Two ''Hardy''-class destroyers served with the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
. and were both built by
Doxford, ordered on 3 November 1893. They were fitted with 8 Yarrow boilers. They displaced 260 tons, were 196 feet long and were armed with one
twelve pounder quick-firing gun mounted forward and five 6-pounder guns, mounted on the broadside and aft, and two torpedo tubes on a revolving mount. They carried 53 officers and men, and served in home waters (although ''Hardy'' was briefly in the Mediterranean in 1900) before being sold off in 1911 and 1912 respectively.
As part of the 1893–1894 Naval Estimates, the
British Admiralty
The Admiralty was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy until 1964, historically under its titular head, the Lord High Admiral – one of the Great Officers of State. For much of it ...
placed orders for 36
torpedo-boat destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in 1 ...
s, all to be capable of , the "27-knotters", as a follow-on to the six prototype "26-knotters" ordered in the previous 1892–1893 Estimates. As was typical for torpedo craft at the time, the Admiralty left detailed design to the builders, laying down only broad requirements.
[Chesneau and Kolesnik 1979, p. 87.][Manning 1961, p. 39.]
See also
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A-class destroyer (1913)
Bibliography
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References
Destroyer classes
Ship classes of the Royal Navy
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