Beograd-class destroyer

The name ship of the class, Beograd, (right) and the flotilla leader Dubrovnik in the Bay of Kotor after being captured by Italy in April 1941
Class overview
Name	Beograd class
Builders	Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire Jadranska brodogradilišta
Operators	Royal Yugoslav Navy Regia Marina  Kriegsmarine
Preceded by	Dubrovnik
Succeeded by	Split
Built	1937–1939
In service	1939–1945
Planned	3
Completed	3
Lost	3
General characteristics
Class and type	Destroyer
Displacement	1,210 tonnes (1,190 long tons) (standard) 1,655 tonnes (1,629 long tons) (full load)
Length	98 m (321 ft 6 in)
Beam	9.45 m (31 ft 0 in)
Draught	3.18 m (10 ft 5 in)
Installed power	3 × Yarrow water-tube boilers 40,000 shp (30,000 kW)
Propulsion	2 × shafts Curtis or Parsons steam turbines
Speed	35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph)
Range	1,000 nautical miles (1,900 km; 1,200 mi)
Complement	145
Armament	4 × single 120 mm (4.7 in) guns 2 × twin 40 mm (1.6 in) AA guns 2 × triple 550 mm (22 in) torpedo tubes 2 × machine guns 30 naval mines

The Beograd class of destroyers consisted of three ships built for the Yugoslav Royal Navy in the late 1930s, a variant of the French Bourrasque class. Beograd was constructed in France and Zagreb and Ljubljana were built in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In January 1940, Ljubljana struck a reef off the port of Šibenik, and was still under repair when the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia commenced in April 1941. During the invasion, Zagreb was scuttled to prevent its capture, and the other two ships were captured by the Italians. The Royal Italian Navy operated Beograd and Ljubljana as convoy escorts between Italy, the Aegean Sea, and North Africa, under the names Sebenico and Lubiana respectively. Lubiana was lost in the Gulf of Tunis in April 1943; Sebenico was seized by the Germans in September 1943 after the Italian surrender and was subsequently operated by the German Navy as TA43. There are conflicting reports about the fate of TA43, but it was lost in the final weeks of the war.

In 1967, a French film was made about the scuttling of Zagreb. In 1973, the President of Yugoslavia and wartime Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito posthumously awarded the two officers who scuttled Zagreb with the Order of the People's Hero.