![]() There’s even a direct quote on the topic that shows just how limited the range was on these proto-Destroyers: Provided with only 90 tons of fuel oil storage and a very high rate of fuel consumption due to use of 1st generation direct drive steam turbines instead of reciprocating piston VTE Steam Engines, the Tribal-class was shown to be ridiculously uneconomical to the point that they could barely reach beyond the coast. ![]() The biggest downside to the 1905 Tribal-class was that it was just an absolute PIG of a gas-guzzler. The result of this was an impressively fast and high-tech design for the mid-1900s, but in the larger picture was debatably a step back in overall practicality compared to the earlier River-class, as the Tribal-class was comparatively lightly built and later was shown to be somewhat fragile during WWI. …but at the cost of pushing the design to its limits (which Fisher had an alarming habit of causing) by installing what was then cutting edge technology on a platform that wasn’t entirely quite ready- keep in mind this is 1905, this is directly contemporary with the construction of the first turbine-driven battleship, the legendary HMS Dreadnought. This requirement as with anything thought up by Lord Fisher had its wild ups and downs, and the result was an almost oversized ship for its type in order to fit the large turbine engines that provided for a far higher amount of shaft horsepower at 12,500 shp (9300 kW), later up to 14,500 shp depending on the particular ship and its installed machinery vs the late model River-class’s 7,700 shp (5,700 kW)… The origin of the Tribal-class comes from November 1904, when First Sea Lord and resident naval mad scientist John “Jackie” Fisher made the proposition of a new class of torpedo boat destroyer with a top speed of at least 33 knots (61 km/h) with the usage of oil-fired boilers and steam turbines as opposed to coal-firing from Vertical Triple Expansion reciprocating steam piston engines as seen on the River-class. This incarnation of Tribal-class was itself a sign of these changing times- the 1st Programme Early Model ships of HMS Afridi, Cossack, Gurkha, Mohawk, and Tartar had 4 (soon after, 5) 3-inch/76mm QF 12-pounders, meanwhile the middle production 1906-07 2nd programme run of HMS Saracen and Amazon, and 1908-09 3rd programme of HMS Crusader, Maori, Nubian, Viking, and Zulu replaced the 12-pounders with a pair of BL 4-inch cannons- the distinct difference between the first generation of what we’d just call a Destroyer, and the last of the ye olde Torpedo Boat Destroyer and their sub-100mm main guns, like the River-class (redesignated as the E-class in 1913) which the Tribal-class was meant to supplement- showing that the rate of technological improvement even after the turn of the century was still so fast it could obsolete a then-state of the art design in only a few years. The Tribal-class Torpedo Boat Destroyer, or alternatively the F-class as they were redesignated in 1913… not to be mistaken for the Tribal-class of 1936… nor the F-class of 1934… real imaginative naming there chaps… was a mid-1900s design of ship at right around the time when torpedo boat destroyers were just starting to get big enough and powerful enough that they might start posing a threat to larger ships, AKA dropping the torpedo boat part and just being called Destroyer. the entire raised bow section would be blown off by a torpedo and replaced by the bow from HMS Zulu years later. This is HMS Zubian (D99), a literal Frankenstein’s Monster of a ship, born from the rear 2/3rds of HMS Nubian combined with the remaining bow of HMS Zulu… all to resurrect an obsolescent ship at just about the only time in history that this would’ve been done and with a ship small enough to accept the cost- at the height of the War To End All Wars, World War One, in 1917. ![]() ![]() This is the re-suggestion of one of my earliest legacy suggestions: The Tribal-class Torpedo Boat Destroyer of 1905, specifically one of the 3rd Programme (1908/1909) Late-pattern models, more specifically the one featuring one of the most extraordinary beginnings of almost any ship ever built in human history… and somehow actually not clickbait. ![]()
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