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The Weapon class was a class of destroyers built for the British Royal Navy towards the end of World War II. They were the smaller counterpart to the (which followed them) and were the first new destroyer designs for the Royal Navy since the Second World War ''Emergency Programme''. 20 ships were planned, of which only 13 were laid down and 7 were launched, but the cessation of hostilities resulted in only 4 being completed for service. Two of the ships had been previously ordered (as ''Celt'' and ''Centaur'') as part of the planned , or 15th Emergency flotilla, of 1944, but the orders were changed to the new design. ==Design== The Weapon class were an intermediate size built to take advantage of slipways that were too small to be used to build Battle-class destroyers.〔Brown ''Nelson to Vanguard'' 2000 Chatham Publishing p94〕 The hull length was not much increased over the ''War Emergency Programme'' design, but beam and draught were increased to allow for a displacement increase, as the latter design was grossly overweight with the addition of wartime technology to a relatively small hull. Two full sets of torpedo tubes were carried, a somewhat retrospective feature in a late-war design. A criticism of the older designs was the use of adjacent boiler rooms. This had been adopted to allow for a single funnel, to lower the silhouette and increase the deck space of the relatively small hull. However, this made the ship vulnerable to being disabled by a single hit amidships. To remedy this, the Weapon class adopted the "unit" system, of side-by-side boiler and engine rooms with alternate port/starboard arrangement. This was standard practice in United States Navy ships, but these were generally far larger than their Royal Navy counterparts. The unit arrangement meant that 2 funnels were needed. The forward funnel was trunked up through the foremast and there was a small stump funnel between the torpedo tubes. This led to an unusual and rather unbalanced appearance, similar to that of the , and the Weapons were not the most attractive of ships. The main improvement over earlier ships was to remedy the woefully inadequate arrangements for anti-aircraft defence. To this end, three twin 4-inch Mark XIV mountings were carried, remotely controlled by a Type 275 Radar equipped Mark VI(M) director, allowing full blind-fire against aircraft targets. The light battery consisted of 2 of the new STAAG (Stabilised Tachymetric Anti-Aircraft Gun) mounts for twin Bofors 40 mm guns and two single weapons on Mk. II mounts in the bridge wings. The STAAGs were carried on either side aft, and each had its own Type 262 Radar and predictive fire control computer, allowing for automatic blind-fire engagement of targets. The STAAGs were excellent weapons on paper and the firing range, but when exposed to the vibration of a naval gun mounting and the rigour of the elements they were less than reliable. Coupled with a mounting weight of 17 tons, they were something of a disappointment and their post-war service was limited. Type 293 Radar was carried on the lattice foremast for target indication. To increase the anti-submarine capability of the class, it was decided to reduce the number of 4-inch mounts to 2, and to instead carry 2 "Squid" anti-submarine mortars. In ''Battleaxe'' and ''Broadsword'', these replaced 'B' gun, in the others it was 'X' that was lost. The latter arrangement was in fact preferable for the location of the "squid", but less so for gunnery, as it meant that the main weapons were unable to fire aft, which was a criticism also levelled at the Battle class. All four ships were plagued by their machinery, as the steam turbines had numerous design flaws. The problems were remedied by removing the steam feed to the lower half of the reversing turbine, but this halved reversing power, and as a consequence these ships were slow to decelerate and handled rather sluggishly. This problem proved fatal for ''Battleaxe'', when she was unable to manoeuvre quickly enough to prevent herself being rammed by the frigate in the Clyde in 1962. The damage was so catastrophic that it was beyond economical repair and she was written off as a total loss and scrapped. The Weapons were never an entirely satisfactory design, and were criticised for their light gun armament and overly heavy torpedo outfit. Perhaps best thought of as fast fleet frigates, they undoubtedly possessed a quantum increase in fighting efficiency over the wartime emergency ships, and were more than capable of facing the increased threat of the enemy submarine and aircraft. It is possible that the mysterious G or ''Gael'' class design, which possessed 2 twin semi-automatic Mark. VI guns was an attempt to remedy some of the deficiencies of the Weapons. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Weapon-class destroyer」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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