French destroyer Tigre

Scale model of Tigre on display at the Musée national de la Marine in Paris
History
France
Name:	Tigre
Namesake:	Tiger
Ordered:	26 February 1923
Builder:	Ateliers et Chantiers de Bretagne, Nantes
Laid down:	18 September 1923
Launched:	2 August 1924
Completed:	1 February 1926
In service:	7 February 1926
Out of service:	July 1940
Captured:	27 November 1942
Kingdom of Italy
Name:	FR23
Acquired:	After 27 November 1942
Commissioned:	19 January 1943
Fate:	Returned to France, 28 October 1943
Free French
Name:	Tigre
Acquired:	28 October 1943
Recommissioned:	15 December 1943
Out of service:	September 1948
Reclassified:	As a stationary training ship, late 1948
Struck:	4 January 1954
Fate:	Scrapped, 1955
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type:	Chacal-class destroyer
Displacement:	2,126 t (2,092 long tons) (standard) 2,980–3,075 t (2,933–3,026 long tons) (full load)
Length:	126.8 m (416 ft 0.1 in)
Beam:	11.1 m (36 ft 5.0 in)
Draft:	4.1 m (13 ft 5.4 in)
Installed power:	50,000 PS (37,000 kW; 49,000 shp) 5 du Temple boilers
Propulsion:	2 shafts 2 geared steam turbines
Speed:	35.5 knots (65.7 km/h; 40.9 mph)
Range:	3,000 nmi (5,600 km; 3,500 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Crew:	12 officers, 209 crewmen (wartime)
Armament:	5 × single 130 mm (5.1 in) guns 2 × single 75 mm (3.0 in) anti-aircraft guns 2 × triple 550 mm (21.7 in) torpedo tubes 2 chutes; four throwers for 46 depth charges

The French destroyer Tigre was a Chacal-class destroyer built for the French Navy during the 1920s. Aside from cruises to the English Channel and French West Africa, she spent her entire career in the Mediterranean Sea. The ship was assigned to the Torpedo School at Toulon in 1932 and remained there until World War II began in September 1939. She was then assigned convoy escort duties in the Atlantic; in July 1940, the ship was present when the British attacked the French ships at Mers-el-Kébir, but managed to escape without damage. After she reached Toulon, Tigre was placed in reserve where she remained for the next two years. When the Germans attempted to seize the French fleet there in November 1942, she was one of the few ships that was not scuttled and was captured virtually intact.

The Germans later turned her over to the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) who renamed her FR 23 when they recommissioned her in early 1943. The ship was under repair in Italy when Italy surrendered in September, but managed to join the Allies. She was given to the Free French the following month, but she needed extensive repairs that lasted until early 1944. Tigre returned to convoy work for a few months before beginning a more extensive reconstruction that last until early 1945. She was then assigned to the Flank Force that protected Allied forces in the Tyrrhenian Sea from German forces in Northern Italy for the rest of the war. Several weeks after the end of the war in May, the ship supported French forces in Algeria during the riots in May–June. Tigre was then assigned as a fast troop transport until the end of 1946. She became a gunnery training ship until mid-1948 and was then hulked for the Engineering School. The ship was stricken from the Navy List in 1954 and broken up for scrap the following year.