Merchant raider

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
RMS Carmania sinking SMS Cap Trafalgar near the Brazilian islands of Trindade, 14 September 1914.

Merchant raiders are armed

merchant vessels
.

History

SMS Seeadler for his voyage (1916–1917). The Germans used a sailing ship at this stage of the war because coal-fired ships had limited access to fuel outside of territories held by the Central Powers due to international regulations concerning refueling of combat ships in neutral countries.[1]

Germany sent out two waves of six surface raiders each during

minelaying
. Several captains demonstrated great creativity in disguising their vessels to masquerade as allied or as neutral merchants.

The Kormoran fought the Australian light cruiser Sydney in a mutually destructive battle in November 1941.

Italy intended to outfit four refrigerated

Ramb IV). Only Ramb I and Ramb II served as merchant raiders and neither ship sank enemy vessels due to naval presence in the Red Sea. The New Zealand cruiser Leander sank Ramb I
off the Maldives (February 1941) while it tried to make for Japan; Ramb II did reach the Far East, where the Japanese prevented her from raiding, ultimately took her over and converted her to an auxiliary transport ship. (Ramb III served as a convoy escort until torpedoed and ended up as a German minelayer, and Ramb IV was converted for the Italian Royal Navy to a hospital ship.)

These commerce raiders carried no armour because their purpose was to attack merchantmen, not to engage warships—it would also be difficult to fit armour to a civilian vessel. Eventually most were sunk or transferred to other duties.

The British deployed

Armed Merchant Cruisers (AMC) in World War I and in World War II. Generally adapted from passenger liners, they were larger than the German merchant raiders, were used as convoy escorts and did not disguise themselves. The British AMC Carmania sank the German SMS Cap Trafalgar
which had been altered to look more like the Carmania.

During World War I, the British Royal Navy deployed Q-ships to combat German U-boats. Q-ships were warships posing as merchant ships so as to lure U-boats to attack them; their mission of destroying enemy warships differed significantly from the raider objective of disrupting enemy trade.

See also

References

  1. ^ Pardoe, Blaine L. (2005). "With the Wind at Their Backs" in Prologue: The Journal of the National Archives. National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration.

External links

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