The ''Ålesund'' class was a proposed class of

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

s planned for the

Royal Norwegian Navy The Royal Norwegian Navy () is the branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces responsible for navy, naval operations of Norway, including those of the Norwegian Coast Guard. , the Royal Norwegian Navy consists of approximately 3,700 personnel (9,450 i ...

. Construction began on two ships in 1938, but the incomplete ships were captured during the German invasion of Norway in 1940. While Germany continued construction works on the two destroyers, neither were completed, with one sunk by sabotage in 1944 and the other by British

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft that utilizes air-to-ground weaponry to drop bombs, launch aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploy air-launched cruise missiles. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strateg ...

s in 1945. The Norwegians raised one of the destroyers and attempted to complete it, but the incomplete ship was sold for scrap in 1956.

Design

Norway authorised the construction of two

s for the

in the 1938 budget. These were the first modern destroyers ordered by Norway, and were considerably larger than the ''Sleipner''-class torpedo boats which were being built at the time and were Norway's only modern torpedo craft. The ships were to be long overall and

between perpendiculars Length between perpendiculars (often abbreviated as p/p, p.p., pp, LPP, LBP or Length BPP) is the length of a ship along the summer load line from the forward surface of the stem, or main bow perpendicular member, to the after surface of the ster ...

, with a beam of and a mean draught of .

Displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and physics *Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...

was standard. Three Yarrow water-tube boilers in individual boiler rooms fed steam at to two sets of de Laval geared impulse steam turbines, driving two shafts. The machinery was rated at , giving a speed of . of oil could be carried, giving a range of at . Armament was planned to be four 120 mm (4.7 in) guns, with one twin-mount forward and two single-mounts aft. Anti-aircraft defences consisted of two

Bofors 40 mm L/60 gun The Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/60 (often referred to simply as the "Bofors 40 mm gun", the "Bofors gun" and the like, see name) is an anti-aircraft autocannon, designed in the 1930s by the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors. The g ...

s, backed up by two 13 mm machine guns. Two twin 533 mm (21-inch)

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s were to be fitted. Crew was to be 130 officers and other ranks.

Construction

The two as-yet unnamed destroyers were

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one ...

in April 1939 at the naval dockyard at

Horten Horten () is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Jarlsberg. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Horten (town) ...

, with completion planned for 1943. They were still at an early stage of construction when Germany invaded Norway in April 1940, and were captured when German forces seized Horten. Germany decided to continue construction for the ''

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official military branch, branche ...

'', with the names ''ZN4'' and ''ZN5''. They were renamed ''TA7'' and ''TA8'' in early 1942. An entirely new armament was to fitted, consisting of to be three SK C/32s on high-angle mounts, two SK C/30 close-in anti-aircraft guns and six C/30 AA guns, with a quadruple mount for 53.3 cm (21 inch) torpedo tubes. Construction of the two ships was delayed by extensive sabotage. ''TA7'' was launched on 29 May 1941, with ''TA8'' not launched until 30 June 1943. It was decided to tow ''TA7'' to Germany for completion, but ''TA7'' was sunk at Horten on 27 September 1944 by a bomb placed in the ship's turbine room, shortly before the ship was due to depart for Germany. ''TA8'' was sunk during a British air raid against Horten on the night of 23/24 February 1945. After the end of the war in Europe in 1945, the wreck of ''TA8'' was raised by the Norwegians, who decided to complete the ship with the name ''Ålesund'', but work was abandoned in 1950 and the hulk sold for scrap in 1956.

Notes

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References

* * * * * * {{Aalesund class destroyer Destroyer classes