GRN Halych (DD-1914+)

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The ex-Austro-Hungarian Tatra class destroyers were built in two batches for a total of 10 completed units with 4 uncompleted at wars end. They were an important class to the A-H navy as they provided the escorts to the battlefleet. The class were built in two distinct groups, pre-war and war built. The Galician Navy received two of each type which arrived as escorts to the Armoured Cruiser (Ploesti) and light cruiser (Bucovina) that were received at the same time. Those six ships spent much of their service lives together as they made up the training fleet and doubled eventually as the escorts to the Harghita in the Aviation Fleet.

When it came time to assess the Halych class for refurbishment they found themselves at the end of the queue for the funds necessary to do the upgrades that the design team had reccomended. Most of the work could be done during the normal refit process but the altering of the main guns and bridge superstructure, removal of torpedoes required better dockyard assistance.

The new bridge superstructure provided room for a rangefinder, height finder, and having been placed further back from the bow, there was room for a twin 37mm forward of the bridge. The old 3.9" guns were removed and replaced with the same 88mm L56/36 as fitted to the Serbia class while one set of torpedo tubes was retained. The removal of the 66mm anti-torpedo boat guns allowed room for the fitting of half a dozen 20mm AA weapons. One of the major changes was the installation of an ASDIC set and depth charge suite to give the ships an anti-submarine capability.

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