Linnet-class minelayer

HMS Ringdove
Class overview
Name:	Linnet
Operators:	Royal Navy
In service:	1938
In commission:	1938 - 1964
Completed:	3
Active:	0
Lost:	1
Retired:	2
General characteristics
Type:	Minelayer
Displacement:	498 tons standard
Length:	145 ft (44 m) (p/p) 163 ft 9 in (49.91 m) (o/a)
Beam:	27 ft 2 in (8.28 m)
Draught:	8 ft (2.4 m)
Propulsion:	Triple expansion engine 1 shaft 400 hp (300 kW)
Speed:	10.5 knots (19.4 km/h)
Complement:	24
Armament:	None

The Linnet class were a class of three small coastal minelayers commissioned into the Royal Navy just before the Second World War.

Design

The Linnet class were the largest of a dozen specialized vessels known as Indicator Loop Mine Layers built for the Royal Navy immediately before and during the Second World War. These vessels were designed to lay controlled mines, used in coastal defences, as well as anti-submarine indicator loops. Similar vessels known as mine planters were operated by the US Army during the same era.

Ships

• Linnet - built by Ardrossan Dockyard, launched on 3 May 1938, served as tender to HMS Vernon, broken up in 1964.
• Redstart - built by Henry Robb, launched on 3 May 1938, scuttled in Hong Kong on 19 December 1941 to prevent capture by the Japanese.^[1]
• Ringdove - built by Henry Robb, launched on 15 June 1938, served as tender to HMS Vernon, sold to the Pakistani government in 1950 as a pilot vessel.

Notes

References

• Jane’s Fighting Ships 1939, p. 98