The four ship D'Urville class was laid down in 1915/16 in
response to the new large cruisers being built by the Germanic
States. As raiders abroad these ships would have posed large
problems for the small trade protection cruisers or the old and
slow pre-war armoured cruisers used by the Allies. (See the
Von Brandenburg) Antarctica had not gone in for the battle
cruiser type ships built by the European powers. A new type of
ship would be required to catch and dispatch the new commerce
raiding cruisers. The class was reduced to two when it was noted
that the new raiders would not be completed, due to the priority
of other production (namely U-boats).
The D'Urville's were classed as armoured cruisers rather than
battlecruisers. The main armament of 10x9.5" could not be
mistaken for the 14"-16" guns being fitted on the battlecruisers
being built at wars end. They were reclassified as Heavy
Cruisers when that designation was introduced through the
Washington Treaty. The Washington Treaty could easily have spelt
the end for these two ships as Antarctica would have to include
them in its Capital Ship category or scrap them. One of the
early Antarctican Battleships made way for these two ships to be
kept.
The original basis for the ships was a reduced version of the
ten gun battleships of the Hillary and Dumont types. The need
for speed dictated a long lean hull with lots of horsepower to
get the ships to the 32 knots that was felt to be required to
run down the new raiders. The ships had been made large enough
to be able to have lots of bunker storage for fuel oil to have
the large radius of action the ships would require on the
merchant shipping lanes.
1938 and the ships were showing their age. Cruisers this size
were always going to be needed and they were still used as
Flagships for the cruiser squadrons. The task of rejuvenating
the two ships with modern fittings was felt to be a necessity.
Unlike the battleships, the D'Urville's did not get stripped
from from B to X turrets but had the refresh work built around
the existing structures. The low angle 4.7" were replaced with
dual purpose 4.5" but were reduced to ten guns from twelve as
the cross deck catapult went through where one pair of the
mountings had previously been fitted. A pair of hangars for the
ships aircraft were fitted either side of the funnels. The old
3" AA were removed and the new 2 pounder AA guns were fitted in
quadruple and octuple mountings. At this stage the torpedoes
were retained and not removed till 1942. Last but not least
single 20mm were added to the AA armament as needed. Electronics
in the shape of gunnery directors and search radar were added.
More and more electronics were added during the war. These
additions were what led to the removal of the torpedoes and
aircraft handling equipment to retain stability.
| Displacement | 18,500 tons standard, 23,500 tons full load | |
| Length | 652 ft | |
| Breadth | 76 ft | |
| Draught | 27 ft | |
| Machinery | 4 shaft, steam turbines, 100,000shp | |
| Speed | 32 knots | |
| Range | 10,000 miles at 12 knots | |
| Armour | 6" side, 3" deck, 6" turrets | |
| Armament | As completed 10 x 9.5" (5x2) 12 x 4.7" (12x1) 4 x 3" AA (4x1) 4 x 2pd AA (4x1) |
1939 10 x 9.5" (5x2) 10 x 4.5" DP (10x1) 32 x 2pd (2x8, 4x4) 20 x 20mm (20x1) |
| Torpedoes | 6 x 21" (2x3) | 6 x 21" (2x3) removed 1942 |
| Aircraft | nil | 2 |
| Complement | 750-780 as Flagship | |
| Notes | Captain D'Urville - Captain Badygin - General Frobisher - cancelled, reordered as CVL General Kirk-by - cancelled, reordered as CVL |
|
Quad 2 pounder as fitted on the after bridge of the D'Urville.
