The ''Spahi'' class consisted of seven
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
French Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. One ship was lost during the
First World War, but the others survived to be
scrapped
Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered me ...
afterwards.
Design and description
The ''Spahi''-class was over 50 percent larger than the preceding to match the increase in size of foreign destroyers. They varied slightly in size due to building practices of each shipyard.
[
They had an length between perpendiculars of , 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 ,[Couhat, p. 95] and a draft of . The ships displaced at deep load.[
The destroyers were powered by two triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by four water-tube boilers of three different types. and used ]Normand boiler
Three-drum boilers are a class of water-tube boiler used to generate steam, typically to power ships. They are compact and of high evaporative power, factors that encourage this use. Other boiler designs may be more efficient, although bulkier, an ...
s, and had du Temple boiler
Three-drum boilers are a class of water-tube boiler used to generate steam, typically to power ships. They are compact and of high evaporative power, factors that encourage this use. Other boiler designs may be more efficient, although bulkier, an ...
s while the remaining three ships were fitted with Guyot boilers. The engines were designed to produce , except for ''Spahi'' with , which was intended to give the sister ship
A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...
s a speed of . During their sea trials, they reached speeds of . The ships carried of coal which gave them a range of at a cruising speed of . ''Lansquenet'' had a capacity of which gave her a range of at the same cruising speed.[Couhat, pp. 95–96]
The primary armament of the ''Spahi''-class ships consisted of six Modèle 1902 guns in single mounts, one each fore and aft of the superstructure
A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships.
Aboard ships and large boats
On water craft, the superstruct ...
and the others were distributed amidships. They were also fitted with three torpedo tubes. One of these was in a fixed mount in the bow and the other two were on single rotating mounts amidships.[
]
Ships
Citations
Bibliography
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{{WWI French ships
Destroyer classes
Destroyers of the French Navy
Ship classes of the French Navy