140 Footer Class Torpedo Boat (1892)

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Britain ordered ten first-class torpedo boats called 140 Footers as it was ordering the first destroyers. Of these, three Yarrow & Company-built boats were considerably smaller than the others, but all were larger than the preceding T.B. 82 class, which was sometimes referred to as the 130 Footers.

The 140 Footers started coming into service in 1894, T.B. 93 being employed in manœvres that year. By 1895, more had been delivered and six of them had been sent to Gibraltar.[1][2]

Common Characteristics

One fixed 18-in torpedo tube in the bow, and two trainable tubes on the deck.[3] The trainable tubes were apparently parallel on a single mounting, and perhaps faced in opposite directions.[4]

Three 3-pdrs.[5]

In mid-1904, the Royal Navy ordered the replacement of two 5-barrel .45-in Nordenfelt machine guns with .45-in Maxim guns on each of 57 first-class torpedo boats. This figure must have included most or all of this class.[6]

Yarrow Boats

All boats were 105 tons.

T.B. 88 and 89 were slightly longer at 142 feet and could make 23.5 knots on 1850 I.H.P.. They were sent to Gibraltar in 1895.[7] T.B. 90 made 23 knots on 1500 I.H.P. produced by a four-cylinder engine and experimental water-tube boilers. She may have been unsuccessful, as she is conspicuously absent in the same 1895 accounting of these boats.

Thornycroft Boats

T.B. 91 and 92 were heavier at 141 tons and made 24.5 knots. T.B. 91's length of 142.5 feet allowed her propellor to be placed further aft. Four-cylinder triple expansion engines and water-tube boilers.

T.B. 93 was 136 tons and was 140.5 feet like T.B. 91. Her twin screws made her a first such T.B. in the Royal Navy.

White Boats

The three White-built boats displaced 130 tons and made 23 knots on 2000 I.H.P. from Maudslay, Sons and Field engines. Built with locomotive boilers and re-boilered with water tube type a decade later.

T.B. 97

Built by Laird, its original locomotive boilers were replaced by water tube boilers in 1909. She displaced 130 tons, was 140 feet and 4 inches between perpendiculars and made 23 knots on 2000 I.H.P..

See Also

Footnotes

  1. Annual Report of the Torpedo School, 1894. p. 98.
  2. Annual Report of the Torpedo School, 1895. p. 62.
  3. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. p. 104.
  4. Annual Report of the Torpedo School, 1893. p. 68.
  5. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. p. 104.
  6. Principal Questions Dealt with by the Director of Naval Ordnance, 1904. pp. 327-331.
  7. Annual Report of the Torpedo School, 1895. p. 62.

Bibliography


140 Footer Class First-class Torpedo Boat
Yarrow Boats
  T.B. 88 T.B. 89 T.B. 90  
Thornycroft Boats
  T.B. 91 T.B. 92 T.B. 93  
White Boats
  T.B. 94 T.B. 95 T.B. 96  
Laird Boat
  T.B. 97  
<– T.B. 39 Class Torpedo Boats (UK) T.B. 98 Class –>
<– T.B. 82 Class First-class Torpedo Boats (UK) T.B. 98 Class –>