Beagle-class destroyer

Template:Infobox ship imageTemplate:Infobox ship class overviewTemplate:Infobox ship characteristics

The Beagle class (officially redesignated as the G class in 1913) was a class of sixteen destroyers of the Royal Navy, all ordered under the 1908-1909 programme and launched in 1909 and 1910. The Beagles served during World War I, particularly during the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915.

Design

For the 1908–1909 shipbuilding programme, the British Admiralty decided to revert to a smaller, more affordable destroyer to follow-on from the large and fast Template:Sclass2 (required to reach Template:Convert) and the experimental Template:Convert Template:HMS. The destroyers needed sufficient range to operate across the North Sea in the event of a confrontation with Germany, which rendered the Template:Sclass coastal destroyers which had been built as a low-cost supplement to the expensive Tribals outdated, requiring larger numbers of a cheaper standard destroyer.<ref name="Fried p108,114">Friedman 2009, pp. 108, 114.</ref><ref name="conways06 p74">Gardiner and Gray 1985, p. 74.</ref> While the Tribals were oil fuelled, it was decided to return to the use of coal for the new destroyers, because of concerns over the availability of oil stocks in the event of a war and to reduce costs. They were the last British destroyers to be so fueled.<ref name="conways06 p74"/><ref name="Fried p118">Friedman 2009, p. 118.</ref><ref name="Manning p55">Manning 1961, p. 55.</ref>

The Beagles were not built to a standard design, with detailed design being left to the builders of individual ships in accordance with a loose specification.<ref name="grand p68">Brown 2010, p. 68.</ref> They were between Template:Convert and Template:Convert long between perpendiculars, with a beam of between Template:Convert and Template:Convert, with an average draught of Template:Convert.<ref name="conways06 p73">Gardiner and Gray 1985, p. 73.</ref> It was expected that the ships would displace Template:Convert but the builder's designs came out heavier,<ref name="Fried p118"/> at about Template:Convert normal and Template:Convert full load.<ref name="conways06 p73"/> Five Yarrow or White-Forster boilers fed direct-drive steam turbines driving three propeller shafts. The machinery was rated at Template:Convert to give a speed of Template:Convert.<ref name="conways06 p73"/><ref name="grand p69">Brown 2010, p. 69.</ref> Three funnels were fitted.<ref name="Fried p116">Friedman 2009, p. 116.</ref>

The Beagle class was designed to carry a gun armament of five 12-pounder (76 mm) guns, with two mounted side by side on a raised platform on the ship's forecastle, two on the ship's beams, with the port gun mounted ahead of the starboard gun and one aft. While the ships were building, however, it was decided to replace the two forecastle guns by a single Template:Convert gun,<ref group="lower-alpha">This was as a result of tests 1906 against the destroyer Template:HMS, which had shown that 12-pounder shells often exploded before they hit the target's engine room.<ref name="Fried p108-9">Friedman 2009, pp. 108–109.</ref></ref> giving a gun armament of one BL 4 inch naval gun Mk VIII and three QF 12-pounder 12 cwt guns)<ref group="lower-alpha">"Cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 12 cwt referring to the weight of the gun.</ref> Torpedo armament consisted of two Template:Convert torpedo tubes, with one between the ship's funnels and the aft gun, and one right aft at the stern of the ship. These torpedoes had a range of Template:Convert at Template:Convert or Template:Convert at Template:Convert. Two spare torpedoes were carried.<ref name="Friedman p116,8">Friedman 2009, pp. 116, 118.</ref><ref name="conways06 p73-4">Gardiner and Gray 1985, pp. 73–74.</ref>

Wartime modifications included replacement of the aft torpedo tube by a 3-pounder (47 mm) anti-aircraft gun in some ships,<ref name="conways06 p73"/> while depth charges were also fitted.<ref name="Fried p116">Friedman 2009, p. 116.</ref>

The Beagles were followed, in the 1909-10 Programme, by the Template:Sclass (later known as the H class).

Service

As the Beagles completed in 1910, they joined the 1st Destroyer Flotilla of the Royal Navy's Home Fleet.<ref name="conways06 p74"/> but in 1913 they were sent to the Mediterranean,<ref name="Manning p26">Manning 1961, p. 26.</ref> where they formed the 5th Flotilla, remaining there on the outbreak of the First World War.<ref name="conways06 p74"/> They were officially redesignated the G class in October 1913 as part of a general re-designation of the Royal Navy's destroyers.<ref name="conways06 p18,74">Gardiner and Gray 1985, pp. 18, 74.</ref> The Beagle class spent most of the war in the Mediterranean, with several taking part in the Dardanelles Campaign. Late in 1917, the ships of the class were recalled to British waters, where three ships were lost to accidents, two by running aground and one to collision.<ref name="conways06 p74"/>

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

Ships

Name	Builder	Laid down	Launch date	Completed	Fate
Template:HMS	John Brown and Company, Clydebank	17 March 1909	16 October 1909	June 1910.<ref name="Fried p305">Friedman 2009, p. 305.</ref>	Sold for breaking up 1 November 1921.<ref name="Ditt p60">Dittmar and Colledge 1972, p. 60.</ref>
Template:HMS	John Brown and Company, Clydebank	30 March 1909	13 November 1909,	7 July 1910.<ref name="Fried p305"/>	Sold for breaking up 21 September 1920.<ref name="Ditt p60"/>
Template:HMS	John Brown and Company, Clydebank	1 April 1909	11 December 1909	September 1910.<ref name="Fried p305"/>	Sold for breaking up 1 November 1921.<ref name="Ditt p60"/>
Template:HMS	William Denny & Brothers, Dumbarton	20 May 1909	15 March 1910	September 1910.<ref name="Fried p305"/>	Wrecked on Seven Stones reef, Land's End 24 July 1918.<ref name="Ditt p60"/>
Template:HMS	Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Govan	17 April 1909	23 November 1909	July 1910.<ref name="Fried p305"/>	Sold for breaking up 1 November 1921.<ref name="Ditt p60"/>
Template:HMS	Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Govan	22 April 1909	27 January 1910	August 1910.<ref name="Fried p306"/>	Sold for breaking up 31 August 1920.<ref name="Ditt p60"/>
Template:HMS	Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Govan	3 May 1909	19 February 1910	September 1910.<ref name="Fried p306"/>	Sold for breaking up 26 October 1921.<ref name="Ditt p61">Dittmar and Colledge 1972, p. 61.</ref>
Template:HMS	R. W. Hawthorn Leslie & Company, Hebburn	9 March 1909	11 February 1910	August 1910.<ref name="Fried p306"/>	Sold for breaking up 9 May 1921.<ref name="Ditt p61"/>
Template:HMS	Cammell Laird & Company, Birkenhead	1 May 1909	15 February 1910	October 1910.<ref name="Fried p306"/>	Wrecked on Irish coast 9 January 1918 during blizzard.<ref name="Ditt p60"/><ref name="jfsww1 p314">Moore 1990, p. 314.</ref>
Template:HMS	Cammell Laird & Company, Birkenhead	20 April 1909	13 November 1909	September 1910.<ref name="Fried p306"/>	Sold for breaking up 31 August 1920.<ref name="Ditt p60"/>
Template:HMS	Cammell Laird & Company, Birkenhead	26 April 1909	15 January 1910	September 1910.<ref name="Fried p306"/>	Sunk in collision with the sloop Template:HMS in Lough Foyle 12 December 1917.<ref name="Ditt p61"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Template:HMS	Harland & Wolff, Glasgow	29 April 1909	14 March 1910	September 1910.<ref name="Fried p306"/>	Sold for breaking up 9 May 1921.<ref name="Ditt p60"/>
Template:HMS	Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, Bow Creek	14 April 1909	30 March 1910	September 1911.<ref name="Fried p306"/>	The ship was renamed Template:HMS on 16 December 1913,<ref group="lower-alpha">While Friedman and Conway's list the ship as having been renamed on 16 December 1912,<ref name="conways06 p74"/><ref name="Fried p306"/> the ship remained listed under her original name in the March 1913 issue of The Navy List,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> not being noted as having been renamed until the January 1914 edition.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref></ref> freeing up the original name for a submarine. Sold for breaking up 21 September 1920.<ref name="ditt p60-1">Dittmar and Colledge 1972, pp. 60–61.</ref>
Template:HMS	John I. Thornycroft & Company, Woolston	2 March 1909	10 March 1910	August 1910.<ref name="Fried p306"/>	Sold for breaking up 9 May 1921.<ref name="Ditt p61"/>
Template:HMS	J. Samuel White & Company, Cowes	11 May 1909	9 February 1910	September 1910.<ref name="Fried p306"/>	Sold for breaking up 1 November 1921.<ref name="Ditt p60"/>
Template:HMS	J. Samuel White & Company, Cowes	23 April 1909	27 November 1909	July 1910.<ref name="Fried p306">Friedman 2009, p. 306.</ref>	Sold for breaking up 1 November 1921.<ref name="Ditt p60"/>

Bibliography

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|_exclude=case, year, _debug
| last1 = Colledge
| first1 = J. J. 
| author-link1= J. J. Colledge
| last2 = Warlow
| first2 = Ben
| date = 2006
| orig-date = 1969
| title = Ships of the Royal Navy: {{#if:|The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy|The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy}}
| edition = Rev.
| location = London
| publisher = Chatham Publishing
| isbn = 978-1-86176-281-8

}}

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