Nea-Genea class
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| Nea Genea class | |
 The Nea Genea |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Destroyer torpedo boat |
| units | 2 + 6 |
| Shipyard |
AG Vulcan Stettin , Building No. 322/323 |
| Keel laying | 1911 |
| Launch | NG: February 29, 1912 Ke: May 22, 1912 |
| delivery | NG: November 8, 1912 Ke: October 10, 1912 |
| Decommissioning | 1919 |
| Whereabouts | Canceled in 1921–1923 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
570 t , |
| length |
70.2 m |
| width |
7.6 m |
| Draft |
3.1 m |
| crew |
74 men |
| drive |
4 AEG marine boilers |
| speed |
32 kn |
| Range |
1190 nm at 17 kn |
| Armament |
• 2 × 8.8 cm gun |
| Sister boats |
Keravnos building no. 323 |
| very similar | |
The Nea Genea (Greek: Νέα Γενεά, "new generation") and her sister boat Keravnos (Greek: Κεραυνός, "thunder") were two destroyers bought in Germany that belonged to the German type Large Torpedo Boat 1911 . They were launched as SMS V 6 and V 5 as the last ships of the series V 1 to V 6 and were sold and transferred to Greece in July 1912 before delivery to the Imperial Navy . They were the first turbine-propelled boats in the Royal Greek Navy . The boats arrived in Greece in time to take part in the First Balkan War. During the First World War , the Entente confiscated the ships of the neutral Greek Navy in November 1916 and the French Navy took over the two destroyers and used them for security tasks. The boats were returned in 1918, but removed from the fleet list as early as 1919. Since no buyer could be found, they were canceled until 1927.
History of the ships
The two boats were built at the Vulcan shipyard in Szczecin as V 5 and V 6 for the Imperial German Navy from orders for the budget years 1911 and 1912. V 1 to V 6 were built at AG Vulcan . Similar boats were built at the Germania shipyard in Kiel with G 7 to G 12 and at the Schichau shipyard in Elbing with S 13 to S 24 . The boats on these orders were smaller than their predecessors for the first time in years in order to reduce costs. They were later not very popular in the Imperial Navy due to their poor sea characteristics and were referred to as "Lans cripples" after the person responsible for awarding the contract, Wilhelm von Lans , the head of the torpedo inspection at the time .
The boats displacing 570 t were 71.1 m long and 7.6 m wide. The steam required for the AEG-Vulcan turbines, which generated up to 17,000 hp, was supplied in four coal and oil-fired boilers. This enabled the boats to reach up to 32 knots. The driving range with 107 t of coal and 78 t of oil in the bunkers and a speed of 17 knots was 1190 nautical miles. The main armament of the boats was four rotating torpedo tubes with a diameter of 50 cm. Two stood side by side in front of the bridge. The other two launch tubes were placed on the center line of the hull in front of and behind the main mast. In addition, the boats had two 8.8 cm L / 27-C / 08 cannons as bow and stern guns.
When the two boats V 5 and V 6 were sold to Greece in July 1912 , they were the most modern torpedo boats of the Imperial Navy, which had only taken over the four other Vulcan boats and one Germania boat in the first half of 1912. Four more Germania boats and five Schichau boats were in the final equipment. At the same time, Vulcan from Szczecin received the order to deliver two replacement structures for the boats sold. By November 1913, the Imperial Navy received the planned 24 boats and equipped the V. Torpedo Boat Flotilla (V and G boats) and VII. Torpedo Boat Flotilla (S-Boats) with them. Even at the start of the war in 1914, they were still the most modern torpedo boats, as the first boats of the follow-up orders had only recently come into service.
V 5 and V 6 were transferred with shipyard personnel to the Netherlands in 1912 and there were finally handed over to the Greek Navy on October 10, 1912, which then transferred them to their new homeland as Nea Genea and Keravnos . American Greeks had collected a large part of the purchase price.
Mission history
The ships bought shortly before the First Balkan War were used during this war in the Aegean Sea and off the Dardanelles . The Keravnos formed the reconnaissance group with the four destroyers of the Aetos class (980 t, 32 kn) that were originally built for Argentina and had just been acquired from Cammell Laird ; the destroyer group consisted of four boats each of the Niki class (1906 , 275 t, 30 kn) and the Thyella class built at Yarrow (1907, 352 t, 30 kn). In the battle of Elli on December 16, 1912 and the naval battle of Limnos on January 18, 1913, the Greek fleet with the armored cruiser Georgios Averoff and the reconnaissance ships and then the old ships of the line, succeeded in preventing the Ottoman fleet from breaking out of the Dardanelles. Only after the second battle did the Greek commander in chief dispatch part of his units to hunt down the Ottoman cruiser Hamidiye, which broke out alone between the battles . The Nea Genea and the Keravnos were temporarily stationed off Alexandria and Port Said. The Hamidiye remained in the Red Sea until the peace agreement and feared an advance of the Greek Navy through the Suez Canal .
During the First World War , Greece initially remained neutral. In October 1916, the Entente decided to incapacitate the Royal Hellenic Navy . The lack of security ships led in November to the takeover of the two destroyers of German origin by the French Navy, which then used the Keravnos from November 1, 1916 to September 2, 1918 and the Nea Genea from January 5, 1917 to October 27, 1918, although from June 27, 1917 Greece joined the war on the side of the Entente.
On October 30, 1918, the First World War between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies ended with the Moudros armistice . The Keravnos was one of the allied units that called on Constantinople . An attempt to reach Vatum on the Black Sea from there failed after a few hours due to very bad weather and machine problems. The destroyer was later dispatched to Sevastopol to strengthen the squadron there around the ship of the line Kilkis . The Nea Genea is said to have returned from French service in very poor condition and is said to have been missing significant pieces of equipment. The Greek government decided against repairing the two boats, especially since there was no hostile sea power due to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1919. The pursuit of the Greater Greece idea ( Megali Idea ) required funds for the army, as a Turkish Navy did not exist for the time being due to the massive enforcement of the peace conditions by Great Britain.
Both boats were deleted from the fleet list in 1919, offered for sale in vain and then scrapped. Only their cannons were used on other boats.
The German sister boats
| Surname | Launch | in service | fate |
|---|---|---|---|
| V 1 | 09/11/1911 | 01/12/1912 | March 27, 1929 deleted |
| V 2 | 10/14/1911 | 03/28/1912 | March 25, 1930 deleted |
| V 2 | 11/15/1911 | 2.05.1912 | March 25, 1930 deleted |
| V 4 | 12/12/1911 | 06/15/1912 | torpedoed by HMS Moresby in the night battle of the Skagerrak battle on June 1, 1916 and then sunk, 18 dead |
| V 5 | 04/25/1913 | 07/17/1913 | March 25, 1930 deleted |
| V 6 | 02/28/1913 | 05/17/1913 | March 27, 1929 deleted |
The Germania shipyard with G 7 to G 12 and the Schichau shipyard with S 13 to S 18 (1911) and S 19 to S 24 (1912) delivered further large torpedo boats of the 1911 type .
literature
- Robert Gardiner, Randal Gray (Ed.): Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1985, ISBN 978-0-87021-907-8 , p. 386.
Web links
- Greek naval history (Engl.)
- Hellenic Frigates Command History
- NEA GENEA destroyers
- Greek Naval ships of World War I.
Individual evidence
- ^ Hellenic Navy ( Memento from December 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Gregory Mezeviris: Four Decades in the service of the RHN , Athens (1971)