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HMS ''Hever Castle'' was a constructed for the British Royal Navy in the Second World War. Transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy before completion, the ship was renamed HMCS ''Copper Cliff'' and saw service as a convoy escort for the remainder of the war. Following the war, the vessel was sold for mercantile use and renamed ''Ta Lung'', operating under a Chinese flag. In 1949, the ship was taken over by the Communist Chinese government, rearmed and renamed ''Wan Lee''. ==Design and description== The Castle class were an improved corvette design over their predecessor . The Flower class was not considered acceptable for mid-Atlantic sailing and was only used on Atlantic convoy duty out of need. Though the Admiralty would have preferred s, the inability of many small shipyards to construct the larger ships required them to come up with a smaller vessel. The increased length of the Castle class over their predecessors〔Chesneau, p.63〕 and their improved hull form gave the Castles better speed and performance on patrol in the North Atlantic and an acceptable replacement for the Flowers.〔Brown 2007, p.142〕 This, coupled with improved anti-submarine armament in the form of the Squid mortar led to a much more capable anti-submarine warfare (ASW) vessel.〔 However, the design did have criticisms, mainly in the way it handled at low speeds and that the class's maximum speed was already slower than the speeds of the new U-boats they would be facing.〔Brown 2007, p.127〕 A Castle-class corvette was long with a beam of and a draught of at deep load.〔〔Brown states the beam at and the draught at 〕 The ships displaced standard〔 and deep load.〔〔Chesneau states the displacement at deep load as 〕 The ships had a complement of 120.〔〔Brown states the complement as 99 and Johnston states the complement of Canadian ships at 112 (7 officers and 105 ratings).〕 The ships were powered by two Admiralty three-drum boilers which created . This powered one vertical triple expansion engine that drove one shaft, giving the ships a maximum speed of .〔 The ships carried 480 tons of oil giving them a range of at .〔 The corvettes were armed with one QF 4-inch Mk XIX gun mounted forward.〔〔Mk XIX = Mark 19. Britain used Roman numerals to denote Marks (models) of ordnance until after World War II. This was the nineteenth model of British QF 4-inch gun〕 Anti-air armament varied from 4 to 10〔 Oerlikon 20 mm cannons.〔Brown 2007, p.126〕 For ASW purposes, the ships were equipped with one three-barreled Squid anti-submarine mortar with 81 projectiles. The ships also had two depth charge throwers and one depth charge rail on the stern that came with 15 depth charges.〔 The ships were equipped with Type 145 and Type 147B ASDIC.〔 The Type 147B was tied to the Squid anti-submarine mortar and would automatically set the depth on the fuses of the projectiles until the moment of firing. A single Squid-launched attack had a success rate of 25%.〔Brown 2012, p.129〕 The class was also provided with HF/DF and Type 277 radar.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「HMS Hever Castle (K521)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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