The British destroyers of the Daring class, launched between 1949 and 1952, constituted the pinnacle of the British destroyer design of the end of the
Second World War. These ships had good seaworthiness and a relatively long operational range, which would allow them to operate in the Pacific. The
main turrets and the antiaircraft armament was remotely controlled by radar and there was armor in vital parts of the ship; to save space
the fore funnel was placed inside the lattice mast. Ordered already in 1945, the ships of the class could not enter action until the early 1950s however.
The introduction of missile destroyers in subsequent years rendered obsolete the destroyers integrally armed with cannons, and albeit in 1959 the
HMS Decoy was temporally armed with a Seacat surface-to-air missile launcher, none of the ships of the class was permanently provided with this kind of
armament. Furthermore, the electric systems were troublesome and the Royal Navy sold the HMS Decoy and HMS Diana to Peru in 1969, where they would be
rebaptized as Palacios and Ferre. Before entering service in that country they were equipped with eight surface-to-surface missiles Exocet each
and remodeled with a flight deck astern.
The three ships of the Royal Australian Navy were launched between 1952 and 1956. The HMAS Voyager resulted sunk in February 1964 in a tragic incident when
the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne rammed her, literally breaking the ship in two parts and causing 82 deaths. The other ships were remodeled with new
funnels, radar devices and electronic systems that would allow them to operate effectively during the early 1980s. The HMS Duchess was sold to the RAN in
1971 and used as school ship from 1973.
Daring class: 11 units - Dainty, Daring, Decoy (ex Dragon), Defender (ex Dogstar), Delight (ex Disdain, ex Ypres), Diamond,
Diana (ex Druid), Duchess, Vampire (RAN), Vendetta (RAN), Voyager (RAN)
Type: Destroyer
Length: 118.87 meters
Beam: 13.11 meters
Draught: 5.18 meters
Displacement (full load): 3600 tonnes
Propulsion: 2 x shaft, 2 x steam turbine Parsons/English Electric, 2 x boiler Foster Wheeler, 54000 horsepower
Speed: 35 knots (64.8 kilometers/hour)
Range: 4400 nautical miles (8100 kilometers) at 20 knots
Complement: 297
Armament (as built): 6 x 114-millimeter 45-caliber cannon, 6 x 40-millimeter cannon, 10 x 533-millimeter torpedo tube,
1 x Squid antisubmarine mortar
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