently coupled to the main shafts, running at up to 15–16 knots. He estimated that fuel consumption would be somewhat higher than with reciprocating engines, but still much lower than without any cruising engines. The E-in-C liked this arrangement, and it was adopted in the River class turbine destroyer, HMS Eden. Velox had her reciprocating engines replaced by cruising turbines in 1907.
Velox
HMS Velox is shown in June 1913, with a mainmast supporting wireless aerials (flat-tops). She had four sets of Parsons turbines (HP and reversing on two shafts, LP on the other two). The ship had four modified Yarrow boilers (250psi); sceptics pointed out that although the new turbine destroyers were very fast (she was designed for thirty-two knots), they could not accommodate enough stokers to maintain their speeds, nor did they have much endurance. Rated range was only 1175nm at thirteen knots – less than half that credited to a thirty- knotter (whose actual endurance was closer to 1400nm at that speed). The starboard Berthon boat is shown stowed but with its usual canvas cover removed. Chains to the rudder can be seen crossing the deck abaft the after gun. Chains stretched, and they were eliminated after causing trouble in the River class.
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Velox INBOARD
HMS Velox was basically a late turtleback destroyer modified to test the radical new turbine power plant. Charles Parsons was acutely aware that turbines were inefficient at low speeds, so in this ship he added small efficient reciprocating engines. Engineer in Chief pointed out that they could not drive Velox at the usual cruising speed, hence were an unnecessary complication. Note also the retractable rudder, intended to give the ship extra maneuverability to make up for the fact that she could not easily steer with her engines. Controlled by the extra wheel visible forward, it was operated according to orders given by voice-tube. Unfortunately there was no bridge indicator to show the position of this rudder. By this time, the conning tower was almost vestigial; note that it no longer contained a wheel. By the time the original of this drawing had been made, even a small destroyer such as this had wireless (note the office).
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1 Commander’s stores and lobby
2 Commander’s cabin
3 Wardroom and officers’ cabins
4 ERAs’ mess (P); CPOs’ mess (S)
5 Galley (P); dynamo room (S)
6 Engine room
7 After boiler room (flanked by coal bunkers)
8 Forward boiler room (flanked by coal bunkers)
9 Wireless telegraph office
10 Conning tower
11 After crew space
12 Forward crew space
13 Cable room and paint stores
14 Fore peak
15 Condenser
16 Centreline steam turbine
17 Reciprocating steam cruising engine
18 Magazine
19 Retractable bow rudder (wheel in forward crew space)
As a kind of endnote to the thirty-knotter story, two ships laid down on spec by Palmers on 1 September 1905 were bought under the 1908–9 Programme: Albacore and Bonetta. In theory, they replaced two lost destroyers, the thirty-knotter Tiger and the River-class Gala (but the same programme bought a Laird-built on-spec River to replace Gala). Both were turbine-powered, with four water-tube boilers in two boiler rooms, the uptakes from the two middle boilers being brought up close to each other but separate. When he offered them to the Royal Navy on 5 December 1907, the Palmers chairman claimed four improvements over thirty-knotters: a higher stem, for dryness (the top of the turtleback was horizontal instead of sloping down); stronger scantlings (the firm claimed that it had worked in forty-five tons of strengthening); a different form of stern which overhung the rudder and propellers more completely; and accommodations on the scale of the River class. The DNC commented that they were about fifty tons heavier than thirty-knotters, hence rode deeper in the water (with less freeboard amidships), and their form of deck structure had been rejected in Palmers proposals for Royal Navy destroyers. The E-in-C pointed out that the Reed water-tube boilers were a type not used by the Royal Navy since 1900 (it used only Thornycroft and Yarrow boilers), had a shorter life, and was not adaptable to oil fuel. On 15 February, the offer was rejected, but after the two destroyers were lost in April 1908 the Board decided on 5 May to buy the two Palmers destroyers subject to trials run by Palmers and to further inspection. Despite a claimed speed of thirty-one knots, Albacore never exceeded 26.75 knots on pre-sale trials, perhaps because trial conditions had changed drastically since the thirty-knotters were conceived. On 3 March 1909, the sale was concluded.
When Palmers laid down these ships, destroyers were in a state of transition, from the turtlebacked coastal craft of the first British generation to much larger ships with forecastles for better sea-keeping. British export destroyers roughly contemporary with (and comparable to) the Palmers destroyers were Yarrow’s Austrian Huszar class (390 tons; launched 1905–9) and its Greek Thyella class (350 tons; launched 1906–7), both of similar design, with the bridge set well back from the turtleback and the uptake from the forward boiler trunked under it, so that the first two funnels were close together. The Austrian ships had one of the two torpedo tubes in a German-style well between the forward gun and bridge; the Greeks had no such well, but had both tubes aft.
The 1893 Naval Defence Act provided for thirty first-class torpedo boats in addition to the eighty-two destroyers. The first 140-footers were ordered in parallel to the prototype destroyers, under the 1892–3 Programme: three from Yarrow (TB 88–90), three from Thornycroft (TB 91–93), three from White ( TB 94–96), and one from Laird (TB 97). All had three 18in torpedo tubes (one bow, two deck, the latter typically facing in opposite directions) and three 3-pounders, by this time no longer viable anti-torpedo-boat weapons. Some were experimental. Yarrow’s TB 90 had a four-cylinder engine and water-tube boilers. Thornycroft’s TB 91 was lengthened slightly to place her propeller further forward, and TB 93 was unique among British torpedo boats in having twin screws. Required speed was twenty-three knots for three hours.
Bonetta
HMS Bonetta was one of two repeat thirty-knotters bought from Palmers, which had laid them down on spec, in May 1909. She is shown as in June 1913, with the elaborate rig needed for wireless. She did not quite follow earlier practice, being armed with three 12-pounder, 12cwt guns, two of them mounted abreast forward, instead of the usual combination of 12- and 6-pounders. By 1909, the Royal Navy considered the 6-pounder largely useless against enemy destroyers, and it was adopting the 4in gun in preference to even the 12-pounder. Note the very different configuration adopted forward, with a solid breakwater forming the base of the gun platform/bridge, and the bridge screened off from the gun platform. Palmers’ HMS Viking, completed at about the same time, had a similar turtleback/breakwater combination, but on top of a raised forecastle. Contemporary records do not indicate what changes, if any, were imposed by the Royal Navy before it bought the ships or, for that matter, whether Palmers originally had any particular buyer in mind. The ship was laid down on 1 September 1905, by which time the Russo-Japanese War was effectively over, and there was no other major war on the immediate horizon. Triple screws show that these ships were powered by direct-drive turbines, and the four uptakes indicate the four Reed-Palmers’ coal-fired 250psi boilers. On four-hour trials, Bonetta made 26.75 knots.
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Laird’s TB 97 is shown in 1895. She had a single locomotive boiler (171psi), hence only one funnel. There were no sisters. TB 97 spent her entire career at Gibraltar. She was reboilered with water-tube boilers in 1909. Dimensions were 140ft 4in bp × 16ft × 78ft 6in; displacement 121 tons. On trials she made 23.7 knots on 1688ihp. With twenty-five tons of coal, she had an endurance of 2500nm at ten knots.
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Thornycroft’s TB 109 was part of a series of 160-footers with a new torpedo tube arrangement, two tubes being on either side just abaft the turtleback. She is shown in 1909.
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During full-power trials on 11 December 1893, Thornycroft’s TB 93 made 23.847 knots on 2093.06ihp. In June 1894, TB 92 did even better, with 24.52 knots at 2351ihp (and 24.12 knots for three hours).
The thirty boats envisaged by the Act were never built, but torpedo boat construction resumed with the 1899–1900 Programme with 160-footers. In November 1898, the Controller (Admiral A K Wilson) asked the DNC if, were torpedo boats wanted, there would be any changes from the 1892–3 boats. In view of what other navies were doing, the DNC, Sir William White, wanted changes in armament and in speed. He suggested one 12-pounder atop the conning tower and two machine guns or 3-pounders on the upper deck, plus either one twin or two single 18in torpedo tubes. Speed should be 26–26.5 knots, and the boat could have either single or twin screws. This was effectively a second-rate destroyer. White thought that his requirements could be met on 150 feet (140 tons) with 2000–2500ihp machinery. He added that the new programme should include two boats to replace units not considered worth repairing. The CO of Vernon preferred not to increase the size (hence the visibility) of such craft; ‘we should be satisfied with what we can get on the present displacement’.
While the design was being discussed, Yarrow provided details of a new armament arrangement on boats he had recently built for Austria (May 1899). The two guns were mounted side by side forward. The two single forward tubes were mounted on the sides of the boat, the third being on the centreline aft. The two-tube broadside was no worse than that of earlier boats. The two forward tubes could fire nearly dead ahead (seventy degrees before the beam), in effect replacing the bow tube, which had been abandoned in destroyers. It threw up considerable spray, it cramped the mess accommodation forward, and it interfered with the run of the boat. A boat firing forward risked overrunning its torpedo, and the bow cap could be damaged in a seaway. However, just abaft the turtleback, the forward tubes would be in a particularly wet position. White liked the new arrangement, which well separated the guns from the tubes.
The DNO and the Controller both wanted to know if a third 3-pounder could be worked in aft. Yarrow cited his six recent Chilean Injeniero Hyatt class torpedo boats (called Vipers in the British discussion) with a third gun aft (but with considerably shorter 14in rather than 18in torpedo tubes). The DNO wanted all guns to be 3-pounders; this was no mini-destroyer. The Viper design became the basis of the two 1899–1900 boats. Potential bidders were Thornycroft, Yarrow, White, and Cammell Laird. Yarrow offered a 152-footer similar to its six Chilean and five Austrian boats (another nine were built for Japan). It was rejected because of unsatisfactory machinery. White and Laird offered boats larger than specified. Thornycroft won with a 155-footer (later lengthened to 160 feet), which became the basis for further construction. The 1899–1900 boats were TB 107–108. These were repeated in the 1900–1 Programme (TB 109–110).
The Controller wanted to continue building two boats per year, but First Naval Lord Kerr pointed out that so many of the earlier boats were wearing out that greater numbers were needed, so five were included in the 1901–2 Programme. The DNC proposed another series of repeat orders, but there was a possibility that one would be given turbine engines, as a way of gaining experience. Invitations to bid went to the three main torpedo craft builders and to Parsons. Thornycroft offered a slightly modified version of the existing design, with a better bow (with considerable flare for dryness). It received a contract for four boats (TB 109–112) and then for the fifth, after the Controller decided to opt for turbines in the cruiser and the two destroyers, including the Parsons on-spec ship Velox.
The 1902–3 Programme called for another four boats, and bidding was reopened. This time White won, and produced TB 114–117.
Compared with the last series of first-class torpedo boats, the coastal TBDs of the 1905–6 Programme (described in the next chapter) were no larger, but they had the much heavier gun armament of destroyers, and were apparently conceived as such. In effect they demonstrated how much weight and space turbines could save, compared with the reciprocating engines of these craft.
White’s TB 114 is shown in 1908. She was broadly similar to the slightly earlier Thornycroft boats, with the same arrangement and armament: three 3-pounder QF and three 18in torpedo tubes, two just abaft the turtleback, and one on the centreline further aft.
(NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM)