Durandal French Destroyer

THE 300 TON TORPEDO-BOAT DESTROYERS

The name destroyer, commonly used today to describe warships of up to six or seven thousand tons, is a contraction of torpedo-boat destroyer, which described accurately the task originally envisaged for them. Durandal was built by Normand at Le Havre, a yard which had already achieved some thing of a reputation for its sea-going torpedo-boats. She was launched on 11 February 1 899 and entered service, after a protracted trials period, in 1901. She was to have a surprisingly long life, given that she was functionally obsolete (at least as compared to similar craft in other navies) before she was launched, and was finally broken up in 1919.

ARMAMENT AND EQUIPMENT

Durandal was constructed at a time when powerplants and steam generation machinery were in a period of transition. Despite ground-breaking advances the French had made in that area, their first-generation destroyers were never able to match the performance of their British contemporaries, which were uniformly at least four knots faster, and this was a matter of some concern to the Marine Ministry. Like all but one of the similar classes which followed, the Durandals were armed with a single 65mm and six 47mm guns. They mounted two l5in (330mm) torpedo tubes, one amidships, one aft.

TECHNICAL DATA

Type: Torpedo-boat destroyer
Machinery: 2-shaft triple-expansion engines producing a total of 4800ihp
Dimensions (overall): Length, 57.5m (188.7ft); beam, 6.3m (20.7ft)
Displacement 296t standard
Draught: 3.2m (10.5ft) deep load
Complement: 52
Speed: 26 knots (48km/h)