Escorteurs Rapides E 50

At the end of the 1940s, the National Navy was considering equipping itself with frigates more or less derived from US-DE „Canon” class destroyer escorts, fourteen of which equipped the French Navy. The preliminary proposal showed a unit equipped with a flush-deck hull as on the US-DE types but with some elements inspired by the British „River” type, six of which were also used by our national Navy. The initial proposal of 1948 provided for an armament consisting of a 105 mm canon to the rear, two quadruple mounts of 40 mm rapidly replaced by two double mounts of 57 mm open-air Bofor canons, four 20-mm Oerlikon canons, one or two wake grenaders with a cut-out of the front superstructures providing the possibility of installing triple mounts of torpedo tubes later on. In the end, the adopted configuration was for three double mounts of 57 mm/60 remote-controlled ACAD 1951 model under turrets, two 20 mm Oerlikon, four triple mount torpedo tubes of 550 mm and a Bofors Mle 54 sextuple rocket launcher of 375 mm. In 1949, two units, the C 1 and C 2, were ordered, followed quickly by the C 3 and C4.