Paengsŏng-class destroyer

File:DL Paengsong.png Paengsŏng at the outbreak of war with Sylva in 1935.
Class overview
Name:	Paengsŏng-class destroyer
Operators:	Greater Menghean Empire
Preceded by:	Daejŏng-class destroyer
Succeeded by:	Sŏnsan-class destroyer
Built:	1929-1932
In service:	1931-1944
Planned:	6
Completed:	2
Cancelled:	4
Lost:	2
General characteristics Paengsŏng, as built
Type:	Flotilla leader
Displacement:	1,910 tonnes standard 2,450 tonnes full load
Length:	127.4 m at waterline 129.3 m overall
Beam:	10.6 m
Draught:	3.81 m (normal)
Propulsion:	2 steam turbines, 44,000 shp total 4 three-drum boilers 2 shafts
Speed:	35 knots
Range:	3,000 nm (5,560 km) at 15 knots
Complement:	268
Armament:	5 × 130mm L/55 Type 32 naval gun 8 × 12.5mm mg (4×1, 2×2) 2 × 3 550mm trainable torpedo tube depth charges

The Paengsŏng-class destroyer leaders (Menghean: 팽성급 대구축함 / 彭城級大驅逐艦, Paengsŏng-geub Daeguchugham, also translated as Paengsŏng-class large destroyers, were a pair of destroyer leaders built in the Greater Menghean Empire during the early 1930s. They were intended to serve as squadron leaders for the Daejŏng-class destroyers, and resembled the latter class in armament and layout, but were 10 meters longer with an additional gun mount between the funnels. Under the Stuart-Lavender romanization system then used by the Allies, they were known as the Phaing Sohng class.

Background

The Paengsŏng class emerged from the same naval construction program as the Daejŏng-class destroyers, and from the start they were envisioned as squadron or flotilla leaders which would command formations of matching destroyers. The Imperial Menghean Navy conceived of them according to the Tyrannian model, in which a destroyer leader is a slightly enlarged version of an existing destroyer class with comparable performance and additional command facilities.

Early in the design stage, the ships were intended to carry five single gun turrets, four in the AB+XY superfiring arrangement used on the Daejŏng-class and an additional turret at the Q position. While the ships were in development, the Navy ordered an increase in their armament through the replacement of the A and Y turrets with twin mounts, bringing the main battery to 7 guns. This configuration was developed with the prospective 125mm L/50 gun in mind, however, and when the Navy ordered a switch to the 130mm L/55 Type 32 naval gun, the shipyard engineers determined that the new weapon's higher weight and heavier recoil made the twin-gun mount unfeasibly large. As such, the Paengsŏng and her sister ship were commissioned with five 130mm guns each, all in single mounts.

Design

In terms of their overall configuration, the Paengsŏng-class destroyer leaders bore a strong resemblance to the Daejŏng-class destroyers, differing mainly in the addition of a fifth 130mm gun mount between the two funnels. While offset astern, this mount had enough space to rotate through a full 360 degrees, and could hit targets 15 degrees off the centerline forward and 20 degrees off the centerline aft. As on the Daejŏng-class, the turrets were single 130mm L/55 Type 32 naval gun mounts with 10mm armored shields, giving the ships enough firepower to pose a threat to light cruisers. A lightly armored fire-control tower, the first of its kind on a Menghean destroyer, assisted rangefinding and fire direction for all five gun turrets, though it could only provide analog range and bearing inputs to the individual turrets and could not aim them directly.

AA armament initially consisted of eight 12.5mm water-cooled machine guns, four in single mounts and two in twin mounts. The twin mounts were added after the outbreak of war with Sylva in 1935, where combat experience demonstrated that existing Menghean shipborne AA was inadequate. Also mounted were two 75mm L/55 high-angle flak guns; these were apparently added to allow the destroyer leaders to engage airships during reconnaissance operations, or to offset the main battery's lack of dual-purpose capability.

Unlike the Daejŏng-class, the Paengsŏngs were given hydrophones and sonar equipment, another result of their added space and stretched hull. They were also given depth charge throwers in addition to the stern-mounted depth charge racks. Because the Daejŏngs, conceived of primarily as anti-surface combatants, lacked sonar equipment, they would have to rely on orders from the sonar team on their squadron leader to track a submarine and attempt a depth charge run. Torpedo armament was also identical to that of the Daejŏng-class, with two triple 550mm mounts firing the Type 23 or Type 23-II torpedoes. No onboard torpedo reloads were carried.

The designers attempted to account for the added displacement when building the powerplant, but the modified turbines' performance fell below expectations, and the Paengsŏngs were only able to make 35 knots at full steam. This was adequate for cruising operations, but it prevented the ships from pursuing enemy destroyers, the newest of which could easily outrun them. Their range was also quite limited, but no worse than that of the destroyers they were intended to command.

Service

Innominadan campaign

At the outbreak of war with Sylva in 1935, both the Paengsŏng and the Gŏchang took part in the coastal offensive along the coast of Innominada, then a Sylvan colony. They did not see combat in the fall of Altagracia, a mission assigned to newer destroyers. As most of the Sylvan Flota Oriental had withdrawn to Maracaibo rather than confront the stronger Menghean Combined Fleet, the Paengsŏngs did not see extensive naval combat, though they did take part in an engagement with destroyers and avisos fleeing Puerto Alegre in 1936. Most of their missions centered on coastal bombardment, a task where their guns proved accurate and reliable, though limited 30-degree elevation forced them to sail closer to the shore in order to hit their targets.

During the Battle of the Portcullia Strait, both ships remained behind with the task force stationed off the Maverican coast, and did not see combat in the engagement with Tyrannian forces. Later, during the Evacuation of Salvador, they took part in an attack on Sylvan transports withdrawing to Casaterra, but they were driven off by the Sylvan Flota Occidental. Gŏchang lost her A and B turrets in this engagement, but the damage was repaired after she returned to Sunju later on.

Conversion to ASW craft

In response to the shipping losses inflicted by Tyrannian submarines during the Khalistan campaign, and an awareness that the Paengsŏngs were obsolete as surface combatants, the Imperial Menghean Navy withdrew the two ships to Gyŏngsan in 1939 and rebuilt them as anti-submarine patrol ships. In the new configuration, the Q turret was replaced with an elevated platform carrying four twin 37mm anti-aircraft guns and fire directors, and additional 12.5mm machine guns were installed around the ship. The Y turret was also removed, allowing more space for depth charge racks and depth charge throwers on the quarterdeck. Anti-surface armament was reduced to three guns and the torpedo tubes, still a decent capability for anti-submarine combatants.

In this configuration, the ships protected convoys in the South Menghe Sea and the sea around Khalistan, where they had some early successes. Menghean ASW capabilities remained poor throughout the war, however, and the Paengsŏngs still suffered from outdated sonar equipment. Both ships were lost to submarine attacks, Paengsŏng in 1942 and Gŏchang in 1944.

Ships in the class

Originally, the Imperial Menghean Navy planned to construct at least six Paengsŏng-class destroyer leaders, to match a similarly enlarged run of Daejŏng-class destroyers. The 1930 amendments to the Nine-Power Naval Limitation Treaty changed that situation. The ships of the Paengsŏng class were not built to particularly restrictive tonnage requirements, and even after modifications during construction they only totaled about 1,900 tonnes in standard displacement and did not use that figure as efficiently as they could have. With the imposition of limits on destroyer tonnage and on the number of destroyers over 1,500 tonnes, the IMN decided to more effectively optimize future destroyer classes.

Furthermore, a reshuffling of naval staff in 1931 rotated out a faction of pre-coup traditionalists, who had favored the Tyrannian school of destroyer leader design, and replaced them with younger engineers who favored the Sieuxerrian school of building large contre-torpellieurs. These destroyers, based on recent developments in Sieuxerr, would carry a heavy forward-facing armament and have the speed to pursue and destroy enemy light craft. The new faction's design culminated in the Sangdong-class destroyer, the largest Menghean destroyer constructed within the treaty limitations.

Although they were classified as destroyer leaders, or more literally as "large destroyers" (daeguchugham), they were still named after Menghean counties, like other destroyers.

Name	Mengja	Laid down	Commissioned	Fate
Paengsŏng	彭城	1929	1931	Torpedoed by submarine HMS Proteus in 1942
Gŏchang	居昌	1930	1932	Torpedoed by submarine OSS Searaven in 1944

See also

• Daejŏng-class destroyer
• Gijang-class cruiser
• Jindo-class destroyer