Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived in the late 19th century as a defense against torpedo boats, and by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" was generally shortened to simply "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War.
Before World War II, destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for unattended ocean operations; typically, a number of destroyers and a single destroyer tender operated together. After the war, destroyers grew in size. The American s had a displacement of 2,200 tons, while the has a displacement of up to 9,600 tons, a difference of nearly 340%. Moreover, the advent of guided missiles allowed destroyers to take on the surface-combatant roles previously filled by battleships and cruisers. This resulted in larger and more powerful guided-missile destroyers more capable of independent operation.
At the start of the 21st century, destroyers are the global standard for surface-combatant ships, with only two nations officially operating the heavier cruisers, with no battleships or true battlecruisers remaining. Modern guided-missile destroyers are equivalent in tonnage but vastly superior in firepower to cruisers of the World War II era, and are capable of carrying nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. At long, a displacement of 9,200 tons, and with an armament of more than 90 missiles, guided-missile destroyers such as the Arleigh Burke class are actually larger and more heavily armed than most previous ships classified as guided-missile cruisers. The Chinese Type 055 destroyer has been described as a cruiser in some US Navy reports due to its size and armament.
Many NATO navies, such as the French, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, and German, use the term "frigate" for their destroyers, which leads to some confusion.
Origins
The emergence and development of the destroyer was related to the invention of the self-propelled torpedo in the 1860s. A navy now had the potential to destroy a superior enemy battle fleet using steam launches to fire torpedoes. Cheap, fast boats armed with torpedoes, called torpedo boats, were built and became a threat to large capital ships near enemy coasts. The first seagoing vessel designed to launch the self-propelled Whitehead torpedo was the 33-ton in 1876. She was armed with two drop collars to launch these weapons; these were replaced in 1879 by a single torpedo tube in the bow. By the 1880s, the type had evolved into small ships of 50–100 tons, fast enough to evade enemy picket boats.At first, the threat of a torpedo-boat attack to a battle fleet was considered to exist only when at anchor, but as faster and longer-range torpedo boats and torpedoes were developed, the threat extended to cruising at sea. In response to this new threat, more heavily gunned picket boats called "catchers" were built, which were used to escort the battle fleet at sea. They needed significant seaworthiness and endurance to operate with the battle fleet, and as they inherently became larger, they became officially designated "torpedo-boat destroyers", and by the First World War were largely known as "destroyers" in English. The antitorpedo boat origin of this type of ship is retained in its name in other languages, including French, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Greek, Dutch and, up until the Second World War, Polish.
Once destroyers became more than just catchers guarding an anchorage, they were recognized to be also ideal to take over the offensive role of torpedo boats themselves, so they were also fitted with torpedo tubes in addition to their antitorpedo-boat guns. At that time, and even into World War I, the only function of destroyers was to protect their own battle fleet from enemy torpedo attacks and to make such attacks on the battleships of the enemy. The task of escorting merchant convoys was still in the future.
Early designs
An important development came with the construction of HMS Swift in 1884, later redesignated TB 81. This was a large torpedo boat with four 47 mm quick-firing guns and three torpedo tubes. At, while still not fast enough to engage enemy torpedo boats reliably, the ship at least had the armament to deal with them.Another forerunner of the torpedo-boat destroyer was the Japanese torpedo boat , built in 1885. Designed to Japanese specifications and ordered from the Isle of Dogs, London Yarrow shipyard in 1885, she was transported in parts to Japan, where she was assembled and launched in 1887. The long vessel was armed with four 1-pounder quick-firing guns and six torpedo tubes, reached, and at 203 tons, was the largest torpedo boat built to date. In her trials in 1889, Kotaka demonstrated that she could exceed the role of coastal defense, and was capable of accompanying larger warships on the high seas. The Yarrow shipyards, builder of the parts for Kotaka, "considered Japan to have effectively invented the destroyer".
The German aviso, launched in 1886, was designed as a "Torpedojäger", intended to screen the fleet against attacks by torpedo boats. The ship was significantly larger than torpedo boats of the period, displacing some, with an armament of guns and Hotchkiss revolver cannon.
Torpedo gunboat
The first vessel designed for the explicit purpose of hunting and destroying torpedo boats was the torpedo gunboat. Essentially very small cruisers, torpedo gunboats were equipped with torpedo tubes and an adequate gun armament, intended for hunting down smaller enemy boats. By the end of the 1890s, torpedo gunboats were made obsolete by their more successful contemporaries, the TBDs, which were much faster.The first example of this was, designed by Nathaniel Barnaby in 1885, and commissioned in response to the Russian War scare. The gunboat was armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats. Exactly long and in beam, she displaced 550 tons. Built of steel, Rattlesnake was unarmoured with the exception of a -inch protective deck. She was armed with a single 4-inch/25-pounder breech-loading gun, six 3-pounder QF guns and four torpedo tubes, arranged with two fixed tubes at the bow and a set of torpedo-dropping carriages on either side. Four torpedo reloads were carried.
A number of torpedo gunboat classes followed, including the Grasshopper class, the, the, and the – all built for the Royal Navy during the 1880s and the 1890s. In the 1880s, the Chilean Navy ordered the construction of two torpedo gunboats from the British shipyard Laird Brothers, which specialized in the construction of this type of vessel. The novelty is that one of these Almirante Lynch-class torpedo boats managed to sink the ironclad with self-propelled torpedoes in the Battle of Caldera Bay in 1891, thus surpassing its main function of hunting torpedo boats.
Fernando Villaamil, second officer of the Ministry of the Navy of Spain, designed his own torpedo gunboat to combat the threat from the torpedo boat. He asked several British shipyards to submit proposals capable of fulfilling these specifications. In 1885, the Spanish Navy chose the design submitted by the shipyard of James and George Thomson of Clydebank. was laid down at the end of the year, launched in 1886, and commissioned in 1887. Some authors considered her as the first destroyer ever built.
She displaced 348 tons, and was the first warship equipped with twin triple-expansion engines generating, for a maximum speed of, which made her one of the faster ships in the world in 1888. She was armed with one Spanish-designed Hontoria breech-loading gun, four Nordenfelt guns, two Hotchkiss cannons and two Schwartzkopff torpedo tubes. The ship carried three torpedoes per tube. She carried a crew of 60.
In terms of gunnery, dimensions, the specialised design and speed to chase torpedo boats, and her high-seas capabilities, Destructor was a highly influential precursor to the TBD.
Development of the destroyer class
The first classes of ships to bear the formal designation TBD were the of two ships and of two ships of the Royal Navy.Early torpedo gunboat designs lacked the range and speed to keep up with the fleet they were supposed to protect. In 1892, the Third Sea Lord, Rear Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher ordered the development of a new type of ships equipped with the then-novel water-tube boilers and quick-firing small-calibre guns. Six ships to the specifications circulated by the admiralty were ordered initially, comprising three different designs each produced by a different shipbuilder: and from John I. Thornycroft & Company, and from Yarrows, and and from Laird, Son & Company.
These ships all featured a turtleback forecastle that was characteristic of early British TBDs. and were both built by Thornycroft, displaced 260 tons, and were 185 feet in length. They were armed with one 12-pounder gun and three 6-pounder guns, with one fixed 18-in torpedo tube in the bow plus two more torpedo tubes on a revolving mount abaft the two funnels. Later, the bow torpedo tube was removed and two more 6-pounder guns added, instead. They produced 4,200 hp from a pair of Thornycroft water-tube boilers, giving them a top speed of 27 knots, giving the range and speed to travel effectively with a battle fleet. In common with subsequent early Thornycroft boats, they had sloping sterns and double rudders.
The French navy, an extensive user of torpedo boats, built its first TBD in 1899, with the torpilleur d'escadre. The United States commissioned its first TBD,, Destroyer No. 1, in 1902, and by 1906, 16 destroyers were in service with the US Navy.