HMS Shearwater |
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Operators: | Royal Navy |
| Built: | 1934–1939 |
| In commission: | 1935–1950 |
| Completed: | 9 |
| Lost: | 2 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Sloop-of-war |
| Displacement: | Kingfisher group; 510 long tons (518 t) standard 680 long tons (691 t) full load Kittiwake group; 530 long tons (539 t) standard 700 long tons (711 t) full load Shearwater group; 580 long tons (589 t) standard 750 long tons (762 t) full load |
| Length: | 234 ft (71 m) p/p 243 ft 3 in (74.14 m) o/a |
| Beam: | 26 ft 6 in (8.08 m) |
| Draught: | Kingfisher group; 6 ft (1.8 m) Kittiwake group; 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) Shearwater group; 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) |
| Propulsion: | 2 × Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers Parsons geared steam turbines 3,600 shp (2,685 kW) 2 shafts 160 tons oil |
| Speed: | 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) |
| Complement: | 60 |
| Armament: |
As designed |
The Kingfisher class was a class of nine patrol sloops of the British Royal Navy built in three groups of three each during the 1930s, that saw service during World War II.
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The Kingfisher class was an attempt to build a small patrol vessel under 600 tons, such vessels being outwith the clauses of the London Naval Treaty of 1930. It was intended that it would escort coastal shipping in wartime.
The design had a number of shortcomings, however. Firstly, it was simply designed to too high a standard; constructed to full naval warship specifications and powered by geared steam turbine engines, it was not suitable for mass production. Secondly, it was simply too small, short on range, and the hull-form, based on a scaled-down destroyer, was not suitable for open ocean work, where escorts were found to be dearly lacking in numbers during wartime. Thirdly, armed originally with only a single 4-inch gun forwards and depth charges aft, they were limited in their ability to defend themselves, never mind their charges.
The woeful lack of defensive armament was addressed early in the war by adding a multiple Vickers machine gun on the quarterdeck in the Kingfisher and Kittiwake groups, as per the Shearwaters. As they became available, two single 20 mm Oerlikon guns were added, on single pedestal mounts on the deckhouse aft, with the useless machine gun being replaced later with a further pair of such weapons. Centimetric Radar Type 271 was added on the roof of the bridge as it became available, this was a target indication set capable of picking up the conning tower or even the periscope or schnorkel of a submarine. Radar Type 286 air warning was added at the masthead. The ships that had the Mark V gun on the open mounting HA Mark III had a shield added to give the gun crews a measure of protection on the exposed fo'c'sle.
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Kingfisher_class_sloop Kingfisher class sloop] at Wikimedia Commons
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