Thiaria: Other People's ships

Garlicdesign

Post subject: Re: Thiaria: Other People's ships

Posted: March 24th, 2016, 9:01 pm

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

Hello again!

The following is the final entry for German AU ship classes with at least one ship completed:

19. Flottentorpedoboot 42 (T65 through T88)
Although the Kriegsmarine was unduly optimistic about the willingness of yards in the occupied countries to produce modern high-end warships for their arch-enemies, they did not want to rely entirely upon the Dutch, Belgians and Danes to replenish the heavy losses of Germany's torpedo boat flotillas. Schichau built sixteen large seagoing torpedo boats of the 1939 type (T25 through T40) between 1940 and 1943; the last two units cleared the slipways late in 1942. A follow-on design was prepared from early 1941. Initially, only a modest upscale of the Type 1939 was intended, but the Kriegsmarine demanded improved fire control for full DP fire capability, more light flak, more freeboard for oceanic operations, higher speed and longer range. As the requested improvements were worked into the design, its size grew to over 1.600 tons standard, at which point the Navy asked for increasing the main gun caliber to 128mm and the number of torpedo tubes to eight. Another round of redesign yielded a ship of nearly 2.000 tons - with nearly exactly the same parameters and pretty much the same appearance as the abortive Destroyer 1938B, although having visibly higher freeboard forward. Their hulls were slightly smaller than those of the Flottentorpedoboote 1940, but packed significantly better performance: They had a reasonably sturdy high-pressure steam plant of 60.000hp for a speed of 37 knots, twice the range of the 1940 type and an armament of four 128mm DP guns in twin turrets and eight fully automatic 37mm guns (two singles in the bridge wings, and three twins arranged two abreast in front of the aft funnel and one superfiring the aft 128mm turret). Eight torpedo tubes were carried, and ASW gear was exceptionally complete (eight twin DC throwers, two DC stern racks, two 380mm ASW mortars, Asdic and hydrophones). All were fitted with the latest radars including a centimeter-wave FuMO 231 DP fire-control set and two different types of passive radar detectors. On the minus side, their seakeeping was rated slightly inferior to the 1940 type, and they had less space for accommodation, making them less habitable. These disadvantages were however deemed acceptable, and Schichau received an order for 24 units in March 1942, under the provision that they were to be delivered within 24 months per unit. The final design looked like this:

[ img ]

The first six were laid down in 1942, ten more in 1943, and the final eight in 1944. As the Schichau Yard in Elbing was relatively safe from air attack during 1942 and most of 1943, construction initially went ahead more or less on schedule, although steel and labour shortages could be felt ever more sorely after mid-1943. Bombing led to further delays in late 1943 and early 1944, and hull after hull was written off in order to proceed with the most advanced ones only; the last eight were cancelled wholesale in August 1944. By late 1944, ten hulls were still under construction; one each was launched in March, May and August, and three in July, and another one in January 1945. The other three never left stocks. The first unit to be completed was T66 in November 1944, followed by T70 in January 1945 and T68 and T73 in March. All others remained unfinished. T68 had only a few weeks in service and was sunk by Soviet land-based bombers in July 1945 in Libau harbour. T66 sank a Soviet MTB during the attack that destroyed the Moltke. T66 and T70 belonged to the German fleet that defeated the Soviet Baltic fleet at Ösel in June 1945; T66 damaged the Soviet destroyer Steregushchiy and - together with Z34 - sank the Silniy with gunfire. T70 was later sunk by British strategic bombers in Kiel harbour a few days before Germany's surrender. T73 escorted several refugee ships and sank the submerged Soviet submarine S-30 using a T-5 acoustic homing torpedo, marking a world premiere in the successful use of such weapons by surface ships (her CO later confessed that the kill was a result of nothing more than dumb luck). T66 and T73 belonged to the German fleet that surrendered to the Allies in Copenhagen in October 1945; the former was awarded to the USA, the latter to Great Britain. Both were used for trials and scrapped in the 1950s.

Stay tuned for AU ship projects of which at least one ship was laid down, but none completed!

Greetings
GD

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