Castle class corvette
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Castle class |
| Operators: | |
| Preceded by: | Flower-class corvette |
| Succeeded by: | None |
| Planned: | 95 |
| Completed: | 44 |
| Cancelled: | 51 |
| Lost: | 3 |
| Retired: | 41 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Corvette |
| Displacement: | 1,060 long tons (1,077 t) |
| Length: | 252 ft (77 m) |
| Beam: | 37 ft (11 m) |
| Draught: | 10 ft (3.0 m) |
| Installed power: | 2,750 hp (2.05 MW) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph) |
| Range: | 9,500 nmi (17,600 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement: | 112 |
| Sensors and processing systems: |
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| Armament: |
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The Castle-class corvettes were an updated version of the much more numerous Flower-class corvettes of the Royal Navy, and started appearing during late 1943. They were equipped with radar as well as asdic.
The Admiralty had decided to cease Flower-class construction in favour of the larger River-class frigates as the Flower class had originally been intended for coastal escort work and were not entirely satisfactory for Atlantic convoy service. In particular, they were slow, poorly armed and rolled badly in rough seas, which quickly exhausted their crews. However, many shipyards were not large enough to build frigates. The Castle class was designed to be built on small slipways for about half the overall effort of a Loch-class frigate. The Loch-class frigate was similar to a River but built using the system of prefabrication.
The appearance of Castle-class corvettes was much like the later "long forecastle" variant of the Flowers and they were a little larger (around 1,200 tons – about 200 tons more than the Flowers, and 40 feet (12 m) longer).
The most obvious visual difference, was the lattice mainmast instead of the pole version fitted to the Flowers. There was also a more square cut look to the stern although it was still essentially a cruiser spoon type, this difference was only visible from abaft the beam.
The armament differed from the Flower class with the depth charge fitment replaced by one Squid anti-submarine mortar. Hadleigh Castle received the first production Squid mounting; the World War I-era medium-velocity surface-only BL 4-inch Mk IX main gun firing a 31-pound (14 kg) shell was replaced by the new low-velocity QF 4-inch Mk XIX gun on high-angle/low-angle mounting firing a heavier 35-pound (16 kg) shell, which added anti-aircraft capability to the existing capability against surface targets such as submarines.
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Wikipedia