Falcon (ship, 1940)
The Falke (SP 22) was the third of three so-called sling ships built for the German Air Force and used by them in World War II . It followed the Sperber (SP 11) launched in 1938 and its sister ship Bussard (SP 21), which was commissioned in May 1942 .
Construction and technical data
The ship was launched on 29 July 1940 at the F. Schichau shipyard in Pillau with the hull number 1502 from the stack and was put into service on 22 November 1,942th It was 98.3 m long and 14.0 m wide, had a 2.33 m draft , and displaced 2,040 tons (standard). The falcon and its sister ship Bussard were almost twice as big as the sparrowhawks . Two 8-cylinder four - stroke diesel engines from KHD gave it 1,800 hp; with its two Voith Schneider propellers , it reached a top speed of 12 knots . The operating range , with a total bunker supply of 230 tons of diesel oil, was 2900 nautical miles at 12 knots cruising speed or 4400 nautical miles at 10 knots. The armament initially consisted of three, later five 20 mm anti- aircraft guns. The crew consisted of 3 officers and 51 men.
The ship had a long, flat upper deck with a 20-ton Heinkel - catapult for flying boats of the types Do 18 , Do 24 and BV 138 and a 20-ton crane company Kampnagel at the rear. The starting sling could catapult aircraft with a takeoff weight of up to 20 tons and accelerate them to up to 4 g within 2.5 seconds , so that at the end of the catapult process they reached a speed of 180 km / h. The ship could bunker up to 120 tons of aircraft kerosene and transport up to three flying boats or seaplanes on deck at the same time.
history
From January 1943, the falcon was stationed near Bergen (Norway), then in 1944 and 1945 in Tromsø and Trondheim , where it was subordinate to "Maritime Emergency Service Leader 5 (North)" and served as a catapult ship and tender for sea scouts and rescue pilots . On the day of the German surrender (May 8, 1945) the ship was in Trondheim, where it fell into British hands.
After the war ended, the ship was delivered as spoils of war to the Soviet Union , which from October 25, 1946 used it as a supply and recovery ship in the Northern Fleet under the name Aeronaft . The Aeronaft was retired in 1968.
literature
- Simon Mitterhuber: The German catapult planes and slingshots . Bernard & Graefe, Bonn, 2004, ISBN 3-7637-6244-2
- Erich Gröner : The German Warships 1815-1945 , Volume 7