The Tarpon class proved a failure with a 6" main armament. From then on Panagaea would leave those guns to the cruisers. The Sabertooth class were to be the 'War Emergency' destroyer class. They would be a double class of 16 ships. Designed to still be longer ranged than their European equivalents, they needed to be bigger for extra fuel. The ships would be smaller than the previous two classes but faster to go with the new 'fast' battleships.
For the first time in Panagaean destroyers, the Sabertooth class had superimposed main guns both fore and aft. Where previous classes had mounted a main gun between the funnels, the Sabertooth mounted its 3" AA gun. Two 2 pounder AA guns were mounted behind the aft funnel. What took up the most space on the destroyers was from changing the twin 18" torpedoes out for triple 21".Between the sets of torpedoes was the torpedo director. The extra hull length in that area could be utilised for extra fuel stowage. These were a much better balanced destroyer than most.
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The Royal Navy started putting their V & W class destroyers through the 'Wair' conversions. The conversion upgraded the ships with modern dual purpose 4", 2pounder AA guns, asdic, depth charges, so that the ships became much better all round escorts. The Royal Navy had 50 odd V & W class to convert and also started on the oldest of the 1918 Leader class ships as well. Only about half of the conversions had been completed by wars start and a series of other conversions were undertaken on the ships as time permitted. The Panagaean Navy was also doing similar conversions to its early destroyers and the Sabertooth class would be no different.
The two drawings above show the 1939 and 1942 versions of the converted ships. From bow to stern is: (1939) twin 4", twin 2pounder, DP gun director with radar control, two single 2 pounder, one quad 2 pounder, triple torpedo tubes, torpedo director, depth charge throwers, twin 4", twin 4", depth charge racks. (1942) twin 4", Hedgehog mortar, DP gun director with radar control, two twin 20mm, two twin 20mm, one quad 2 pounder, triple torpedo tubes, twin 20mm, depth charge throwers, twin 4", twin 4", depth charge racks.
With sixteen ships in the class, I am not going to do blogs on each ship. Suffice to say five of the class were lost during the war. Three in the Atlantic, two to U-boats, one to mines. Two in the Pacific, one to submarine, one to Kamikaze hit in late 1944.
