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| free french forces | |
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| evarts class destroyer escorts | |
| buckley class destroyer escorts | |
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ORIGINS ]] The Lend-lease Act was passed into law in the USA in March 1941 enabling the United Kingdom to procure merchant ships, warships and munitions etc from the USA, in order to help with the war effort. This enabled the UK to commission the USA to design, build and supply an escort vessel that was suitable for anti submarine warfare in deep open ocean situations, which they did in June 1941. Captain E.L. Cochrane of the American Bureau Of Shipping came up with a design which was known as the British Destroyer Escort (BDE) but this was soon reduced to Destroyer Escort (DE). When the United States entered the war, and found they also required an Anti-Submarine warfare ship and that the Destroyer Escort fitted their needs perfectly, a system of rationing was put in place whereby out of every five Destroyer Escorts´s completed four would be allocated to the U.S.Navy and one to the British Royal Navy. GENERAL DESCRIPTION ]] , a '' Restigouche ''-class destroyer escort]] A Destroyer Escort (DE) is classification for a small, comparatively slower Warship designed to be used to escort Convoy s of Merchant Marine ships, primarily of the United States Navy , Royal Navy and the Free French Navy in WWII . It is usually employed primarily for Anti-submarine Warfare , but also some protection against aircraft and smaller attack vessels in this application. Full size Destroyer s must be able to keep up with and exceed the speed of fast Capital Ship s, typically needing better than 25-35 knot speeds(dependent upon the era and navy) and carrying Torpedo es and a relatively smaller caliber of cannon to use against enemy ships, as well as anti-submarine detection equipment and weapons. A destroyer escort need only be able to maneuver relative to a slow convoy, which in World War II would travel at 10 to 12 knots, and defend itself against aircraft, and to detect, chase down and attack a submerged (3 to 6 knot speed) or surfaced (22 knot speed) submarine. These lower requirements greatly reduce the size, cost and crew required for the destroyer escort. While fleet destroyers were still more effective for anti-submarine warfare, the destroyer escort outweighed this by being able to be built considerably faster. Destroyer escorts were also considerably more seaworthy than Corvette s. Destroyer escorts are also useful for coastal anti-submarine and radar picket ship duty. Some 95 Destroyer escorts were converted to APD 's (High Speed Transports). This involved adding an extra deck which allowed space for about 10 officers and 150 men. Two large davits were also installed, one on either side of the ship from which landing craft ( LCVP ) could be launched. After World War II United States Navy Destroyer Escorts were referred to as Ocean Escort s, but retained the Hull Classification Symbol DE. However other navies, most notably those of NATO countries and the USSR , followed different naming conventions for this type of ship which resulted in some confusion. In order to remedy this problem the 1975 Ship Reclassification reclassified ocean escorts (and by extension, destroyer escorts) as Frigate s (FF). This brought the USN's nomenclature more in line with NATO, and made it easier to compare ship types with the Soviet Union (see Cruiser Gap ). As of the 21st century no new ships called frigates are planned as of 2005. The DDG Zumwalt and the LCS are the main ship types planned in this area. One major problem with naming ships is if to choose mission based (such as escort), or size (such as the amount of tons) for a ship class. US NAVY DESTROYER ESCORT CLASS OVERVIEW CAPTAIN-CLASS FRIGATES OF THE ROYAL NAVY Under the Lend-Lease agreement, the Royal Navy received 32 destroyer escorts of the ''Evarts'' Class and 46 of the ''Buckley'' Class . The Royal Navy used the names of captains of the Napoleonic Wars for the ships; hence these ships are known as the Captain-class Frigates . The main design difference between the Royal Navy and US Navy ships that the former had the forward Torpedo tubes removed along with the ice-cream makers, the iced-water fountains, the dishwashers and the laundries (some ships). More Depth Charge s were fitted on the upper deck each side of the ship (allowing for about 200 in total) and the steel work around the Binnacle had to be replaced by non-ferrous materials. Additionally the American Gyrocompass es were replaced with the Admiralty pattern ones and the MK IV elevating column Oerlikon mountings were replaced with the simpler MK V1A mountings. FREE FRENCH Six Cannon Class Destroyer Escorts were built for the Free French Navy . Although initially transferred under the Lend-lease Act these ships were permanently transferred under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program. List of Free French Destroyer escorts
MUTUAL DEFENSE ASSISTANCE PROGRAM - POST WWII Under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP) the Destroyer Escorts leased to the Free French were permanently transferred to the French Navy. In addition the following navies also acquired Destroyer Escorts: French Navy :DE-1007, DE-1008, DE-1009, DE-1010, DE-1011, DE-1012, DE-1013, DE-1016, DE-1017, DE-1018, DE1019 Italian Navy :DE-1020, DE-1031 Portuguese Navy :DE-1032, DE-1039, DE-1042, DE-1046 Netherlands Navy :DE 195 Burrows, DE 196 Rinehart, DE 182 Gustafson, DE 188 O'Neill, DE 192 Eisner, DE 187 Stern SEE ALSO
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