Viper class destroyer
Encyclopedia
The Viper class was a group of two Torpedo Boat Destroyers (TBD) built for the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
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...
in 1899.
They were notable for being the first warships to use steam turbine
Steam turbine
A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into rotary motion. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884....
propulsion. They had Parsons turbines on four shafts
Driveshaft
A drive shaft, driveshaft, driving shaft, propeller shaft, or Cardan shaft is a mechanical component for transmitting torque and rotation, usually used to connect other components of a drive train that cannot be connected directly because of distance or the need to allow for relative movement...
, with two propeller
Propeller
A propeller is a type of fan that transmits power by converting rotational motion into thrust. A pressure difference is produced between the forward and rear surfaces of the airfoil-shaped blade, and a fluid is accelerated behind the blade. Propeller dynamics can be modeled by both Bernoulli's...
s on each, one inboard and one outboard of the shaft A-bracket.
was ordered and built for the Royal Navy in 1899 by Hawthorn Leslie and Company
Hawthorn Leslie and Company
R. & W. Hawthorn Leslie and Company, Limited, usually referred to as Hawthorn Leslie, was a shipbuilding and locomotive manufacturer. The Company was founded on Tyneside in 1886 and ceased building ships in 1982.-History:...
at Hebburn
Hebburn
Hebburn is a small town situated on the south bank of the River Tyne in North East England, sandwiched between the towns of Jarrow and Bill Quay...
on the River Tyne
River Tyne
The River Tyne is a river in North East England in Great Britain. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers: the North Tyne and the South Tyne. These two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'.The North Tyne rises on the...
. HMS Python was built as a speculative venture by Hawthorns and was purchased in 1902.
Viper and another turbine-powered ship, the Vickers
Vickers Limited
Vickers Limited was a famous British engineering conglomerate that merged into Vickers-Armstrongs in 1927.-Early history:Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor &...
special-type were both lost to accidents in 1901: Viper foundered on rocks in fog during naval manoeuvres near Alderney
Alderney
Alderney is the most northerly of the Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency. It is long and wide. The area is , making it the third-largest island of the Channel Islands, and the second largest in the Bailiwick...
on 3 August 1901, while Cobra broke her back in a storm in the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
on 18 September 1901. Since then the Royal Navy has not used snake names for destroyers; Python was renamed Velox soon after. Velox was rated as a C class
C class destroyer (1913)
The C class as designated in 1913 was a heterogeneous group of torpedo boat destroyers built for the Royal Navy in the late-1890s. They were constructed to the individual designs of their builders to meet Admiralty specifications. The uniting feature of the class was a top speed of 30 knots, a...
type in 1913, that is a 30-knot TBD with three funnel
Funnel
A funnel is a pipe with a wide, often conical mouth and a narrow stem. It is used to channel liquid or fine-grained substances into containers with a small opening. Without a funnel, spillage would occur....
s.
The ships were considered successes when acquired, achieving speeds of up to 36 knots on trials, and all subsequent British destroyers after the River or E class
River class destroyer
The River-class destroyer was a heterogeneous class of torpedo boat destroyer built to assorted builders' designs for the Royal Navy at the turn of the 20th century, which saw extensive service in World War I...
of 1903 used steam turbine machinery (until the all-gas turbine
Gas turbine
A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of internal combustion engine. It has an upstream rotating compressor coupled to a downstream turbine, and a combustion chamber in-between....
Type 42
Type 42 destroyer
The Type 42 or Sheffield class, are guided missile destroyers used by the British Royal Navy and the Argentine Navy. The first ship of the class was ordered in 1968 and launched in 1971, and today three ships remain active in the Royal Navy and one in the Argentinian Navy...
of 1971).
Ships
, launched 6 September 1899, wrecked near AlderneyAlderney
Alderney is the most northerly of the Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency. It is long and wide. The area is , making it the third-largest island of the Channel Islands, and the second largest in the Bailiwick...
on 3 August 1901.
- HMS Python, later renamed , launched 11 February 1902, mined and sunk off Nab light vesselNab TowerThe Nab Tower is a tower planned for anti-submarine protection in the Straits of Dover in World War I. It was sunk over the Nab rocks east of the Isle of Wight to replace a lightship after the war, and is a well known landmark for sailors as it marks the deep water eastern entry into the...
, 25 October 1915.