Beagle class destroyer

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Beagle or G class
General Characteristics
Displacement:	860 - 940 tons
Length:	275 ft
Beam:	28 ft
Draught:	8 ft 6 in
Propulsion:	coal-fired boilers, 2 or 3 shaft steam turbines, 12,500 shp
Speed:	27 kt
Range:	120 tons coal
Complement:	?
Armament:	1 x BL 4 in L/40 Mark VIII, mounting P Mark V 3 x QF 12 pdr 12 cwt Mark I, mounting P Mark I 2 x single tubes for 21 in torpedoes

The Beagle class (officially rated as the G class in 1913) was a class of sixteen destroyers of the Royal Navy completed between 1909 and 1910. The Beagles served during World War I, particularly during the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915.

After the large and outlandish oil-burning Tribal or F class of 1905 and HMS Swift or 1907, the Beagles marked a return to a smaller, more useful design, although still significantly larger than the River or E class. The Admiralty had concern over the availability of oil stocks in the event of a war, so the Beagles were coal-burners, the last British destroyers to be so fueled.

Unlike their predecessors, the Beagles had a more-or-less uniform appearance, with three funnels, although thicknesses varied between ships according to builders' preferences. They had the 4-inch gun (introduced in the last of the Tribals) and the 21-inch torpedo (introduced in the singleton Swift) fitted as standard. Importantly, the 12-pounder guns were redistributed, the guns mounted at the fo'c'sle break, which had been standard since the first Torpedo Boat Destroyers, and that were prone to being swamped in heavy seas being relocated amidships. Additional improvements included a higher bridge and taller bandstand mount for the 4-inch gun on the fo'c'sle to improve the ability to fight and con the ship in heavy seas.

Being coal-fired, they were obsolete by the end of the First World War and the surviving ships were all scrapped by 1921.

[edit] Ships

Basilisk — built by J. Samuel White & Company, Cowes, completed 1910
Beagle — built by Clydebank Shipbuilding Company, Clydebank, completed 1909
Bulldog — built by Clydebank, completed 1909
Foxhound — built by Clydebank, completed 1909
Grampus (ex-Nautilus) — built by Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, Bow Creek, completed 1910
Grasshopper — built by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Govan, completed 1910
Harpy — built by White, completed 1910
Mosquito — built by Fairfield, completed 1910
Pincher — built by William Denny & Brothers, Dumbarton, completed 1910, wrecked on Seven Stones reef, Land's End July 24, 1918
Racoon — built by Cammell-Laird & Company, Birkenhead, completed 1910, wrecked on Irish coast January 4, 1918 during blizzard
Rattlesnake — built by Harland & Wolff, Glasgow, completed 1910
Renard — built by Cammell-Laird, completed 1909
Savage — built by John I. Thornycroft & Company, Woolston, completed 1910
Scorpion — built by Fairfield, completed 1910
Scourge — built by R. W. Hawthorn Leslie & Company, Hebburn, completed 1910
Wolverine — built by Cammell-Laird, completed 1910, sunk in collision with sloop HMS Rosemary in Lough Foyle December 12, 1917