Inter-war Classes
From 1930, the Royal Navy commissioned one destroyer flotilla each year, at first with eight ships plus a slightly larger flotilla leader. Additional ships were built as required for sale abroad. The convention was to assign a letter to each class, ships' names starting with that letter, except for the leader.
The HMS Amazon and HMS Ambuscade were launched in 1926 and they were the prototypes for the following nine classes (A to I) launched between 1929 and 1941. The classes J to N, 40 ships launched between 1938 and 1940, were more complex, with heavier armament and expensive to build. The pattern was cut short by the need for numbers of basic ships arising from the hard lessons of war.
The Tribal class destroyers broke with the incremental evolution of the inter-war classes. They were larger ships designed to match the heavier destroyers built by several other navies.
Read more about this topic: British World War II Destroyers
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