The Le Hardi class was designed to escort the fast battleships of the and to counter the large destroyers of the Italian and Japanese es.[1] The ships had an overall length of 117.2m (384.5feet), a beam of 11.1m (36.4feet),[2] and a draft of 3.8m (12.5feet). The ships displaced 1772LT at standard and at deep load. They were powered by two geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, using steam provided by four Sural-Penhöet forced-circulation boilers. The turbines were designed to produce 58000PS, which was intended to give the ships a maximum speed of 37kn. Le Hardi, the only ship of the class to run sea trials, comfortably exceeded that speed during her trials on 6 November 1939, reaching a maximum speed of from 60450sp=usNaNsp=us. The ships carried 4700NaN0 of fuel oil which gave them a range of 3100nmi at . The crew consisted of 10 officers and 177 enlisted men.[3]
The main armament of the Le Hardi-class ships consisted of six Canon de Modèle 1932 guns in three twin mounts, one forward and a superfiring pair aft of the superstructure. Their anti-aircraft (AA) armament consisted of one twin mount for Canon de 37mm Modèle 1925 guns on the aft superstructure and two twin Hotchkiss Mitrailleuse de CA Modèle 1929 machine gun mounts on the roof of the shell hoists for the forward 130 mm mount. The ships carried one triple and two twin sets of 550mm torpedo tubes; the aft mount could traverse to both sides, but the forward mounts were positioned one on each broadside. A pair of chutes were built into the stern that housed a dozen 200kg (400lb) depth charges.[4]
Ordered on 4 May 1936, Lansquenet was laid down by Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde at their shipyard in Bordeaux on 17 December 1936. She was launched on 20 May 1939 and entered service in 1940. The ship had been manned for trials on 1 June and was still fitting out when she steamed, for the first time under her own power, from Bordeaux to Casablanca, French Morocco on 27 June, despite being unsuccessfully engaged by German artillery on her way up the Gironde River. The following months saw five of the Le Hardi-class ships ordered to Oran to escort the battleship ; Lansquenet arrived there on 5 November. Departing that day, they arrived at Toulon three days later after which she was placed in reserve, still not fully completed.[5]
When the Germans attempted to capture the French ships in Toulon intact on 27 November 1942 during the occupation of Vichy France, Lansquenet was in nearby La Seyne-sur-Mer in reserve and was scuttled by her crew. The Italians refloated her on 24 April 1943 and redesignated her as FR34. After the Italian armistice of 9 September, the ship was captured by the Germans at Imperia, Italy, and renamed TA34.[6] She was scuttled in Genoa, Italy, on 24 April 1945.[7] Salvaged and towed back to Toulon on 19 March 1946, the ship was renamed Cyclone. Despite never have been repaired, she was not stricken from the Navy List until 22 September 1958 and was then subsequently scrapped.[8]