Battle Class Destroyer - "1942" or "Early Battle" Class

"1942" or "Early Battle" Class

The first years of World War II had shown that British destroyers were ill equipped to deal with concentrated air attacks and the Royal Navy suffered heavy losses as a result. In 1941 urgent consideration of the problem led to a naval staff requirement for a new class of large fleet destroyer with High Angle (HA) twin guns and an HA control system. It was decided that this main armament would be set forward in a superfiring configuration thus allowing all guns to engage a single target. Arcs of fire were increased by setting the bridge structure further aft than normal. The proposed AA armament were eight 40/60 mm guns in twin mountings set atop the middle and after deck houses to give all around, overlapping arcs of fire. These were to be supplemented by 20 mm guns positioned variously around the ship. Eight 21-inch torpedo tubes were to be carried in two quadruple mounts. A/S armament called for two depth charge rails and four depth charge throwers to be fitted. A new feature was the first use of stabilisers in a destroyer, allowing a steady platform for AA gunnery.

With these parameters accepted, a sketch design was submitted, and approved in the autumn of 1941 and orders for sixteen ships (two flotillas) were placed under the 1942 programme. Considerably larger than the standard fleet destroyer, these ships were seen as a replacement for the Tribal class which had already suffered very heavy losses. With an overall length of 379 feet (116 m) they were two feet longer than the Tribals and with a beam of 40 feet 3 inches were just over three feet wider. It was decided to abandon the usual alphabetical naming of destroyer flotillas and name these ships after famous land and sea battles, thus these ships became known as the 1942 Battle class.