''Animoso'' was the second and final member of the of

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 ...

s built for the Italian (Royal Navy) in the 1910s.

Design

The ships of the ''Audace'' class were long at the waterline and

long overall __NOTOC__ Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, an ...

, with a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

of and a

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vessel ...

of . They displaced

standard Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...

and up to at

full load The displacement or displacement tonnage of a ship is its weight. As the term indicates, it is measured indirectly, using Archimedes' principle, by first calculating the volume of water displaced by the ship, then converting that value into wei ...

. They had a crew of 4 to 5 officers and 65 to 74 enlisted men. The ships were powered by two

Zoelly Heinrich Zoelly (1862–1937) was a Mexican-Swiss engineer. He developed steam turbines and turbine-driven locomotives and patented the geothermal heat pump in 1912. Life and work Heinrich Zoelly was the fifth child of Franz Xaver Zoelly. His fa ...

steam turbine A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...

s, with steam provided by four White-Forster

water-tube boiler A high pressure watertube boiler (also spelled water-tube and water tube) is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by the fire. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which boils water in the steam-gene ...

s. The engines were rated to produce for a top speed of , though in service they reached as high as from . At a more economical speed of , the ships could cruise for . The ship carried an armament that consisted of a single gun and four guns, along with two

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s. The 102 mm gun was placed on the

forecastle The forecastle ( ; contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le) is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase " be ...

and the two of the 76 mm guns were mounted abreast the

funnels A funnel is a tube or pipe that is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, used for guiding liquid or powder into a small opening. Funnels are usually made of stainless steel, aluminium, glass, or plastic. The material used in its construc ...

, with the remaining pair at the

stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Ori ...

. The torpedo tubes were in single mounts, both on the

centerline Center line, centre line or centerline may refer to: Sports * Center line, marked in red on an ice hockey rink * Centre line (football), a set of positions on an Australian rules football field * Centerline, a line that separates the service cou ...

Service history

''Animoso'' was built at the shipyard in

Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 158,493 residents in December 2017. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn (pronou ...

, and was launched on 13 July 1913. The ship saw action against the

Austro-Hungarian Navy The Austro-Hungarian Navy or Imperial and Royal War Navy (german: kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine, in short ''k.u.k. Kriegsmarine'', hu, Császári és Királyi Haditengerészet) was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Ships of the A ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. On 11 May 1917, ''Animoso'' and the destroyers , , , and caught an Austro-Hungarian

flotilla A flotilla (from Spanish, meaning a small ''flota'' (fleet) of ships), or naval flotilla, is a formation of small warships that may be part of a larger fleet. Composition A flotilla is usually composed of a homogeneous group of the same class ...

torpedo boat A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of se ...

s led by the destroyer ; the Italians gave chase but the Austro-Hungarians managed to escape into a

minefield A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...

that prevented further pursuit. The same destroyers, less ''Ardito'', attempted to catch a group of five Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats on 17 November off the mouth of the Piave, but again the Austro-Hungarians retreated behind a minefield. Two days later, ''Animoso'' and several destroyers intercepted an Austro-Hungarian bombardment group centered on the old

coastal defense ship Coastal defence ships (sometimes called coastal battleships or coast defence ships) were warships built for the purpose of Littoral (military), coastal defence, mostly during the period from 1860 to 1920. They were small, often cruiser-sized ...

s and , forcing them to abandon the operation. Over the following several days, ''Animosa'' took part in several bombardment operations against Austro-Hungarian forces in northern Italy, beginning on 18 November and concluding on the 25th. She covered another such operation on 19 December. The ship was rearmed in 1919–1920, but she saw very limited service afterward owing to a boiler explosion on 29 July 1921 that severely damaged the ship. Having determined that ''Animoso'' was not worth repairing, the navy

paid off Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to placing a warship in ...

the ship and eventually struck her from the

naval register A Navy Directory, formerly the Navy List or Naval Register is an official list of naval officers, their ranks and seniority, the ships which they command or to which they are appointed, etc., that is published by the government or naval author ...

on 5 April 1923 before subsequently discarding her.

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Animoso Audace-class destroyers (1913) 1913 ships