Admiralen-class destroyer
The Admiralen class consisted of eight destroyers built for the Royal Netherlands Navy during the 1920s. All ships fought in World War II and were scuttled or sunk.
Design and description
The Admiralen class was built to replace the Wolf-class destroyers. Their design was derived from that of the destroyer, an experimental British ship designed after the First World War. The ships had an overall length of, a beam of, and a draft of. The first batch of four ships displaced at standard displacement while the second-batch ships were heavier at full load at. Their crew consisted of 143 men.The Admiralens were powered by two geared Parsons steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by three Yarrow boilers. The turbines were designed to produce which was intended give the ships a speed of. One of the differences from the first-batch ships was that the second-batch ships carried additional fuel oil which gave them an extra of range, for a total of at.
The main armament of the Admiralen-class ships consisted of four guns in single mounts, one superfiring pair fore and aft of the superstructure. The guns were designated 'A', 'B', 'X' and 'Y' from front to rear and only 'A' and 'Y' were fitted with gun shields. The first-batch ships were equipped with two anti-aircraft (AA) guns that were positioned between the funnels. The second-batch ships had only a single 75 mm AA gun and four 2-pounder () AA guns; these were on single mounts amidships. All the ships were fitted with four Browning machine guns on single mounts. All of the Admiralens were equipped with two rotating, triple mounts for torpedo tubes. They were able to carry a Fokker C.VII-W floatplane that had to be hoisted off the ship to take off. While the first batch of Admiralens were fitted to lay mines, the second-batch ships could be equipped with minesweeping gear.