''Destructor'' was a 19th-century Spanish

warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster ...

. She was a fast ocean-going

torpedo gunboat In late 19th-century naval terminology, torpedo gunboats were a form of gunboat armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats. By the end of the 1890s torpedo gunboats were superseded by their more successful c ...

and the main precursor of the destroyer type of vessel. ''Destructor'' was the first warship classified as a "destroyer" at the time of her commissioning.Smith, Charles Edgar: ''A short history of naval and marine engineering.'' Babcock & Wilcox, ltd. at the University Press, 1937, page 263 Her designer was a Spanish Navy officer, Fernando Villaamil, commissioned by the Minister of the Navy, Vice-Admiral Manuel Pezuela.

Genesis

During the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s the rapidly improving, fast and cheap

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 ...

s were presenting an escalating threat to major

s. Escort vessels were already in use to provide protection for battleships but it was decided that what was needed was a new type of enlarged and fast torpedo boat, capable of escorting larger ships on long voyages and also able to attack enemy battleships with torpedoes as part of a fleet action. The Spanish Navy asked several British shipyards to submit proposals capable of fulfilling these specifications. In 1885 it chose the design submitted by the shipyard of James and George Thomson of Clydebank, near the

Yarrow ''Achillea millefolium'', commonly known as yarrow () or common yarrow, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. Other common names include old man's pepper, devil's nettle, sanguinary, milfoil, soldier's woundwort, and thousand seal. The ...

shipyards. The vessel was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one o ...

at the end of the year, launched in 1886, and commissioned in 1887.

Characteristics

''Destructor'' displaced , and was equipped with

triple-expansion engine A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure ''(HP)'' cylinder, then having given up he ...

s generating , for a maximum speed of ,''Contratorpedero Destructor''
which made her one of the faster ships in the world by 1888. She was armed with one 90mm (3.5 in) Spanish-designed Hontoria breech-loading gun,Fitzsimmons, Bernard: ''The Illustrated encyclopedia of 20th century weapons and warfare.'' Columbia House, 1978, v. 8, page 835 four (6 pdr)

Nordenfeldt The Nordenfelt gun was a multiple-barrel organ gun that had a row of up to twelve barrels. It was fired by pulling a lever back and forth and ammunition was gravity fed through chutes for each barrel. It was produced in a number of different ...

guns, two Hotchkiss revolving cannons and 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 ship carried three Schwartzkopff torpedoes per tube. She was manned by a crew of 60. On her maiden voyage, ''Destructor'' established a record after steaming from Falmouth to Ferrol in 24 hours. In terms of gunnery, speed and dimensions, the specialised design to chase torpedo boats and her high seas capabilities, ''Destructor'' is widely considered the first torpedo-boat destroyer ever built, and was described as such by British naval engineer Sir

William Henry White Sir William Henry White, (2 February 1845 – 27 February 1913) was a prolific British warship designer and Chief Constructor at the Admiralty. Biography White was born in Devonport, the son of Robert White, a currier, and his wife, Jane ...

. ''Destructor'' is thought to have influenced the design and concept of later destroyers developed by the British

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 ...

. Further developments followed the pattern of the , built in 1893. The aim of the new destroyer design was not only to neutralize the torpedo boat as an effective weapon, but also to replace it as a faster and more reliable torpedo-carrying warship.Dolby, James: ''The Steel Navy: A History in Silhouette, 1860–1963.'' Macdonald, 1965, page 71. OCLC 2336286

Notes

References

* Cheseneau, R & Kolesnik, E (Eds). ''Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905'', Conway Maritime Press, 1979. * Lyon, David. ''The First Destroyers'', Chatham Shipshape Series, London, 1997.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Destructor (1886) Destroyers of the Spanish Navy Ships built on the River Clyde Science and technology in Spain 1886 ships