Schichau-class torpedo boat

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Schichau-class torpedo boat
Torpedo Boat No. 38 (ex-Kranich) underway
Class overview
Builders
Operators
Succeeded byCobra class
Built1885–1891
In commission1886–c.1944
Completed22
General characteristics
TypeSea-going torpedo boat
Displacement88–90 t (87–89 long tons) (full load)
Length39.88 m (130 ft 10 in)
Beam4.8 m (15 ft 9 in)
Draught1.9 m (6 ft 3 in)
Installed power
Propulsion
Speed19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Endurance1,200 nmi (2,200 km; 1,400 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement16–18
Armament
  • 2 × 37 mm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss guns
  • 2 × 356 mm (14 in)
    torpedo tubes

The Schichau class consisted of 22

torpedo tubes. The entire class was reconstructed between 1900 and 1910, when they received two Yarrow boilers
and a second funnel.

Ten of the class were converted into

Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in World War II
, the remaining boat saw service with the Italians and then the Germans. She was lost while in German hands sometime after September 1943.

Background

During the 1880s, the

ironclads
repeatedly rejected in the 1870s and early 1880s, and turned to less expensive means to defend Austria-Hungary's coastline.

One of the innovations that supported the Jeune École strategy was the development of the torpedo into an effective weapon. In 1868 the Austro-Hungarian Navy had been the first to arm its ships with the new weapon, which had been invented four years earlier by the Austro-Hungarian Navy officer Johann Luppis and manufactured by the Stabilimento Tecnico di Fiume naval engineering firm in Fiume led by Robert Whitehead. The vessel developed to deliver these weapons was the torpedo boat, a small and fast vessel intended to work in conjunction with cruisers. The Austro-Hungarian adoption of the Jeune École strategy, and the development of both high seas and coastal tactics for torpedo boats, went hand-in-hand with the construction of dozens of torpedo boats for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, which began under Pöck, and continued with the construction of the Schichau class under his successor, Vizeadmiral Maximilian Daublebsky von Sterneck.[1]

Design and construction

The Schichau-class boats were of a

kW) and they were designed to reach a top speed of 19 knots [kn] (35 km/h; 22 mph).[3][4] They carried sufficient coal to give them a range of 1,200 nautical miles (2,200 km; 1,400 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph).[4]

They were armed with two

torpedo tubes, firing a Type C torpedo with a 45-kilogram (99 lb) warhead to a range of 600 m (2,000 ft) at 24 kn (44 km/h; 28 mph).[4][8] The early batches of boats had both torpedo tubes bow-mounted in the hull, but the later batches had one bow-mounted tube with the second tube located in the stern.[2] At the time they came into service, the boats were rated as first-class torpedo boats.[9]

Boats

A total of 22 boats were built by three shipbuilding companies;

Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Schichau-Werke in Germany.[10] At the time they were built, boats of this class were initially given names, but they were redesignated with numbers on 1 April 1910.[9][11] The class was succeeded by the Cobra class.[12]

Construction of Schichau-class torpedo boats[10]
Initial name Builder Laid down Launched Completed Redesignated
Kibitz
Seearsenal Pola
1890
1891
1891
19
Kukuk
Schichau-Werke
1888
1889
1889
20
Staar
1888
May 1889
1889
21
Krähe
1888
1889
1889
22
Rabe
1887
1888
1888
23
Elster
1887
1888
1888
24
Gaukler
Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino
1889
1889
1890
25
Flamingo
1888
1889
1889
26
Secretär
1888
1889
1889
27
Weihe
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
28
Marabou
1888
December 1889
December 1889
29
Harpie
1889
1890
1890
30
Sperber
Schichau-Werke
1885
1886
1886
31
Habicht
1885
1886
1886
32
Bussard
Seearsenal Pola
1885
September 1886
1886
33
Condor
1885
September 1886
1886
34
Geier
1885
November 1886
1886
35
Uhu
1886
December 1886
1886
36
Würger
1886
1887
1887
37
Kranich
1886
1887
1887
38
Reiher
1886
1887
1887
39
Ibis
1886
1887
1887
40

Service history

On 7 November 1893, Krähe (No. 22) collided with the

Istrian peninsula in the northern Adriatic, with Nos. 27, 30, 33, 34, 37 and 40 forming part of the Pola minesweeping flotilla. Nos. 20, 23 and 26 were stationed at Trieste – on the coast west of the Istrian peninsula – as part of the 15th and 16th Torpedo Boat Groups. Nos. 19, 22, 25 and 31 formed the 20th Torpedo Boat Group of the 10th Torpedo Division at Sebenico – on the central Dalmatian coast – alongside a minesweeping group that included Nos. 29 and 35. At Cattaro Bay (the modern-day Bay of Kotor) – on the southern Dalmatian coast – Nos. 36 and 38 were part of the minesweeping force.[14]

On 23 August 1914, No. 26 struck a mine off Pola when she was pushed out of the safe route through the southern minefield by a strong gale. Her captain Linienschiffsleutnant Josef Konic and six of the crew were rescued, but one officer and ten crew members were lost.[15] She later returned to service.[16] The French submarine Cugnot slipped between the protective minefields outside Cattaro Bay and entered the bay on 29 November, but she was spotted by the Kaiman-class torpedo boat 57 T, which raised the alarm. The Huszár-class destroyer Ulan and the Blitz-class torpedo gunboat Blitz, along with No. 36, chased Cugnot, which was intending to attack the ironclad Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf. Cugnot struck an underwater obstacle and cancelled the attack, and 57 T fired a torpedo at her, but the torpedo missed because the depth was set too low. Cugnot then escaped from the bay and out through the minefield gap.[17] On 20 December, the French submarine Curie posed a serious threat when she entered the harbour at Pola and became tangled in anti-submarine net cables. After four hours of fruitless attempts to free herself, she surfaced and was attacked by Nos. 24 and 39, the Kaiman-class torpedo boat 63 T, the Huszár-class destroyer Turul, the older Schichau-built destroyer Satellit, some smaller auxiliaries of the 1st Mine Command, and the "Cristo" coastal artillery battery. Curie was sunk by gunfire, but only one crew member was killed and another died of his wounds. Curie was later raised and re-commissioned as SM U-14.[18]

No. 22 ran aground and sank off Sebenico on 3 March 1916, but was salvaged and repaired later that year. All of the remaining torpedo boats were converted to minesweepers during 1917. The boats of the class all retained their torpedo tubes, but only Nos. 19 and 21–24 still carried torpedoes. [10] On 16 November 1917, Nos. 23, 27 and 30 were part of a minesweeping force that supported the bombardment of a 152 mm (6 in) Italian shore battery at Cortellazzo near the mouth of the Piave near Venice, supported by three seaplanes. None of the torpedo boats suffered any damage. After an Italian force of three MAS boats appeared, covered by seven destroyers and three submarines, the bombarding force withdrew.[19][20] On 19 December, a large Austro-Hungarian force again engaged the Italian shore battery at Cortellazzo. The force was supported by Nos. 20, 23, 27, 30, 32 and 34. None of the ships of the bombarding force suffered damage during the mission. On 5 April 1918, the Huszár-class destroyer Uskoke and No. 26 put a landing party ashore at Ancona – on the central Italian coast – but the party was captured.[16] On 5 September, Nos. 19 and 38 were supporting another torpedo boat in the Gulf of Drin – off the Albanian coast – when they encountered an Italian force. The Austro-Hungarian boats broke off contact and escaped.[21][22]

Twenty boats survived the war. Under the

guardship and minesweeper at Kumbor and elsewhere in the Bay of Kotor until she was stricken on 5 June 1929. D2 was initially retained as a minesweeper based out of the Bay of Kotor, then employed as the training vessel for the Naval Academy at Gruž, the main port of Dubrovnik – on the far southern coast of Yugoslavia – between 1924 and 1941. While in this role, she retained only a skeleton regular navy crew, as the rest of the positions were made up with trainees. Many former Yugoslav Royal Navy personnel fondly remembered their time training aboard D2.[25]

When the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia commenced in April 1941 as part of World War II, D2 was under the command of Kapetan Korvete Franc Podboj. The boat sailed from Gruž to the Bay of Kotor during the invasion, and was captured there by the Italians. She served in the Italian Royal Navy as D10. The boat was captured by the German Navy on 11 September 1943 in the Bay of Kotor at the time of the Italian capitulation.[26][27] At the time she was of no operational value.[28] The final boat of the class was lost in their hands off Kumbor sometime thereafter,[27] or scuttled by them in the Bay of Kotor as they withdrew.[28][b]

Notes

  1. ^ L/23 denotes the barrel's length as 23 times the diameter of the bore.[5]
  2. ^ Frampton, Mancini, et al. say that her final fate is unknown.[26]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Sondhaus 1994, pp. 45–48, 51–53, 95–98.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Freivogel 2020, p. 192.
  3. ^ a b c Freivogel 2020, p. 194.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Greger 1976, p. 49.
  5. ^ Friedman 2011, p. 294.
  6. ^ Greger 1976, pp. 10 & 49.
  7. ^ Friedman 2011, p. 295.
  8. ^ Friedman 2011, pp. 350–351.
  9. ^ a b c d Gardiner 1985, p. 332.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Greger 1976, pp. 49–50.
  11. ^ Greger 1976, p. 55.
  12. ^ Greger 1976, p. 53.
  13. ^ Bilzer 1990, pp. 30–31.
  14. ^ Greger 1976, pp. 14–15.
  15. ^ Freivogel 2019, p. 98.
  16. ^ a b Cernuschi & O'Hara 2016, p. 68.
  17. ^ Freivogel 2019, p. 121.
  18. ^ Freivogel 2019, pp. 121–122.
  19. ^ Freivogel 2019, p. 339.
  20. ^ Cernuschi & O'Hara 2016, p. 67.
  21. ^ Cernuschi & O'Hara 2016, p. 69.
  22. ^ Freivogel 2019, p. 385.
  23. ^ Vego 1982, p. 344.
  24. ^ Greger 1987, p. 345.
  25. ^ Freivogel 2020, pp. 192–193.
  26. ^ a b Frampton et al. 1984, p. 332.
  27. ^ a b Gardiner 1985, p. 426.
  28. ^ a b Freivogel 2020, p. 193.

References

Books

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Journals

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