Design
The Kingfisher class was an attempt to build a small patrol vessel under 600 tons, such vessels being outwith the clauses of the London Naval Treaty of 1930. It was intended that it would escort coastal shipping in wartime.
The design had a number of shortcomings, however. Firstly, it was simply designed to too high a standard; constructed to full naval warship specifications and powered by geared steam turbine engines, it was not suitable for mass production. Secondly, it was simply too small, short on range, and the hull-form, based on a scaled-down destroyer, was not suitable for open ocean work, where escorts were found to be dearly lacking in numbers during wartime. Thirdly, armed originally with only a single 4-inch gun forwards and depth charges aft, they were limited in their ability to defend themselves, never mind their charges.
Read more about this topic: Kingfisher Class Sloop
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“The reason American cars don’t sell anymore is that they have forgotten how to design the American Dream. What does it matter if you buy a car today or six months from now, because cars are not beautiful. That’s why the American auto industry is in trouble: no design, no desire.”
—Karl Lagerfeld (b. 1938)
“Westerners inherit
A design for living
Deeper into matter—
Not without due patter
Of a great misgiving.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)