Vauquelin

History

The French destroyer Vauquelin was the lead ship of her class of destroyers (contre-torpilleurs) built for the French Navy during the 1930s.

After France surrendered to Germany in June 1940 during World War II, Vauquelin served with the navy of Vichy France. She was among the ships of the French fleet scuttled at Toulon, France, on 27 November 1942.

Design

The Vauquelin-class was largely a repeat of the prior Aigle-class, which had remained generally similar to the Guépard-class, though major improvements had been incorporated. As a result, destroyers of the Aigle and Vauquelin-classes were slightly heavier. The main difference was the machinery, and although it gave the same power as the prior class, was much more robust and reliable than what had equipped the Guépard-class. Fuel economy was also improved, and the improved hull form allowed for an increase in top speed to 36 knots, despite machinery power not increasing.

Firepower also increased despite using an identical number of guns of the same caliber. The new 138.6mm/40 Mle 1927 replaced the old Mle 1923, and was based on the German 15cm Tbts KL/45 used by Kaiserliche Marine destroyers in WWI. This gun had incorporated a German-style sliding breech, a major improvement over the Welin interrupted screw breech. This greatly reduced the firing cycle, down to a theoretical 5 seconds (12 rounds per minute). Additionally, the height of the trunnions was lowered by nine centimeters, making it easier top load the gun at lower elevations. This had the unfortunate affect of lowering the maximum elevation to only +28°, and thus maximum ballistic range to 16,600 meters, but the French reasoned this gave little loss since the gunnery of these types of ships was generally limited to 13,000 meters at best. This being said, the difficulty in manually handling the shells and charges remained, and likewise hoist capacity – 20 rounds per minute for each of the two hoists (one fore, one aft) – had not improved over the prior classes. While this had been more than enough for the 138.6/40 Mle 1923, this meant that the sustained rate of fire of the destroyers was limited to 10 rpm, assuming the amidships gun (no.3) was not fed. Thus, the destroyers became more reliant on the ready racks (24 round each save for no.3, which had 48 rounds) for their initial fire, and less inclined to sustained combat, where rate of fire was limited to around 8 rpm.

Fire control of the Vauquelin was improved over Aigle, incorporating a better 3-meter stereoscopic rangefinder (still no director) and an improved Mle 1929 fire control computer, which transmitted both train and elevation data to the guns via a FTP system (versus only train angle with the prior Mle 1923).

Anti-aircraft firepower remained the same, and torpedoes remained the same – but torpedo tube positioning changed. The aft triple bank remained where it was (using a new Mle 1928T mount), but the forward triple bank was deleted in favor of a pair of twin mounts (Mle 1928D), one on each side, which overall had much better angles of fire than the old triple mount (a 140° arc versus a 60° arc).

The final major difference was the optimization for minelaying of the Vauqeulin-class, which featured a modified stern shape for minelaying, and greater mine capacity (increasing from 20 to 50 compared to prior classes).

Overall, the class represented a significant improvement over the Aigle-class, and were much better than the Guépard-class. They had much more reliable machinery despite maintaining just as high a speed, and were overall more durable. Their effective firepower increased with their faster-firing guns, and their fire control system was overall better than any contre-torpilleur that preceded them. They were considered to be very stable ships, making them good gunnery platforms – although high wind affected them greatly due to their high silhouette and slim hull form, an issue common to all contre-torpilleurs. Likewise, this also caused them to turn very poorly, which was also common to all contre-torpilleurs. Although these issues detracted from their performance, as did their poor air defense and lack of effective anti-submarine warfare equipment (namely a lack of means to detect enemy submarines), they represented a generally very successful evolution of the contre-torpilleur design that had started with the Jaguar-class.