French destroyer Épervier
Épervier was one of six s built for the French Navy during the 1930s. Together with her sister ship, Épervier was to be built at the Arsenal de Lorient, but that shipyard was overloaded with work and construction of the two ships had to be postponed.
Design and description
The Navy decided to take advantage of the situation to use them to test advanced propulsion machinery designed to use superheated steam and that the sisters would otherwise be built with the characteristics of the. They had an overall length of, a beam of, and a draft of. The ships displaced at standard load and at normal load. Their crew consisted of 10 officers and 201 crewmen in peacetime and 12 officers and 220 enlisted men in wartime.Épervier was powered by two geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by two du Temple boilers and two license-built Thornycroft boilers. Each boiler was fitted with a Thornycroft transverse superheater. The boilers operated at a pressure of and a temperature of. The turbines were designed to produce which was intended give the ships a speed of. During her sea trials at normal load on 20 April 1933, the ship comfortably exceeded her designed speed, reaching from. Two weeks later Épervier achieved from at her standard displacement. Use of the superheaters made the sisters more fuel efficient, increasing their range to at, faster and further than their Vauquelin half-sisters.
The sisters were armed identically to their half-sisters; their main battery consisted of five Modèle 1927 guns in single shielded mounts, one superfiring pair fore and aft of the superstructure and the fifth gun abaft the rear funnel. Their anti-aircraft armament consisted of four Modèle 1927 guns in single mounts positioned amidships and two twin mounts for Hotchkiss Modèle 1929 machineguns on the forecastle deck abreast the bridge. The ships carried two above-water twin mounts for torpedo tubes, one pair on each broadside between each pair of funnels as well as one triple mount aft of the rear pair of funnels able to traverse to both sides. A pair of depth charge chutes were built into their stern; these housed a total of sixteen depth charges, with eight more in reserve. They were also fitted with a pair of depth-charge throwers, one on each broadside abreast the aft funnels, for which they carried a dozen depth charges. The ships could be fitted with rails to drop 40 Breguet B4 mines.