The Le Hardi class consisted of twelve destroyers () begun for the (French Navy) during the late 1930s. Only seven ships were ultimately completed while construction of the remaining five ships was interrupted by the French defeat in the Battle of France in May–June 1940 and were never finished. The seven ships that were seaworthy sailed for French North Africa to prevent their capture by the advancing Germans. Several ships later sailed for French West Africa where played a minor role in the Battle of Dakar in September. The Germans captured two ships that were still under construction and attempted to finish them both before abandoning the effort in 1943.
The Vichy French reformed the High Sea Forces ( (FHM)) after the French surrender in late June. After most of the sister ships returned to France in November, three of them were assigned to the FHM and the others were placed in reserve. The seven completed ships were scuttled in Toulon when the Germans occupied Vichy France in November 1942. The (Royal Italian Navy) salvaged most of them during 1943 and towed three of them to Italy for repairs. All of the ships were captured by the Germans after the Italian armistice in September, but they made little effort to finish the repairs. They did attempt to complete , but were unsuccessful before the end of the war. The three ships in Italy were scuttled in April 1945 to prevent their capture by the Allies; the remaining ships in Toulon were either sunk by Allied bombers or scuttled by the Germans after Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France, in August 1944. All of the ships were salvaged for scrap or broken up on the slipway after the war except for L'Opiniâtre which was launched after the war and used for testing before she was scrapped in 1971. Lansquenet was refloated and towed back to Toulon in 1946 and was still incomplete when she was scrapped in 1958.
Background and description
The fast battleships and , then under design in 1931, would be able to sustain a speed of , equal to the sustained speed achieved by the s, although the believed that a margin of was necessary when escorting the battlefleet. It thus formulated a requirement for a destroyer capable of . A preliminary design, displacing about and armed with two twin-gun turrets, was developed the following year, but was too small to accommodate the propulsion machinery necessary to achieve the intended speed. As the detailed design was prepared over the next two years, the Le Hardis were enlarged and given extra guns to counter the large destroyers of the Italian and Japanese es. Now significantly larger and faster than the L'Adroits, the Le Hardi-class design was approved on 10 August 1934.Jordan & Moulin, pp. 180–181
The ships had an overall length of , a beam of ,Chesneau, p. 270 and a draught of . They displaced at standard load and at deep load. The hull was divided by a dozen bulkheads into 13 watertight compartments. The Le Hardis were equipped with a pair of turbogenerators and a pair of diesel generators. Their crew consisted of 10 officers and 177 enlisted men.Jordan & Moulin, pp. 180–184, 186, 190
The Le Hardi-class ships were powered by two geared steam turbines, each driving a single three-bladed propeller, using steam provided by four Sural-Penhöet forced-circulation boilers that operated at a pressure of and a temperature of . The turbines were designed to produce intended to give the ships a speed of . Le Hardi, the only ship of the class to run sea trials, comfortably exceeded that speed during her trials on 6 November 1939, reaching a maximum speed of from . The Le Hardi class carried of fuel oil which gave them a range of at .Jordan & Moulin, pp. 184–186
Armament and protection The main armament of the Le Hardi-class ships consisted of six 45-caliber Canon de 130 mm Modèle 1932 guns in three twin-gun turrets, one forward and a superfiring pair aft of the superstructure. The electrically powered turrets were protected by of armour. The guns had an elevation range between −10° and +30° and each one was provided with 170 semi-armour-piercing and 10 star shells.Jordan & Moulin, pp. 186–187 They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of .Campbell, p. 300 This gave them a range of at an elevation of 30°.Jordan & Moulin, p. 187
The Modèle 1932 guns had a rate of fire of 10–15 rounds per minute although the rammer was underpowered and often caused jams in the loading system. In one engagement against a British destroyer in September 1940, was only able to fire 14 rounds in six minutes before all her guns broke down. Given time and training, these problems could be fixed as Le Hardi demonstrated during the Battle of Dakar when she fired 60 rounds without any problems; she had previously fired over 700 rounds during thirteen sessions on gunnery ranges.Jordan & Moulin, pp. 187–188
The primary anti-aircraft (AA) armament of the Le Hardi-class ships was intended to consist of a twin-gun mount for 70-caliber Canon de Modèle 1935 guns. Development of the automatic weapon was still in progress when the ships were completed in 1939–1940 and a twin-gun mount for 50-caliber Canon de 37 mm Modèle 1933 guns on the aft superstructure was installed instead. These manually-loaded guns could elevate to a maximum of +80° and they had a practical rate of fire of 15–21 rounds per minute. The ships carried a total of 2,960 rounds for the guns. Their muzzle velocity of gave their shells an effective range of . The ships were also fitted with two twin Hotchkiss Modèle 1929 anti-aircraft machine gun mounts abreast the bridge. The weapons had a practical rate of fire of 250 rounds per minute and an effective range of . Ready-use lockers stowed 480 rounds near each gun and the remaining 1,920 rounds per gun were in the magazine.Campbell, p. 307; Jordan & Moulin, pp. 119, 148, 188–189
The ships carried one triple and two twin sets of torpedo tubes amidships; the twin-tube aft mounts were positioned one on each broadside, but the triple-tube forward mount could traverse to both sides. One depth charge chute was built into the stern in the first batch of six ships; this housed eight depth charges. The other side of the stern was used for the handling gear for a towed Ginocchio captive anti-submarine torpedo, but this was removed before they were completed. The second batch of six ships had two depth charge chutes in the stern with a capacity of a dozen depth charges.Jordan & Moulin, pp. 186–190
Fire control The fire-control system of the Le Hardi class as designed was identical to that of the larger s with a director equipped with a OPL Modèle PC.1936 stereoscopic rangefinder built around the base of the foremast above the bridge. The director sent the range to the where it was fed into a Modèle 1929 electro-mechanical computer which calculated the firing solution and transmitted it to the turrets. The intended to equip the turrets so they could be controlled by the director, but abandoned the effort in 1942 after equipment trials were unsuccessful and it concluded that the ships lacked the necessary electrical capacity.Jordan & Moulin, pp. 146–148, 188
Space and weight had been allocated for a director for the 37-millimetre Modèle 1935 guns, but when this was unavailable a rangefinder on a pedestal for the main armament was substituted in all ships except which received an enclosed mounting with a five-meter rangefinder. A high-angle rangefinder was fitted for the ant-aircraft guns.Jordan & Moulin, pp. 188–189
A torpedo director was located above the primary gunnery director on the foremast. It used a separate five-meter OPL Modèle 1935 stereoscopic rangefinder to provide the bearing and range to a Modèle 1933 electro-mechanical computer which calculated the torpedo firing angle. This was sent to the remotely controlled torpedo tubes, and the command to fire could be given by either the torpedo director or either of the secondary positions on the wings of the bridge.Jordan & Moulin, pp. 149, 171, 189
Modifications In early 1941 a pair of single mounts for Browning 13.2-millimetre AA machine guns were added to all ships on the quarterdeck. In late 1941, Le Hardi had her anti-aircraft suite reinforced and rearranged. The twin Hotchkiss machine gun mounts were repositioned on the quarterdeck and a pair of single mounts for Hotchkiss AA guns were installed in their place in front of the bridge. In addition the Browning machine guns were transferred to newly built platforms on the sides of the superfiring turret aft. Later in the year and in early 1942, L'Adroit, Casque and Mameluk received the same modifications.Jordan & Moulin, p. 192
Revised design In 1938, after observing the experiences of ships attacked by aircraft while performing neutrality patrols during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, the (Naval General Staff) revised its assumptions about a naval war. It now viewed a dual-purpose (DP) armament as a requirement for ships intended to escort capital ships. This was the role of the Le Hardi class and the staff wanted to evaluate how the four ships scheduled to be laid down in mid-1939 could be modified to accommodate the DP guns. Three proposals were submitted in response on 30 November, all on a hull that was enlarged by more than . The staff accepted two of them, the first for three ships to be armed with 130 mm DP mounts derived from those used on the Dunkerque-class battleships, while the remaining ship was to be armed with the standard 130 mm low-angle mounts to allow it to form a three-ship division with Le Corsaire and Le Flibustier, but its AA armament was to consist of a pair of twin-gun high-angle mounts, one of which replaced a torpedo-tube mount, and the standard pair of twin-gun AA machine gun mounts. Its torpedo armament was reduced to a pair of triple mounts.Jordan & Moulin, pp. 193–194
The start of the war in September 1939 completely disrupted this plan as building of these ships was suspended. When construction was resumed in March 1940, Admiral François Darlan, the navy's Chief of Staff, was informed that no newly designed destroyers could enter service before 1944, but that either three Le Hardi-class ships or four could begin sea trials in 1943. On 28 April Darlan decided on modified Le Hardis with either the originally specified hull or the proposed larger version, depending on how advanced the design work was. He also specified a top speed of and a range of at . Their armament was to consist of two or three 130-millimetre DP guns with an elevation limited to 40 or 50°; as the mounts were not likely be ready before the ships were completed, he proposed an interim armament of three or four 100-millimetre guns in high-angle mounts. The rest of the armament was to consist of one twin and two single mounts for 37-millimetre AA guns, two twin-gun AA machine gun mounts, two triple mounts for torpedoes and a pair of depth charge rails and a pair of depth charge throwers for twenty 100-kilogram depth charges.Jordan & Moulin, pp. 194–196
Ships The name ship of the class was authorized in the 1932 Naval Estimates, but construction was significantly delayed by the financial impact of the Great Depression and bilateral arms limitation talks between France and Fascist Italy that caused the French Parliament to suspend all new naval construction until 1934. Even then Le Hardi was not laid down until late the following year, to be followed a few months later by two sister ships authorized in the 1935 Naval Estimates and then three more in mid-1936 as part of that year's Naval Estimates. The remaining six ships were authorized in the 1937, 1938 and 1938bis Naval Estimates.Jordan & Moulin, pp. 160, 180–182