The French had two streams of destroyers being built during the late 1920's and 1930's. The Bourasque class, 1500 ton, general destroyers and the bigger, 2500 ton, contre-torpilleur type of large destroyer. In the mid 1930's a new type of general destroyer of an 1850 ton size to follow on from the Bourasque was put into production. The new class was to have the same sized 5.1"/130mm as the Bourasque but these were to be in the new twin dual purpose turret (historically the twins on Le Hardi were open backed and noted as SP with only 35 degrees elevation). Three would be fitted in a one forward, two aft, configuration. The minor AA weapons were four pairs of 25mm guns. Those would be replaced as soon as the ship was sent to a US or Commonwealth refit port/base.
Twelve ships of the class were laid down 1937-39. But only five ships of the class had been completed by the time the Armistice was signed in June 1940. Two more of the class were over 85% complete, one of which made it to Casablanca with the Jean Bart, while the other had to be towed to Plymouth. That ship was turned over to the Free French and completed at a Scottish yard. Of the five completed ships, three were at Mers-el-Kebir while the other two were at Alexandria.
The UK refit of the Le Corsaire finished off the ship very nicely indeed. New 40mm and 20mm replaced the 25mm, but the largest changes were in the electronics suite where air and sea search radar were added, while the 40mm got predictors, and the gunnery director had radar fire control added as well. Not forgetting sub surface as asdic was added for submarine search. The French triple and twin torpedo tubes were replaced with one quintuple mounting. Just four months completely transformed the ship into a much more capable ship than the one that escaped from France incomplete.
