CSS Marix (DD-1915 (DDE-1937))

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The first ocean going destroyers built for the Confederate States Navy, the Marix class was designed from the UK L class with a differing armament. They needed to be large and fast to screen the Puerto Rico and Cuba class battlecruisers. None of the previous class survived past the early 1920's especially after one returned to port with stress fractures that caused it to be deleted from service. That class was restricted to no higher speed than 24 knots for the rest of their careers.

The Marix type had a bigger gun armament at four 3.9" to the detriment of the torpedo armament where only two sets of twin 18" torpedos were mounted amidships. This was fixed in the next class. The minor armament was a half dozen Browning 0.5" machine guns.

With the expiry of treaties and the rash of new building taking place in the early 1930's, all navies looked at their inventory to see what could be kept or modified and kept. The Marix class was eminently suitable for modification to escorts, but funds for the required work could not be found till the mid 1930's, with the Marix itself being taken in hand for conversion in 1935. Two of the 3.9" were given shields, AA mountings and retained in A and Y positions. Light weaponry replaced the other two 3.9" with a pair of 40mm in X position and a pair of 20mm in Q position. One set of torpedos was removed and replaced with extra depth charge dispensers and storage. What was newest was the trial set of ASDIC fitted to the ship in late 1936, this was the latest colaboration with the French Navy (which was given the British updates for free) and proved a lot more effective than the earlier systems.

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