World War I German destroyers

Garlicdesign

Post subject: Re: World War I German destroyers

Posted: February 23rd, 2016, 9:09 pm

Posts: 1071
Joined: December 26th, 2012, 9:36 am
Location: Germany

Hello again!

Grosse Torpedoboote 1916

By 1916, it dawned upon the German Navy that their previous destroyers were undergunned. They had lost five destroyers to enemy destroyer gunfire so far (among many more for other reasons), without being able to sink a single enemy destroyer with guns. With the large B97 and her various sisters and half-sisters in service by late 1915 and considered successful and popular ships, it was decided to build a follow-on class of another twelve large destroyers. With typical German sense for moderation, these ships were as excessively large as their predecessors of the 1906, 1913 and especially 1911 types had been excessively small. At 2.060 tons, the new 1916 type destroyers were more than twice as large as the 1913 type and had nearly four times the size of the 1911 type. Main artillery consisted of four 150mm L/45 guns, and torpedo caliber was increased to 600mm; two twin tubes were provided. Twelve units were laid down in 1916 and 1917, three each from Schichau/Elbing (S113 - S115), Vulcan/Stettin (V116 - V118), Krupp Germania/Kiel (G119 - G121) and Blohm&Voss/Hamburg (B122 - B124). Unlike the smaller B97, these large destroyers were officially rated as Torpedoboote rather than Zerstörer, resulting in their receiving the darker grey paintjob typical for the smaller German destroyers. According to photographic evidence, the gunshields were painted in a lighter shade of grey.

Only the first two groups yielded one completed specimen each; these are also the only ones of which line drawings exist. Only V 116 was commissioned prior to Germany's collapse in November 1918. She was ceded to Italy under the Treaty of Versailles and renamed Premuda; their forecastle, which originally ended at the forward corner of the bridge, was lenghtened to the bridge's aft end immediately after completion, probably even before. I have not found any photographs which show V116 with the original short forecastle. I drew her in this configuration anyway to show her main difference to her half sister.

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S113 was not complete before mid-1919 and had to be ceded to France, where she was commissioned as the Amiral Senes. Differences to V116 were small; with her cruiser stern, S113 was slightly shorter than V116, and her forecastle reached to the aft end of the bridge from the beginning.

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None of the G- and B- units were completed, and I have found no hint to their exact appearance in the www (whoever has better info - dump it on me!!!), other than that they would have looked very similar to the V- units, all having overhanging sterns; the B- units also would have had more freeboard forward. All in all, this info was not enough to make a sufficiently precise drawing.

Greetings
GD

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