Hela class
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
The Hela class was a class of two warships in the Prussian Navy . The two units were partly financed by donations from the people and the Prussian state . While the Hela was mainly in service as a training ship until 1870 , the Frauenlob went down in a typhoon in 1860 .
history
The very successful Danish blockade of the north German coast as part of the Schleswig-Holstein survey made the German population want their own strong fleet. This was expressed in the resolution of the Frankfurt National Assembly to form the Reichsflotte as well as in the creation of "Fleet Committees" and associations in various cities with the aim of collecting donations for the purchase or construction of warships. The two Hela class ships were created through such private initiatives. The "Berlin-Potsdam Women's Association for the Acquisition of a Warship" advertised on July 19, 1848 in the "Königlich privilegierten Berlinische Zeitung" and the "Potsdamer Wochenblatt" targeted donations among women, repeated this call on January 15, 1850 and raised a good 13,000 thalers in this way . The Wolgast “Committee for the Construction of Patriotic Warships” contributed its collected donations to this sum, and the city of Wolgast also added an amount. This led to the Wolgast shipyard in Lübke being commissioned to build a war schooner based on the model of the Dutch Schorpioon . The Prussian War Ministry took over not covered by the donations construction costs and looked for the new name woman handing ago, the desired Friedrich Wilhelm IV. In honor of the collection among women in Frauenlobstraße was changed. Lübke put the schooner on Kiel in the spring of 1851 . Due to several changes to the construction plans, the launch could only take place on August 24, 1855 and the Frauenlob was finally put into service by the Navy on May 1, 1856.
Private donations also formed the financial basis for the construction of the Hela . In the context of the elections to the National Assembly, the Berlin merchant Wollheim called for a fundraising campaign in which every citizen of Prussia eligible to vote should donate a silver groschen, which he hoped for a total of around 117,000 thalers. This money was to be used to finance a ship called Der Urwähler . However, even with the repetition of the call for elections for the Erfurt Union Parliament, a total of only 28,113 thalers came together. Another 4,505 thalers came from the Danzig “Flotten-Comitée” on condition that the ship be built in Danzig. Ultimately, the Danzig shipyard JW Klawitter was commissioned with the design work, based on the ship under construction at Lübke. The construction itself was entrusted to the naval depot . The War Ministry also financed the deficit of around 10,000 thalers at Hela after Wollheim had renounced his original name claim. Despite some changes to the construction plans, the new building in Danzig was ready for launch on October 18, 1853, well before the praise of women , and was commissioned for the first time on March 20, 1854.
The Hela was after its entry into service in surveying used and took over in 1858 as the main task of the training of midshipmen and cabin boy . A high point of her working days was a trip abroad to the Mediterranean in 1861/62, which she was supposed to undertake together with the Amazon , but which sank in the North Sea in November 1861. Until 1870 the Hela was repeatedly used as a training ship. After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War , however, the ship was decommissioned and scrapped the following year. The working time of the Frauenlob was significantly shorter. In 1856 she took part in a trip with Amazone , Thetis , Danzig and Mercur to Madeira , from where the schooner continued with the Thetis to the Río de la Plata and was back in Danzig in January 1857. In 1858 and 1859 Frauenlob carried out measurements in the Baltic Sea. In October 1859 the ship left Danzig to sail to East Asia together with Thetis and Arcona ( Prussian East Asia Expedition ). On September 2, 1860, the schooner sank in a typhoon around 40 nm off Yeddo with its entire crew. It was the first total loss of the Prussian Navy.
technology
As sister ships , Hela and Frauenlob were very similar, but not absolutely identical. Both were designed as wooden crane - planked transverse frames, the hull of which was additionally covered with copper plates . The Hela , however, was slightly smaller than the Frauenlob and displaced five tons less. The following table shows the main dimensions of both ships in comparison:
| ship | Length overall | Waterline | width | Draft forward | Draft aft | Construction displacement | maximum displacement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hela | 32.6 m | 27.43 m | 7.85 m | 2.44 m | 3.66 m | 271 t | 300 t |
| Women praise | 32.1 m | 27.66 m | 8.1 m | 2.61 m | 3.23 m | 275 t | 305 t |
Both ships were planned as a two-masted gaff schooner with a sail area of 523 m², as which the Frauenlob was also built. The Hela received a rigging as a topsail schooner with 604 m² sail area and was converted into a brig in 1860 , whereby the sail area was reduced to 539 m². The units of the Hela class sailed well, but were only suitable for shallow seas and their design was not intended for the high seas.
Both ships were armed with a 30 pounder gun ( 16 cm caliber ) with a short gun barrel . The Hela received from three heavy and light six 24-pounder guns existing Reinforcement according to 1860th
The crew consisted of five officers and 40 ( Hela ) or 42 ( Frauenlob ) crews . When used as a training ship, however, there were up to seven officers and 75 men on board the Hela .
literature
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 3 : Ship biographies from the Elbe to Graudenz . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen (licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 4 : Ship biographies from Greif to Kaiser . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen (licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz, Die deutscher Kriegsschiffe , Vol. 3, p. 91.
- ↑ Gröner states that construction started as early as 1849, cf. Gröner, The German Warships , p. 111.
- ↑ a b Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz, Die deutscher Kriegsschiffe , Vol. 4, p. 106.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz, Die deutscher Kriegsschiffe , Vol. 4, pp. 106f.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz, Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe , Vol. 3, p. 92.
- ↑ a b c d Gröner, The German Warships , p. 111.