Fleet companion
 The fleet companion F 1
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The fleet companion was the only class of escort boats of the German navy that was built in series. In addition, there was the escort boat class 1941 , which was a completely new design based on the non-built gunboat type 1938 , but was canceled due to different priorities after the type boat. The MZ 1 boat, officially named as a multi-purpose boat, is also one of the projects that have not been realized .
The fleet attendants were built to escort supply convoys, but they were also able to both lay and clear minefields . However, the boats in their original form did not particularly prove themselves due to poor sea characteristics. For this reason, they were rebuilt and in some cases extended at the Wilhelmshaven naval shipyard between 1938 and 1940 .
Development and construction
The class consisted of ten boats F 1 to F 10 . F 1 to F 6 were made between 1934 and 1936 at the Germania shipyard in Kiel , F 7 and F 8 between 1935 and 1937 by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg and F 9 and F 10 from 1934 to 1938 at the Kriegsmarine shipyard in Wilhelmshaven . Due to the short design time, the boats were poorly thought out and turned out to be badly designed. Mainly because they were used as test objects for the new Wagner boilers , there were long shipyard times, as systems ready for the front were installed "subsequently".
Whereabouts
- F 1 wasconverted intoa fleet tender andrenamed Jagd in April 1942 after further conversion. In 1945 the tender became the spoils of American war. He served until 1947, the German mine clearing service ( "German Mine Sweeping Administration"), was then extradited to France and scrapped there.
- F 2 was rebuilt from April 6, 1939 to May 22, 1940 and was captured by the British at the end of the war. Sunk in a storm in Scapa Flow in 1946 and partially recovered. The remaining parts are still a popular tourist diving destination.
- F 3 was converted into a fleet tender in Königsberg and renamed Hai . The Hai served as the guide boat of the leader of the minesweeper east and in this capacity, among other things, guided the German ships in April 1940 to occupy Norway through the mine barriers in the Great Belt and Kattegat . On May 3, 1945 the Hai sank after a British air raid in the Bay of Kiel . In 1948 the wreck was lifted and scrapped.
- F 4 was to be converted into a tender and renamed Koblenz . In 1945 the boat became British spoils of war and was scrapped.
- F 5 sank on January 29, 1945 after a mine hit in the central Baltic Sea.
- F 6 was converted into a fleet tender in 1938/39 and put into service as such on September 20, 1939 under the name Queen Luise . The ship then served as a guide boat or escort boat for various naval associations. On October 5, 1943, it was decommissioned in Nantes due to its high susceptibility to repairs and then moved back to Wilhelmshaven . It was sunk there on March 30, 1945 by British aerial bombs. The wreck was lifted and demolished in 1955.
- F 7 was delivered to the Soviet Union in 1946.
- F 8 was awarded to the USA as spoils of war in 1945 and was broken up in the Netherlands in 1950 .
- F 9 was sunk on December 14, 1939 off Heligoland by the British submarine HMS Ursula with two torpedoes . The ship sank in less than 30 seconds; there were only 15 survivors.
- F 10 was awarded to the USA as spoils of war in 1945 and was broken up in the Netherlands in 1950.
Planned mission
Since they were technically inadequate for the intended use, the remaining nine boats were withdrawn from the front in the early phase of the war and converted into tenders or torpedo fishing boats . The even older large torpedo boats and converted minesweepers had to replace this class as so-called mine combat boats . Because of many technical defects, the fleet attendants were rarely used in combat. Although they have a higher rate than most other escort destroyer arrived, they were lack of torpedo tubes and due to poor Fla not -Bewaffnung with a destroyer escort example of Buckley class comparable.
After being put back into service as tenders or torpedo fishing boats, they were used for training purposes. It was now your job to collect the exercise torpedoes fired by prospective submarine officers on the Baltic coast.
Technical data before conversion
General:
- Length: 80.2 m (over all); 74.8 m (waterline)
- Width: 8.8 m
- Draft: 3.24 m
- Displacement : 1,147 tons
- Crew: 117
Drive:
- 2 Wagner high pressure steam boilers
- 2 Wagner steam turbines with gear reduction
- 2 screws, 14,000 WPS
- Speed: 28 kn
- Range: 2,025 nm at 12 kn
Armament:
- Artillery : 2 × 10.5 cm L / 45; 1 × 8.8 cm L / 35
- Flak : 4 x 3.7 cm L / 83 (2 x 2); 6 × 2 cm-C / 38 (3 × 2)
- Water bombs : 2 rails, 2 launchers
literature
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 2 : torpedo boats, destroyers, speedboats, minesweepers, mine clearance boats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-7637-4801-6 , pp. 130 f .
