Medea class

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Medea class
The HMS Melampus
The HMS Melampus
Overview
Type destroyer
units 4th
Shipyard

John Brown , Clydebank
Fairfields , Govan ,

Keel laying from April 1914
Launch December 16, 1914 to
March 27, 1915
period of service

1915-1921

Whereabouts a war loss 1916
1921 sold for demolition
Technical specifications
displacement

Standard : 1040  ts

length

overall: 83.4 m (273.5 ft)

width

8.1 m (26.5 ft)

Draft

3.2 m (10.5 ft)

crew

80 men

drive

Yarrow- boiler ,
Brown Curtis steam turbines
25,000 PSW 3 waves

speed

32 kn

Armament

3 × 4 "-102 mm Mk.IV guns
1 × Pom-Pom Mk.II - Flak
4 × 21 in-533 mm- torpedo tubes (2 × 2)

Fuel supply

270 t heating oil

The Medea-class was a class of destroyers under construction for the Greek Navy at the outbreak of World War I. The destroyers, which began as Kriti and Lesvos at John Brown and as Chios and Samos at Fairfield before the outbreak of war, were taken over by the Royal Navy in August 1914 and completed for use in the war. Due to their origin, all ships were named after characters from Greek mythology .

Design and construction history

In late 1913, Greece ordered two light cruisers and four destroyers from British shipyards and arms manufacturers. The order for the variants of the British Town class went to Cammell, Laird & Company in Birkenhead . The order for the destroyers to be named after Greek islands were given to shipyards on the Clyde . Two ships each were to be built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank (BauN ° 429/430) and by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan (BauN ° 500/501). They were built according to a private design that was similar to the M-Class buildings constructed at the same time . They had the same external dimensions and also had three chimneys, but the front one was higher. The boiler rooms were arranged differently than in the British orders. What was unusual was that the main mast of the "Greek" destroyers was higher than the foremast, which resulted in a distinctive appearance. The three 4 ″ guns were distributed on the front deck, unlike the British ships on the space between the first and second funnel and on the aft deck. Clydebank had previously started building the first M destroyers with Milne , Moorsom and Morris (construction numbers 426 to 428), Fairfields also built standard M-class destroyers of the first follow-up order under construction numbers 504 and 505 with Mandate and Manners . Construction of the export destroyer began in April 1914. Shortly after the start of the war, the Admiralty decided to purchase the ships, of which Melampus was the first to be launched at Fairfields on December 16, 1914; The three sisters, who also received names starting with M from Greek mythology, followed by March 27. The name Melampus had previously been used by four ships of the Royal Navy, most recently an Apollo-class cruiser until 1910 . The Medea , Melpomene and Medusa were most recently used for marathon-class cruisers . Melpomene was also briefly called the Indefatigable of the Apollo class, to release its name for the battle cruiser under construction . The four Medea-class destroyers were completed between May and August 1915.

Use of the destroyer

Oracle , Admiralty-M-type

After their completion, the Medea destroyers came to the 10th destroyer flotilla (10th DF) of the " Harwich Force " in the summer of 1915 . In early 1916, the four destroyers were there along with twelve M-class destroyers. These included the two Hawthorn M specials with four chimneys, three Yarrow M specials with two chimneys, with the Meteor also a Thornycroft M special as well as six ships of the Admiralty draft , including the Milne , Moorsom and Morris in Clydebank simultaneously manufactured units. The flotilla was led by the light cruiser Aurora and the flotilla leader Nimrod .

On March 24, 1916, the Harwich Force secured two divisions of the 10th DF with Aurora , Nimrod and the destroyers Meteor , Mastiff , Minos , Manly , Medusa , with the 5th Light Cruiser Squadron ( Cleopatra (flagship of Commodore Tyrwhitt ), Penelope and Conquest ) Murray , Mansfield and Morris as well as two divisions of the 9th DF with the cruiser Undaunted , the flotilla leader Lightfoot and the eight destroyers Laforey , Liberty , Llewellyn , Laurel , Laertes , Lassoo , Laverock and Linnet of the L-class launched another attack on an airship base of the seaplane carrier Vindex , who erroneously directed himself against Hoyer , on the coast of Schleswig behind Sylt, where the British suspected the airship hangars, which were actually a little further from the coast in Tondern .

On March 25, 1916, two Sopwith Baby and three Short 184 flew an attack on the airship port. However, they did not find their exact destination; only two machines returned to the Vindex . In search of the missing aircraft, the destroyer HMS Laverock rammed the Medusa in a battle with two German outpost boats near List . The two armed German outpost boats, the former fishing steamer Braunschweig and Otto Rudolf were sunk and Lightfoot tried to drag the full Medusa to safety. The tug, which was attacked by German aircraft, was initially secured by Lassoo and Laertes . The latter was replaced by the Aurora . During the night, two German torpedo boats ran through the British cruiser association, which did not open fire in order to remain undetected. Cleopatra rammed the second boat ( G 194 ) in poor weather from a maximum of 3 nm and cut it. Due to the maneuver, however, she ran the Undaunted in front of the bow, which could no longer avoid a collision and was seriously damaged in the process. Tyrwhitt's unit was now split into three groups, and he knew that there were more German units at sea and that the Germans at least knew the problem with the Medusa . The very bad weather caused the tow rope to tear again. In heavy seas, the Lassoo managed to bring the crew away and the Medusa was abandoned. The drifting destroyer was found by Dutch fish steamers and towed to Terschelling, but ran aground in front of the port. Efforts to detach the badly damaged ship were unsuccessful. She was the only ship of the class that was lost in the World War.

The other units of the Harwich Force reached their bases without further enemy contact. The crews of the three lost machines were taken prisoners of war.

At the end of the war, the Melpomene was in service with the 6th destroyer flotilla of the “Dover Patrol”, while Medea and Melampus were assigned to submarine flotillas in Tees and Harwich , respectively.

Ships of the class

Surname Shipyard Keel laying  Launch  in service commitment Final fate
Medea
H.9C  1.17: H.74 		John Brown,  BauN ° 429 04/06/1914 01/30/1915 06/22/1915 10th DF , November 1916 10th Submarine Flotilla , Teas , through March 1919 May 1921 sold for demolition
Medusa
H.90 		John Brown,  BauN ° 430 04/06/1914 March 27, 1915 07/01/1915 10th DF , March 25, 1916 after collision with  Laverock  abandoned stranded severely damaged in front of Terschelling
Melampus
H.44 , 1.17: H.75 		Fairfield, BuildingN ° 500 <08.1914 December 16, 1914 06/29/1915 10th DF , March 1916 8th / 9th Submarine Flotilla to 1919 September 1921 sold for demolition, which took place in Germany
Melpomene
H.09 , 1.18: H.76 , 9.18: H.50 		Fairfield, BuildingN ° 501 <08.1914 02/01/1915 08/16/1915 10th DF , March 1917 6th DF Dover to March 1919 May 1921 sold for demolition

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Former Isle of Man ferry, 2950 tn.l., 23 kn, front launch deck, November 3, 1915 first land plane take-off from a Royal Navy ship
  2. ↑ single-seat seaplane, 160 km / h, 2.25 h endurance
  3. ↑ JM Bruce: The Sopwith Tabloid, Schneider and Baby . In: FLIGHT magazine , November 22, 1957
  4. ↑ a b c British Navy, 3 ex-Greek Destroyers
  5. ↑ 10th Destroyer Flotilla ( Memento of the original from December 1, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. u. other flotillas on dreadnoughtproject.org @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dreadnoughtproject.org
  6. ↑ PINK LIST INFORMATION