flotilla
A flotilla is a smaller group of ships or submarines . The term is a diminutive of the word fleet .
military
In military parlance, flotillas are naval units that consist of several warships or smaller boats. In some navies is Flotilla a generic name for subdivisions of a fleet and can also be a non existing from ships Association call.
In Germany, until the end of the Second World War, an association of small boats such as speedboats , minesweepers or submarines was called a flotilla, which in turn often consisted of two semi-flotillas. In the Imperial Navy , for example, a torpedo boat flotilla comprised twelve boats after 1906: consisting of a flotilla leader boat, two semi-flotillas of four boats each and the associated two semi-flotilla leader boats and a boat as a reserve of materials .
In the German Navy , the term was initially not used and was only reintroduced in the 1960s. Based on the usage by the NATO allies, a flotilla has since been a larger association of several squadrons of similar ships or boats, which was also referred to as a type association. There were also non-floating flotillas, such as the naval aviation flotilla . The German Navy now has two flotillas, one of which is stationed on the North Sea and the other on the Baltic Sea . As large units with the rank of a brigade, they are each led by an officer with the rank of flotilla admiral , while the third large unit, the Naval Aviation Command , is led by a sea captain.
The People's Navy of the GDR was also divided into three flotillas, which were roughly equivalent in size to the flotillas of the Federal Navy, but were structured differently.
Others
The term flotilla is occasionally used in sailing . For example, joint sailing tours of several boats are known as flotilla sailing .
The flotillas of the German colonies comprised the entirety of the fiscal ships and the associated operations. The floating dock in the port of Dar es Salaam was also part of the German East Africa flotilla .
Individual evidence
- ^ Gustav Adolf Fischer: Flottillen, in: Heinrich Schnee (Hrsg.): German Colonial Lexicon . Volume I, Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1920, p. 644 f.
