The Daring class was a class of eleven destroyers built for the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 (RN) and Royal Australian Navy

Royal Australian Navy

The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...

 (RAN). Constructed after World War II, and entering service during the 1950s, eight ships were constructed for the RN, and three ships for the RAN. Two of the RN destroyers were subsequently sold to and served in the Peruvian Navy

Peruvian Navy

The Peruvian Navy is the branch of the Peruvian Armed Forces tasked with surveillance, patrol and defense on lakes, rivers and the Pacific Ocean up to 200 nautical miles from the Peruvian littoral...

 (MGP). A further eight ships were planned for the RN but were cancelled before construction commenced, while a fourth RAN vessel was begun but was cancelled before launch and broken up on the slipway.

The Daring-class ships were both the largest and most heavily armed ships serving in Commonwealth

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

 navies to be classified as destroyers. They were also the last destroyers of the RN and RAN to possess guns as their main armament (instead of guided missiles), which saw use during the Indonesian Confrontation and the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

.

The Daring-class destroyers were in service in the RN and RAN from the 1950s to the 1980s. Following decommissioning, two RN Darings were sold to the MGP, which operated one ship until 1993 and the other until 2007. One ship of the class is preserved: as a museum ship at the Australian National Maritime Museum

Australian National Maritime Museum

The Australian National Maritime Museum is a federally-operated maritime museum located in Darling Harbour, Sydney. After consideration of the idea to establish a maritime museum, the Federal government announced that a national maritime museum would be constructed at Darling Harbour, tied into...

.

Design

The Darings were the largest destroyers then built at that time for the RN, having a displacement of 3,820 tonnes, a length of 390 feet (118.9 m), a beam of 43 feet (13.1 m), and a draught of 12.75 feet (3.9 m).

The Darings were the last conventional gun destroyers of the RN; armed with the QF 4.5 inch /45 (113 mm) Mark V gun in three double mounts UD Mk.VI (later renamed simply Mark N6). The main armament was controlled by a director Mark VI fitted with Radar Type 275 on the bridge and a director CRBF (close range blind fire) aft with Radar Type 262 providing local control for 'X' turret on aft arcs. Remote Power Control (RPC) was provided for the main armament.
They were designed to ship three twin 40 mm /60 Bofors

Bofors 40 mm gun

The Bofors 40 mm gun is an anti-aircraft autocannon designed by the Swedish defence firm of Bofors Defence...

 mounts STAAG Mark II, but one was later replaced by the lighter and more reliable twin Mount Mark V. This meant that the Darings could engage two targets at long range and two at close range under fully automatic radar directed-control, an enormous improvement over their predecessors. Two of the Australian Darings were instead fitted with two twin and two single Bofors mounts. Radar Type 293 was carried on the foremast for target indication.

Like the earlier , the Darings had their machinery arranged on the 'unit' principle, where boiler rooms and engine rooms alternated to increase survivability. The boilers utilised pressures and temperatures (650 psi, 850 °F) hitherto unheard of in the conservative Royal Navy, allowing great savings in weight and efficiency to be made. The wide spacing of the boilers resulted in widely-spaced funnels. The forward funnel was trunked up through the lattice foremast (referred to as a mack

Mack (ship)

In naval architecture, a Mack is a structure which combines the radar MAsts and the exhaust stACK of a surface ship, thereby saving the upper deck space used for separate funnels and the increasingly large lattice masts used to carry heavy radar aerials. The word itself is a composite of "mast" and...

) with the after funnel a stump amidships. Neither was provided with a casing, resulting in a curious, rather unappealing appearance, although the utility of the funnels was considered by some to enhance the overall appearance. Attempts were made to improve the appearance by adding a streamline case to the funnel, but this was later removed. Of note was a new design of bridge, breaking with a lineage going back to the H-class destroyer

G and H class destroyer

The G- and H-class destroyers were a class of twenty-four destroyers of the Royal Navy launched in 1935–1939. They served in World War II and sixteen were lost, with a seventeenth being written off as a constructive total loss...

 of 1936. ³/₈ inch armour plating was added to the turrets, the bridge and the fire control cable runs.

British

The Royal Navy ships were built in two groups, one with the traditional DC

Direct current

Direct current is the unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow through...

 electrical system (Daring, Dainty, Defender and Delight) and the remaining ships with a modern AC

Alternating current

In alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. In direct current , the flow of electric charge is only in one direction....

 system. They were known as the 2nd and 5th Destroyer Squadrons, respectively.

Two of the ships, Danae and Delight, were originally part of the , though only Delight (originally Ypres, then Disdain, before finally being renamed to Delight) was commissioned.

They were to have been of all-welded construction, but Daring, Decoy, and Diana were built with a composite of welding and riveting.

Australian

The Royal Australian Navy initially ordered four Daring-class destroyers, which were to be named after the ships of the "Scrap Iron Flotilla

Scrap Iron Flotilla

The Scrap Iron Flotilla was an Australian destroyer group that operated in the Mediterranean and Pacific during World War II. The name scrap iron flotilla was bestowed upon the group by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels....

" of World War II. The ships were modified during construction: most changes were made to improve habitability, including the installation of air-conditioning. The Darings were also the first all-welded ships to be constructed in Australia.

The first Australian Daring was laid down in 1949. By 1950, it was already apparent that the Australian Darings would not be completed on time, as the Australian dockyards were experiencing difficulty in keeping up with the construction schedule. To compensate for this, the RAN unsuccessfully attempted to purchase two of the Darings under construction in the United Kingdom, and considered acquiring ships from the United States Navy despite the logistical difficulties in supplying and maintaining American vessels in a predominately British-designed fleet. Only three ships were completed; , , and were commissioned between 1957 and 1959. By the time they were commissioned, the cost of each ship had increased from A£

Australian pound

The pound was the currency of Australia from 1910 until 13 February 1966, when it was replaced by the Australian dollar. It was subdivided into 20 shillings, each of 12 pence.- Earlier Australian currencies :...

2.6 million to A£7 million.

Cancelled ships

Eight further Daring-class destroyers ordered for the Royal Navy were cancelled on 27 December 1945: Danae, Decoy, Delight, Demon, Dervish, Desire, Desperate. and Diana. Consequently, the ships of this class originally ordered as Disdain, Dogstar, Dragon and Druid were renamed as Delight, Defender, Decoy and Diana to perpetuate the names of the original "D"-class flotilla of the 1930s.

The fourth Australian Daring, to be named Waterhen

HMAS Waterhen

There have been one ship and one shore establishment in the Royal Australian Navy named HMAS Waterhen. The first ship originally served under the name HMS Waterhen with the Royal Navy , and a second British ship of the name was ordered but later cancelled. was a V and W class destroyer...

 was cancelled in 1954 as one of several cost-cutting measures to maintain a naval aviation force based around two aircraft carriers.

Construction programme

Pennant Pennant number In the modern Royal Navy, and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth, ships are identified by pennant numbers...	Name	(a) Hull builder	Ordered	Laid down	Launched	Completed or Accepted into service	Commissioned	Estimated building cost
I05, later D119	Delight (ex-Disdain, ex-Ypres) HMS Delight (D119) HMS Delight was a Daring-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy, launched in 1950 and broken up at Inverkeithing in 1971.-External links:*...	(a) Fairfield.	5 June 1943	5 September 1946	21 December 1950	9 October 1953	9 October 1953
I06	Danae (ex-Vimiera)	(a) Cammell Laird.	5 June 1943	-	-	Cancelled 13 December 1945	-	-
I15, later D05	Daring HMS Daring (D05) HMS Daring was the nameship of the Daring class of destroyers authorised in 1944. Between 1953 and 1957 they were reclassified as "Darings" and not included in the destroyer total, but from October 1957 they reverted to classification as destroyers....	(a) Swan Hunter.	24 January 1945	29 September 1945	10 August 1949	8 March 1952	8 March 1952
I35	Demon	(a) Swan Hunter.	24 January 1945	-	-	Cancelled 13 December 1945.	-	-
I52, later D108	Dainty HMS Dainty (D108) HMS Dainty was a Daring class destroyer of the British Royal Navy....	(a) JS White.	24 January 1945	17 December 1945	16 August 1950	26 February 1953	26 February 1953
I73	Dervish	(a) JS White.	24 January 1945	-	-	Cancelled 13 December 1945.	-
I40	Decoy	(a) Vickers, Newcastle-on-Tyne.	24 January 1945	-	-	Cancelled 13 December 1945.	-
I45	Delight	(a) Vickers, Newcastle-on-Tyne.	24 January 1945	-	-	Cancelled 13 December 1945.	-
I81, later D35	Diamond HMS Diamond (D35) HMS Diamond was a Daring-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy. She was built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland, and launched on 14 June 1950...	(a) John Brown.	24 January 1945	15 March 1949	14 June 1950	21 February 1952	21 February 1952
I87	Desperate	(a) John Brown.	24 January 1945	-	-	Cancelled 27 December 1945.	-
I19	Desire	(a) Hawthorne Leslie.	16 February 1945	-	-	Cancelled 13 December 1945.	-
I77	Diana	(a) Hawthorne Leslie.	16 February 1945	-	-	Cancelled 13 December 1945.	-
I47, later D114	Defender (ex-Dogstar) HMS Defender (D114) HMS Defender was a Daring-class destroyer of the Royal Navy.Built as yard number 609 at Alexander Stephen and Sons, and originally intended to be named Dogstar, she was launched on 27 July 1950...	(a) Stephen.	16 February 1945	22 March 1949	27 July 1950	5 December 1952	5 December 1952
I56, later D106	Decoy (ex-Dragon)	(a) Yarrow.	16 February 1945	23 September 1946	29 March 1949	28 April 1953	28 April 1953
I26, later D126	Diana (ex-Druid) HMS Diana (D126) HMS Diana was one of the Daring Class of destroyers planned during the Second World War by the Royal Navy. The design therefore reflected developments of the Pacific campaign, including long range and the ability to efficiently Replenish At Sea .-Size:...	(a) Yarrow.	16 February 1945	3 April 1947	8 May 1952	29 March 1954	29 March 1954
I94, later D154	Duchess	(a) Thornycroft.	29 March 1945	8 July 1948	9 April 1951	23 October 1952	23 October 1952
Australian Daring-class destroyers
D11	Vampire HMAS Vampire (D11) HMAS Vampire was the third of three Australian-built Daring class destroyers serving in the Royal Australian Navy . One of the first all-welded ships built in Australia, she was constructed at Cockatoo Island Dockyard between 1952 and 1959, and was commissioned into the RAN a day after...	(a) Cockatoo Island.		1 July 1952	27 October 1956	23 June 1959	23 June 1959
D08	Vendetta HMAS Vendetta (D08) HMAS Vendetta was one of three Daring class destroyers built for and operated by the Royal Australian Navy . The destroyer was built by Williamstown Naval Dockyard and entered service in 1958. During her early career, Vendetta was deployed to the Far East Strategic Reserve on multiple occasions...	(a) Williamstown Dock Yard.		4 July 1949	3 May 1954	26 November 1958	26 November 1958
D04	Voyager HMAS Voyager (D04) HMAS Voyager was a Daring class destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy , that was lost in a collision in 1964.Constructed between 1949 and 1957, Voyager was the first ship of her class to enter Australian service, and the first all-welded ship to be built in Australia...	(a) Cockatoo Island.		10 October 1949	1 May 1952	12 February 1957	12 February 1957
-	Waterhen	(a) Williamstown Dock Yard.		December 1952	-	Cancelled 1954	-	-

British modifications

In 1958, the 'DC' group had their after torpedo tubes removed and replaced with a deckhouse providing additional accommodation facilities. This modification was made in the 'AC' ships in 1959-1960. At the same time as this, the 'AC' replaced the STAAG mounts with single mounts Mark 7 and had the director Mark VI replaced by the new director MRS-3 (medium range system) incorporating the Radar Type 903 for fire control. The Sea Cat missile

Sea Cat missile

Sea Cat was a British short-range surface to air missile system intended to replace the ubiquitous Bofors 40 mm gun aboard warships of all sizes. It was the world's first operational shipboard point-defence missile system and was designed so that the Bofors guns could be replaced with minimum...

 launcher was fitted briefly to Decoy but it was later removed and never fitted to the rest of the Darings as had been intended.

Between 1962 and 1964, the 'DC' group had the STAAG mounts replaced by the Mark V also, with the final set of torpedo tubes being removed at the same time. This group also had the director MRS-3 replace the Mark VI.

Service and fate

The class saw service with the RN from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, and with the RAN from the late 1950s to the late 1970s, with Vampire in service as a training ship until 1986. Several of the ships were also involved in Cold War conflicts. Delight, Duchess, Vampire and Vendetta were involved in the Indonesian Confrontation. Vendetta was also involved in the Vietnam War; the only Australian-built warship to serve in the conflict.

Only one ship of the class was lost. On the night of 10 February 1964, Voyager crossed the bows of the aircraft carrier and was rammed and sunk

Melbourne-Voyager collision

The Melbourne-Voyager collision, also referred to as the "Melbourne-Voyager incident" or simply the "Voyager incident", was a collision between two warships of the Royal Australian Navy ; the aircraft carrier and the destroyer...

 with the loss of 81 RAN personnel and one civilian contractor. Duchess was loaned to the RAN as a replacement for four years while replacements (two modified River class destroyer escort

River class destroyer escort

The River class was a class of six destroyer escorts operated by the Royal Australian Navy . Plans to acquire four vessels, based on the British Type 12M frigate, began in the 1950s. The first two vessels had some slight modifications to the design, while the next two underwent further changes...

s) were constructed, but was then sold to the RAN.

The British Darings received little modernisation, and were all decommissioned as obsolete during the early 1970s. Two of these, Diana and Decoy, were sold to the Peruvian Navy

Peruvian Navy

The Peruvian Navy is the branch of the Peruvian Armed Forces tasked with surveillance, patrol and defense on lakes, rivers and the Pacific Ocean up to 200 nautical miles from the Peruvian littoral...

 and renamed BAP Palacios

BAP Palacios (DM-73)

BAP Palacios ' was a Daring class destroyer in service with the Peruvian Navy. She was completed for the Royal Navy in 1954 as HMS Diana. After being decommissioned she was sold to Peru in 1969 together with her sistership HMS Decoy...

 and BAP Ferré

BAP Ferré (DM-74)

BAP Ferré ' was a Daring class destroyer in service with the Peruvian Navy. She was completed for the Royal Navy in 1953 as HMS Decoy . After being decommissioned she was sold to Peru in 1969 together with her sistership Diana...

 respectively. These two ships were modernised, with Palacios serving until 1993, and Ferré decommissioning in 2007. The RAN ships were modernised in the early 1970s at a cost of A$20 million, although modifications to Duchess were fewer than to her sister ships. Duchess and Vendetta remained in commission until the late 1970s, and Vampire was retained until 1986 as a training ship.

The Australian Darings were replaced with the s, an American-built derivative of the Charles F. Adams-class

Charles F. Adams class destroyer

The Charles F. Adams class is a ship class of 29 guided missile destroyers built between 1958 and 1967. Twenty three ships were built for the United States Navy, 3 for the Royal Australian Navy, and 3 for the West German Bundesmarine. The ships were based on the existing Forrest Sherman class, but...

 guided missile destroyer. The training role of the Darings was first supplemented, then replaced, by .

After decommissioning, Vampire became a museum ship

Museum ship

A museum ship, or sometimes memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public, for educational or memorial purposes...

 at the Australian National Maritime Museum

Australian National Maritime Museum

The Australian National Maritime Museum is a federally-operated maritime museum located in Darling Harbour, Sydney. After consideration of the idea to establish a maritime museum, the Federal government announced that a national maritime museum would be constructed at Darling Harbour, tied into...

 in Sydney; the only ship of the class to be preserved.

Models

A variety of models were produced during the lifetime of the Daring class ships which publicised them to a younger generation. In 1959 Triang Minic Ships produced a series of 1:1200 (one inch to 100 feet) metal models, carrying the names Daring, Diana, Dainty and Decoy: these toys were mass-produced in large numbers between 1959 and 1965, and remain sought after by collectors today. In 1961 the Airfix

Airfix

Airfix is a UK manufacturer of plastic scale model kits of aircraft and other subjects. In Britain, the name Airfix is synonymous with the hobby, a plastic model of this type is often simply referred to as "an airfix kit" even if made by another manufacturer....

 company produced an accurate HMS Daring plastic model kit to a scale of 1/600th (one inch to 50 feet) which depicted the multiple large gun turrets and the combined 'mast and stack' ("Mack"

Mack (ship)

In naval architecture, a Mack is a structure which combines the radar MAsts and the exhaust stACK of a surface ship, thereby saving the upper deck space used for separate funnels and the increasingly large lattice masts used to carry heavy radar aerials. The word itself is a composite of "mast" and...

) arrangement of the design. A highly accurate metal miniature is currently produced in small numbers by the German manufacturer 'Albatros', to the international scale of 1:1250.

External links