HMS Zulu (DDL-1939)

 

 

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The RN, for some time, had been worried about the A-F class and prior classes of destroyers being outclassed by the destroyer construction in other countries. To provide a 'ship of force' that could back up the earlier destroyers, the Admiralty designed an 1850 ton (grew to over 2,000 tons over the length of building time of the class) ship with four twin 4.7" open mountings of the new DP model. Only one set of torpedo tubes was to be fitted to compensate for the 4th turret. To ameliorate the loss of a set of torpedoes, the Tribal Class were the first ships in the RN to be fitted with the new quintuple mounting. The new DP mounting proved a winner with much greater AA and Surface capabilities than the older low angle mountings.

The first three ships all received 'G' names as they were to be the flotilla leaders of the three half flotillas of G class destroyers. In total, 32 Tribal Class were completed between 1937 and 1946. 24 were completed for the RN, 4 for Canada, and Australia built four of their own.

 

 

 

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