Jupiter class minelayer
Encyclopedia
Jupiter Class minelayers was a group of four vessels of the Spanish Navy
built during the Spanish Republic
. Three of them came into service during the Civil War
after joining the rebel side.
shipyards at Ferrol in 1935, a year before the start of the Spanish Civil War. The first three ships of the class were seized by the insurgents and served in the rebel fleet. Their first deployment was the blockade of Bilbao
.
Due to the lack of destroyers in the Franco
’s fleet, and the potential of their armament, the main mission of these vessels was not minelaying, but to face Government units in open combat, despite their slow speed.
, where she took part in the capture of several merchantmen, especially the British Candleston Castle, Dover Abbey and Yorkbrook, the French Cens and a number of Republican trawlers during the second half of 1937. She also laid four minefields off Santander
and Gijon
, from April to July 1937. The rebel battleship España
was lost on 30 April after hitting by accident one of her mines at Santander. There were only four casualties among España`s crew.
On 17 July, while on patrol off Gijon, the Jupiter caught two British cargo ships while they were attempting to run the blockade. One of them, the Sarastone, managed to reach the harbor despite being firing on. The other steamer, Candleston Castle, stopped after the minelayer fired two shots across her bows. She was handed over by the Jupiter to the auxiliary cruiser Ciudad de Palma, which escorted the captured merchantman to Ferrol. A fruitless search was launched by the Royal Navy
's battleship HMS Royal Oak and the destroyer HMS Basilisk
.
She engaged the Republican destroyer Císcar
on 10 August off Gijon. During this exchange of fire, the Jupiter guns accidentally straddled the British destroyer HMS Foxhound
. Occasionally, she also provided support fire for the rebel troops inland. On 24 August 1937, after the fall of the port of Santoña
, the Jupiter along with other naval units was called from Bilbao
to watch the British steamer Seven Seas Spray, taken in custody by Nationalist troops while attempting to evacuate Basque troops as part of the ill-fated Santoña Agreement
between the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie
and the Basque Nationalist Party
.
On 5 October, while she was escorting the seized freighters Dover Abbey and Yorkbrook to Ribadeo
, the former vessel sent a distress message to HMS Resolution, giving the position and course of the convoy and claiming that her capture had taken place outside territorial waters. Actually, they have been caught by armed trawlers 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) off shore, well inside Spanish maritime boundaries
. The Jupiter successfully outran the British battleship and the convoy reached destination without incident.
At least five minor vessels carrying refugees and soldiers of the Republican army where seized by the minelayer after the fall of the last government's strongholds on northern Spain by the end of October.
On Christmas Day 1937 she shelled the port of Burriana
, near Castellon
, in the Mediterranean coast, where the British freighter Bramhill was at anchor. The merchant was hit by several rounds and had to withdraw to Marseille
to undergo repairs.
Towards the end of the war, along with the auxiliary cruiser Mar Negro
, she supported the landing an Infantry division on Mahon
, Minorca
, after the Republican surrender of this island, on 9 February 1939. She was one of the units involved in the blockade of Alicante
, where thousands of refugees gathered in order to flee Spain when Franco's victory was in sight. Her sister Marte, commissioned a few months before, took part in one of the last international maritime incidents of the war on 19 March 1939, when she prevented the British steamer Stanbrook from entering Alicante. The ship, chartered by the Republican government, went back to Oran
, Algeria
. The Stanbrook eventually reached the Spanish port on 27 March, after the Nationalist side displayed some indulgency toward the evacuation of refugees in return for the British recognition of Franco's legitimacy. Two days later, the Stanbrook left Alicante bound for Oran, crowded with at least 2,000 people, one of the last ships to either enter or flee Republican Spain. Her Welsh
skipper, Captain Archibald Dickson, later killed during the sinking of his ship in World War II, is today remembered as a hero in Alicante.
After the Spanish Civil War, in December 1940, the Jupiter carried out an undercover reconnaissance
mission around Gibraltar
with Admiral Canaris
, General Lang
and a Spanish officer aboard. The goal was to gather intelligence about the British fortifications and boom defenses as a first step toward the proposed Operation Felix
.
The Vulcano temporarily blocked the entrance to Gijon
of the British merchants Stanray and Stangrove. At the end of the war in the north she joined a naval squadron which drove back the steamers Hillfern, Bramhill, Stanhill and Stanleigh off Cape Peñas, seizing a number of small Republican vessels crowded with refugees in the process. During this period she shelled, without success, the British Thorpebay when this steamer entered the port of the Musel. Between the last months of 1937 and 1939 Vulcano was active in the Mediterranean, where she was part of the rebel fleet which bombarded Castellon, Burriana and Vinaroz on Christmas Day 1937. She played a key role, along with her sisters ships, in ferrying troops after Franco's army reach the coast between Valencia and Barcelona
on April 1938
.
On 17 October 1938, she seized the Soviet cargo ship Katayama, of 3,200 tons. She also played a secondary role in the capture of the Greek merchant Victoria by the auxiliary cruiser Mar Cantábrico and the British Stangrove by the gunboat Dato, in the final months of the civil war. All these freighters joined the Spanish merchant fleet at the end of the conflict.
Perhaps the most famous action of Vulcano is the chase and capture of the Republican Churruca class destroyer
Jose Luis Diez
off Gibraltar, in the course of a battle fought as close as 50 meters between the ships involved. The Diez eventually became stranded in Catalan Bay
, in territory of Gibraltar, the last day of 1938. The destroyer was turned over to Franco's government after its recognition by Britain as the legitimate authority in Spain.
She was the leading unit of an aborted landing at Cartagena
on 7 March 1939, after the withdrawal of the Republican fleet from its bases and its internment
at Bizerte
. The operation was mounted on the belief that anti-communist Republicans had taken over the port once the Government navy fled. However, loyalist forces retook control of the coastal batteries around the harbour. All the ships received the order of aborting the operation, but two transports, the Castillo de Olite
and Castillo Peñafiel, deprived of radio, continued toward Cartagena undeterred. They were the former Soviet steamers Postishev and Smidovich, of 3,545 and 2,485 tn respectively, which had been seized by the Nationalists at high seas. The Castillo de Olite was sunk by a 381 mm battery close to the docks, with a loss of life of almost 1,500. Meanwhile, the Castillo Peñafiel had a narrow escape, harassed by Republican aircraft. In a letter to General Franco, Admiral Francisco Moreno put the blame on Vulcano´s commander for his failure to prevent the departure of the freighters, as ordered by Moreno himself. The Vulcano apparently gave green light to the transports after receiving contradicting orders from the high command to proceed.
Along with the cruiser Canarias
, Vulcano landed two infantry battalions at Alicante on 31 March, the day before the official end of hostilities.
from 1958 to 1961. The antisubmarine and antiaircraft weapons were updated by adding a squid multiple mortar
and Bofors 40 mm gun
s. The units were also fitted with radar. Both ships joined the frigate squadron along with those units of the first Pizarro class. Jupiter was written off the Navy list on 23 November 1974, and Vulcano was used as a base ship from 12 March 1977 until her final decommissioning on 30 April 1978, this being the last warship to be removed from service of those who participated in the Civil War.
Marte and Neptuno remained unchanged until their decommissioning in 1971 and 1972 respectively.
Spanish Navy
The Spanish Navy is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces, one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Armada is responsible for notable achievements in world history such as the discovery of Americas, the first world circumnavigation, and the discovery of a maritime path...
built during the Spanish Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
. Three of them came into service during the Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
after joining the rebel side.
Civil War
The minelayers were commissioned by the Government of the Republic to SECNSociedad Española de Construcción Naval
From 1909 up until the Spanish Civil War, the naval construction in Spain was monopolized by the Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval - also Spanish Society for Naval Construction was largely owned by the British , and therefore almost all ships were designed after Royal Navy vessels...
shipyards at Ferrol in 1935, a year before the start of the Spanish Civil War. The first three ships of the class were seized by the insurgents and served in the rebel fleet. Their first deployment was the blockade of Bilbao
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...
.
Due to the lack of destroyers in the Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
’s fleet, and the potential of their armament, the main mission of these vessels was not minelaying, but to face Government units in open combat, despite their slow speed.
Jupiter
Along with Vulcano, the Jupiter was one of the main players in the blockade of international shipping in the ports of BiscayBay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...
, where she took part in the capture of several merchantmen, especially the British Candleston Castle, Dover Abbey and Yorkbrook, the French Cens and a number of Republican trawlers during the second half of 1937. She also laid four minefields off Santander
Santander, Cantabria
The port city of Santander is the capital of the autonomous community and historical region of Cantabria situated on the north coast of Spain. Located east of Gijón and west of Bilbao, the city has a population of 183,446 .-History:...
and Gijon
Gijón
Gijón , officially Gijón / Xixón, is a coastal industrial city and a municipality in the autonomous community of Asturias in Spain. Early mediaeval texts mention it as "Gigia". It was an important regional Roman city, although the area has been settled since earliest history...
, from April to July 1937. The rebel battleship España
Spanish battleship Alfonso XIII
Alfonso XIII was an España-class dreadnought battleship of the Spanish Navy which served in the Spanish fleet from 1915 to 1937. She was renamed España in 1931 for her sister ship, an earlier battleship España that served in the Spanish fleet from 1913 to 1923.-Technical...
was lost on 30 April after hitting by accident one of her mines at Santander. There were only four casualties among España`s crew.
On 17 July, while on patrol off Gijon, the Jupiter caught two British cargo ships while they were attempting to run the blockade. One of them, the Sarastone, managed to reach the harbor despite being firing on. The other steamer, Candleston Castle, stopped after the minelayer fired two shots across her bows. She was handed over by the Jupiter to the auxiliary cruiser Ciudad de Palma, which escorted the captured merchantman to Ferrol. A fruitless search was launched by the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
's battleship HMS Royal Oak and the destroyer HMS Basilisk
HMS Basilisk (H11)
HMS Basilisk was a of the British Royal Navy that saw early World War II service in Norway, before being sunk at Dunkirk in 1940.-Construction:...
.
She engaged the Republican destroyer Císcar
Churruca class destroyer
Churruca was a Spanish destroyer class built for the Spanish Navy based on a British design. Eighteen ships were built, two sold to Argentina.The ships were authorized on 17 February 1915 by Navy Minister Augusto Miranda y Godoy...
on 10 August off Gijon. During this exchange of fire, the Jupiter guns accidentally straddled the British destroyer HMS Foxhound
HMS Foxhound (H69)
HMS Foxhound was an Interwar standard that served the Royal Navy from 1935 to 1944.She was laid down on 21 August 1933 at John Brown Shipbuilding & Engineering Company Ltd. Clydebank and launched on 12 October 1934...
. Occasionally, she also provided support fire for the rebel troops inland. On 24 August 1937, after the fall of the port of Santoña
Santoña
Santoña is a town in the eastern coast of the autonomous community of Cantabria, on the north coast of Spain. It is situated by the bay of the same name. It is 45 km from the capital Santander. Santoña is divided into two zones, an urban plain, and a mountainous area, with Mount Buciero at its...
, the Jupiter along with other naval units was called from Bilbao
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...
to watch the British steamer Seven Seas Spray, taken in custody by Nationalist troops while attempting to evacuate Basque troops as part of the ill-fated Santoña Agreement
Santoña Agreement
The Santoña Agreement or Pact of Santoña was an agreement signed in the town of Guriezo, near Santoña, Cantabria, the August 24, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, between politicians close to the Basque Nationalist Party , fighting with the Republican Side, and Italian forces fighting with the...
between the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie
Corpo Truppe Volontarie
The Corps of Volunteer Troops was an Italian expeditionary force which was sent to Spain to support General Francisco Franco and the Spanish Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War...
and the Basque Nationalist Party
Basque Nationalist Party
The Basque National Party is the largest and oldest Basque nationalist party. It is currently the largest political party in the Basque Autonomous Community also with a minor presence in Navarre and a marginal one in the French Basque Country...
.
Ribadeo
Ribadeo is a municipality in the Spanish province of Lugo in Galicia. It has a population of 9619 and an area of 106.2 km². It is the capital of the A Mariña Oriental region .- External links:*....
, the former vessel sent a distress message to HMS Resolution, giving the position and course of the convoy and claiming that her capture had taken place outside territorial waters. Actually, they have been caught by armed trawlers 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) off shore, well inside Spanish maritime boundaries
Maritime boundary
Maritime boundary is a conceptual means of division of the water surface of the planet into maritime areas that are defined through surrounding physical geography or by human geography. As such it usually includes areas of exclusive national rights over the mineral and biological resources,...
. The Jupiter successfully outran the British battleship and the convoy reached destination without incident.
At least five minor vessels carrying refugees and soldiers of the Republican army where seized by the minelayer after the fall of the last government's strongholds on northern Spain by the end of October.
On Christmas Day 1937 she shelled the port of Burriana
Burriana
Borriana or Burriana is a town in eastern Spain, in the province of Castellón, part of the autonomous community of Valencia. Its population exceeds 34,000, some of them recent immigrants from North Africa and Eastern Europe ....
, near Castellon
Castellón de la Plana
Castellón de la Plana or Castelló de la Plana is the capital city of the province of Castelló, in the Valencian Community, Spain, in the east of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Costa del Azahar by the Mediterranean Sea...
, in the Mediterranean coast, where the British freighter Bramhill was at anchor. The merchant was hit by several rounds and had to withdraw to Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
to undergo repairs.
Towards the end of the war, along with the auxiliary cruiser Mar Negro
Mar Negro
The Auxiliary cruiser Mar Negro was an armed merchantman of the Nationalist Spanish navy during the Spanish Civil War. The cargo ship was launched in 1930 along with her sister ship Mar Cantábrico, and after five years on the Compañía Marítima Del Nervión company, she was first requisitioned by the...
, she supported the landing an Infantry division on Mahon
Mahon
Mahón is a municipality and the capital city of the Balearic Island of Minorca , located in the eastern part of the island. Mahon has the second deepest natural harbor in the world: 5 km long and up to 900m. wide...
, Minorca
Minorca
Min Orca or Menorca is one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to Spain. It takes its name from being smaller than the nearby island of Majorca....
, after the Republican surrender of this island, on 9 February 1939. She was one of the units involved in the blockade of Alicante
Alicante
Alicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...
, where thousands of refugees gathered in order to flee Spain when Franco's victory was in sight. Her sister Marte, commissioned a few months before, took part in one of the last international maritime incidents of the war on 19 March 1939, when she prevented the British steamer Stanbrook from entering Alicante. The ship, chartered by the Republican government, went back to Oran
Oran
Oran is a major city on the northwestern Mediterranean coast of Algeria, and the second largest city of the country.It is the capital of the Oran Province . The city has a population of 759,645 , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 1,500,000, making it the second largest...
, Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
. The Stanbrook eventually reached the Spanish port on 27 March, after the Nationalist side displayed some indulgency toward the evacuation of refugees in return for the British recognition of Franco's legitimacy. Two days later, the Stanbrook left Alicante bound for Oran, crowded with at least 2,000 people, one of the last ships to either enter or flee Republican Spain. Her Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
skipper, Captain Archibald Dickson, later killed during the sinking of his ship in World War II, is today remembered as a hero in Alicante.
After the Spanish Civil War, in December 1940, the Jupiter carried out an undercover reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
mission around Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
with Admiral Canaris
Wilhelm Canaris
Wilhelm Franz Canaris was a German admiral, head of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944 and member of the German Resistance.- Early life and World War I :...
, General Lang
Joachim-Friedrich Lang
-Biography:Born on 14 September 1899 in Metz, Alsace-Lorraine, Joachim-Friedrich Lang joined the German Army before the Second World war. Following the outbreak of World War II, Lang took part in the invasion of France and then served on the Eastern Front. He had by then reached the rank of Oberst....
and a Spanish officer aboard. The goal was to gather intelligence about the British fortifications and boom defenses as a first step toward the proposed Operation Felix
Operation Felix
Operation Felix was the codename for a proposed German seizure of Gibraltar during World War II. It never got beyond the staff study stage, even though planning continued into 1944, primarily because of Francisco Franco's reluctance to commit Spain to enter the war on the Axis...
.
Vulcano
Gijón
Gijón , officially Gijón / Xixón, is a coastal industrial city and a municipality in the autonomous community of Asturias in Spain. Early mediaeval texts mention it as "Gigia". It was an important regional Roman city, although the area has been settled since earliest history...
of the British merchants Stanray and Stangrove. At the end of the war in the north she joined a naval squadron which drove back the steamers Hillfern, Bramhill, Stanhill and Stanleigh off Cape Peñas, seizing a number of small Republican vessels crowded with refugees in the process. During this period she shelled, without success, the British Thorpebay when this steamer entered the port of the Musel. Between the last months of 1937 and 1939 Vulcano was active in the Mediterranean, where she was part of the rebel fleet which bombarded Castellon, Burriana and Vinaroz on Christmas Day 1937. She played a key role, along with her sisters ships, in ferrying troops after Franco's army reach the coast between Valencia and Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
on April 1938
Aragon Offensive
The Aragon Offensive was a Nationalist campaign during the Spanish Civil War, which began after the Battle of Teruel. The offensive began on March 7, 1938, and ended on April 19, 1938...
.
On 17 October 1938, she seized the Soviet cargo ship Katayama, of 3,200 tons. She also played a secondary role in the capture of the Greek merchant Victoria by the auxiliary cruiser Mar Cantábrico and the British Stangrove by the gunboat Dato, in the final months of the civil war. All these freighters joined the Spanish merchant fleet at the end of the conflict.
Perhaps the most famous action of Vulcano is the chase and capture of the Republican Churruca class destroyer
Churruca class destroyer
Churruca was a Spanish destroyer class built for the Spanish Navy based on a British design. Eighteen ships were built, two sold to Argentina.The ships were authorized on 17 February 1915 by Navy Minister Augusto Miranda y Godoy...
Jose Luis Diez
Spanish destroyer José Luis Díez
José Luis Díez was a Churruca-class destroyer in the Spanish Navy. She took part in the Spanish Civil War on the government side.She was named after Teniente de Navío José Luis Díez y Pérez Muñoz.-Civil War:...
off Gibraltar, in the course of a battle fought as close as 50 meters between the ships involved. The Diez eventually became stranded in Catalan Bay
Catalan Bay
Catalan Bay is a small bay and fishing village in Gibraltar, on the eastern side of The Rock away from the main city.-Etymology:The true origin of the name of Catalan Bay is unknown, but a couple of theories exist...
, in territory of Gibraltar, the last day of 1938. The destroyer was turned over to Franco's government after its recognition by Britain as the legitimate authority in Spain.
She was the leading unit of an aborted landing at Cartagena
Cartagena, Spain
Cartagena is a Spanish city and a major naval station located in the Region of Murcia, by the Mediterranean coast, south-eastern Spain. As of January 2011, it has a population of 218,210 inhabitants being the Region’s second largest municipality and the country’s 6th non-Province capital...
on 7 March 1939, after the withdrawal of the Republican fleet from its bases and its internment
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
at Bizerte
Bizerte
Bizerte or Benzert , is the capital city of Bizerte Governorate in Tunisia and the northernmost city in Africa. It has a population of 230,879 .-History:...
. The operation was mounted on the belief that anti-communist Republicans had taken over the port once the Government navy fled. However, loyalist forces retook control of the coastal batteries around the harbour. All the ships received the order of aborting the operation, but two transports, the Castillo de Olite
SS Castillo de Olite
The Castillo de Olite was a merchant steamship, which was sunk by the costal defense batteries of Cartagena in the last days of the Spanish Civil War, while transporting 2,112 Spanish Nationalist troops.-History:...
and Castillo Peñafiel, deprived of radio, continued toward Cartagena undeterred. They were the former Soviet steamers Postishev and Smidovich, of 3,545 and 2,485 tn respectively, which had been seized by the Nationalists at high seas. The Castillo de Olite was sunk by a 381 mm battery close to the docks, with a loss of life of almost 1,500. Meanwhile, the Castillo Peñafiel had a narrow escape, harassed by Republican aircraft. In a letter to General Franco, Admiral Francisco Moreno put the blame on Vulcano´s commander for his failure to prevent the departure of the freighters, as ordered by Moreno himself. The Vulcano apparently gave green light to the transports after receiving contradicting orders from the high command to proceed.
Along with the cruiser Canarias
Spanish cruiser Canarias
The Canarias was a heavy cruiser of the Spanish Navy. She was designed in the United Kingdom and was a modified version of the Royal Navy's County class cruiser. She was built in Spain by the Vickers-Armstrongs subsidiary Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval...
, Vulcano landed two infantry battalions at Alicante on 31 March, the day before the official end of hostilities.
Refurbishment
Of the four vessels, only Jupiter and Vulcano took part in a modernization program after the agreements between Spain and the United States in the 1950s, and were reclassified as frigates. The modernization was held in CartagenaCartagena, Spain
Cartagena is a Spanish city and a major naval station located in the Region of Murcia, by the Mediterranean coast, south-eastern Spain. As of January 2011, it has a population of 218,210 inhabitants being the Region’s second largest municipality and the country’s 6th non-Province capital...
from 1958 to 1961. The antisubmarine and antiaircraft weapons were updated by adding a squid multiple mortar
Squid (weapon)
Squid was a British World War II ship-mounted anti-submarine weapon. It consisted of a three-barrelled mortar which launched depth charges. It replaced the Hedgehog system, and was in turn replaced by the Limbo system....
and Bofors 40 mm gun
Bofors 40 mm gun
The Bofors 40 mm gun is an anti-aircraft autocannon designed by the Swedish defence firm of Bofors Defence...
s. The units were also fitted with radar. Both ships joined the frigate squadron along with those units of the first Pizarro class. Jupiter was written off the Navy list on 23 November 1974, and Vulcano was used as a base ship from 12 March 1977 until her final decommissioning on 30 April 1978, this being the last warship to be removed from service of those who participated in the Civil War.
Marte and Neptuno remained unchanged until their decommissioning in 1971 and 1972 respectively.
Units of the Class
| Name | Number | Commissioned | Scrapped |
| Marte | F-01 | 1938 | 1971 |
| Neptuno | F-02 | 1939 | 1972 |
| Júpiter | F-11 | 1937 | 1974 |
| Vulcano | F-12 | 1937 | 1977 |