Hello again!
First of all, thanks for all the praise. Now you have flattered me into (re-)doing the entire french destroyer force; I posted a few immediately after I joined up, but they are so obsolete style-wise that they make my toenails curl when I look at them today
So, here is the 450-tonnes-type, a class with three distinct sub-types which were not built sequentially, but more or less parallel to each other.
The initial and most numerous version, the Spahi-class, had triple expansion engines for 28 knots, six 65mm guns and three 450mm torpedo tubes (one fixed in the bow and two swiveling amidships). The first five of the class were named for troop types (Spahi, Hussard, Lansquenet, Mameluk and Carabinier). No two were exactly alike, but the differences were too minor to warrant a drawing for each:
Two of the Spahi-class were the last 450-tonners to be commissioned; they were the only ones which were named after naval heroes (Enseigne Henry, Aspirant Herber). They had the same performance as the early Spahis, but had differently arranged torpedo tubes:
The two units of the Voltigeur-Subclass (Voltigeur and Tirailleur) had three-shaft machinery with mixed propulsion (VTE for cruising on the central shaft and Turbines for sprints on the wing shafts; speed remained the same). The engines appeared to have worked reliably despite the complicated arrangement. Unlike the Spahis, the Voltigeurs had all their boilers placed before the engines. Their hulls had considerably more draught and 40 - 60 ts more displacement than the VTE-propelled ships:
A third subclass consisted of three ships with pure turbine propulsion. All had three shafts and exceeded their designed hp and speed by a wide margin; one of them attained 31 kts (Conway's unfortunately does not state which one). Chasseur and Cavalier, and a third ship exported to Peru as the Teniente Rodriguez, looked a lot like the Voltigeur-class:
The other two units of the class markedly differed externally. Janissaire had american-designed boilers of greater power, of which only three were needed to attain the designed hp, resulting in her having only three funnels as the only one of her class:
Fantassin was a little longer than the other units of her class and had much higher funnels, which were arranged in two distinctive pairs:
Greetings
GD