Swordfish-class destroyer
{{short description|Subclass of the A-class destroyers}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2017}}
{{Use British English|date=November 2017}}
| {{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship image |Ship image= |Ship caption= }} {{Infobox ship class overview |Name=Swordfish class |Builders=Armstrong Whitworth, Elswick, Tyne and Wear |Operators={{navy|United Kingdom}} |Class before={{Sclass|Sturgeon|destroyer|4}} |Class after={{Sclass|Zebra|destroyer|4}} |Subclasses= |Built range=1894–1895 |In commission range=1895–1912 |Total ships building= |Total ships planned= |Total ships completed=2 |Total ships cancelled= |Total ships active= |Total ships laid up= |Total ships lost= |Total ships retired= |Total ships scrapped=2 |Total ships preserved= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship type=Torpedo boat destroyer |Ship displacement= |Ship length= |Ship beam= |Ship height= |Ship draught= |Ship propulsion=Yarrow boilers |Ship speed={{convert|27|kn|lk=in}} |Ship range= |Ship complement= |Ship sensors= |Ship EW= |Ship armament=*1 × 12 pounder gun
|Ship armour= |Ship notes= }} |
Two Swordfish-class destroyers served with the Royal Navy. {{HMS|Swordfish|1895|2}} and {{HMS|Spitfire|1895|2}} were both built by Armstrong Whitworth at Elswick, Tyne and Wear launching in 1895. Fitted with Yarrow boilers, they could make 27 knots and were armed with one twelve pounder and two torpedo tubes.
Requirement
After ordering six prototype torpedo boat destroyers from the specialist torpedo boat yards Yarrows, Thornycroft and Laird as part of the 1892–1893 shipbuilding programme, the British Admiralty planned to buy larger numbers of destroyers under the 1893–1894 programme, with orders being spread over more shipyards.Friedman 2009, pp. 38–42.Lyon 2001, pp. 17–20. The Admiralty specified a number of broad requirement, leaving the detailed design of the ships and their machinery to the builders. The new destroyers were required top reach a trials speed of {{convert|27|kn|mph km/h}}, with penalty charges imposed if the ship's did not meet the guaranteed speeds or were delivered late. A turtleback forecastle was to be fitted.Lyon 2001, pp. 19–20. Armament was to vary depending on whether the ship was to be used in the torpedo boat or gunboat role. As a torpedo boat, the planned armament was a single QF 12 pounder 12 cwt ({{convert|3|in|mm|abbr=on}} calibre) gun, together with a secondary gun armament of three 6-pounder guns, and two 18 inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes. As a gunboat, one of the torpedo tubes could be removed to accommodate a further two six-pounders.Lyon 2001, p. 98.
On 8 December 1893, the Admiralty placed an order for a single 27-knotter destroyer (Swordfish) with Armstrong Mitchell & Co with an order for a second destroyer (Spitfire) following on 7 February 1894.Lyon 2001, p. 86. The ships' machinery was to be supplied by Belliss & Co of Birmingham. Eight Yarrow-type water-tube boilers provided steam at a pressure of {{convert|200|psi|abbr=on|lk=in}}, feeding two four-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines and driving two propeller shafts.Lyon 2001 p. 85.The Engineer 23 April 1897, p. 422. Three widely spaced funnels were fitted, with the middle funnel being fatter than the other two as it handled the uptakes from four boilers rather than two as did the other funnels.Friedman 2009, p. 44.
Both ships had been sold for scrapping before 1913 when the Admiralty re-classed the surviving 27-knotter destroyers as the A Class.
See also
Citations
{{reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book|last=Brooke|first=Peter|title=Warships for Export: Armstrong Warships 1867–1927|location=Gravesend, UK|publisher= World Ship Society|year= 1999|isbn=0-905617-89-4}}
- {{cite book|editor1-last=Chesneau|editor1-first=Roger|editor2-last=Kolesnik|editor2-first=Eugene M.|title=Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905|year=1979 |name-list-style=amp |publisher=Conway Maritime Press|location=London |isbn=0-85177-133-5}}
- {{Cite Colledge2006}}
- {{cite book|last=Friedman|first=Norman|title=British Destroyers: From Earliest Days to the Second World War|year=2009|publisher=Seaforth Publishing|location=Barnsley, UK|isbn=978-1-84832-049-9}}
- {{cite book|editor1-last=Gardiner|editor1-first=Robert|editor2-last=Gray|editor2-first=Randal|title=Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921|year=1985|publisher=Conway Maritime Press|location=London|isbn=0-85177-245-5|name-list-style=amp}}
- {{cite book|last=Lyon|first=David|title=The First Destroyers|year=2001|publisher=Caxton Editions|location=London|isbn=1-84067-3648|orig-year=1996}}
- {{cite book
|last = Manning
|first = Captain T. D.
|title = The British Destroyer
|orig-year = 1961
|publisher = Godfrey Cave Associates
|year = 1979
|doi =
|isbn = 0-906223-13-X}}
- {{cite book|last=March|first=Edgar J.|title=British Destroyers: A History of Development, 1892–1953; Drawn by Admiralty Permission From Official Records & Returns, Ships' Covers & Building Plans|year=1966|publisher=Seeley Service|location=London |oclc=164893555}}
{{Swordfish class destroyer}}
{{A class destroyer (1913)}}