John Tornikroft's "Skor. The first destroyers of the world. Dashyan A.V.

The history of the formation of the class of destroyers radically differed from the practice of designing and building other classes of warships of the last quarter of the 19th century. Before the appearance of fighters in the early 1890s. In the destroying, the era of “private initiative” reigned - the fleets of almost all countries bought ready -made projects from several suppliers, only occasionally insisting on the introduction of private technical solutions in them. The shipyard constantly improved their products, but at the same time proceeded from their own ideas about what was in demand by the market. The presenter of the “mod lawmakers” was the British shipbuilder John Tornikroft (1843-1928), who in 1873 created the first successful minnosk, and in 1877 built the first torpedo, the Lightning, the Lightning minister. The prototype of the 87-foot "Lighting" was the steam yacht built for Baroness Rothschild. Tornikroft has repeatedly replicated this and other projects for both the Royal Fleet and foreign customers (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russian Empire, Italy, Greece, Spain, Brazil, Argentina). < /p>

The new book of the leading historian of the fleet in all details restores the line of development of destroyers of the construction of Tornikroft for thirty years - from 1873 to 1902, including about steam yachts and boats that became combat ships (for example, they belonged to them The yacht “Plae”, used by the Russian fleet as a mine boat and participated in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878).