SMS Otter (1877)
.jpg) The otters on a contemporary drawing with originally intended rigging
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The SMS Otter was a second class gunboat of the Imperial Navy and was specially designed for use as a pirate hunter in China . However, due to insufficient seaworthiness , the otter was not sent to East Asia , but was used as a tender in the North and Baltic Seas . Like many contemporary warships , it was equipped with a ram . After the decommissioning in 1907, the name was transferred to the river gunboat Otter .
Development and construction
Due to the activity of pirates in the China Sea , to whom the Oldenburg barque Texas had fallen victim in 1857 , considerations arose in Prussia to station ships to combat pirates in East Asia . British experience showed, however, that the conventional corvettes and frigates were out of the question for such tasks due to their great draft. The reason for this was the very shallow draft of the junks , barely a meter , with which the Chinese pirates mostly operated in shallow coastal waters or estuaries.
Building on this experience, the Imperial Admiralty made the decision in 1876 to send at least one leveled warship to the Chinese waters to protect German merchant ships. A corresponding design was put under construction at F. Schichau in Elbing in December 1876 . The shipyard thus received its first order for the Imperial Navy. The new building, designated as a replacement dolphin during planning and construction, was ready for launch on June 7, 1877 and was baptized with the name Otter . It was the first German warship specially designed for use against pirates and was also officially known as the pirate hunter.
The Illustrirte Zeitung wrote in the article Das Kanonenboot Otter of March 23, 1878:
- This gunboat is the representative of a completely new type of construction and has little in common with the vehicles which, under the designation of gunboats, made up a considerable part of our navy. While the latter are intended for very general purposes and are intended to serve as smaller station ships in all seas, the Otter was built exclusively with the special purpose of pursuing the East Asian coastal pirates.
technology
The Otter was one of the smallest warships in the Imperial Navy. Their design displacement was only 130 t, the maximum displacement was 164 t. The ship was 31.0 m long in total, with the waterline measuring 29.1 m when the structure was displaced. The beam was 6.15 m, the draft 1.13 m forward and 1.63 m aft. The iron hull was divided into four watertight compartments to increase safety from sinking. The ship did not have a double floor or additional armor.
The standard crew of the gunboat consisted of 43 men. It consisted of the commander as the only officer and 42 men .
In the aforementioned article in the Illustrierte Zeitung it was stated about the technical characteristics of the otters :
- The armor of the ship consists of one 12 cm. And two 8 cm. Guns; The former is set up in the bow under the forecastle, which is also closed at the back, and can fire straight ahead and to each side up to a little backwards. This arrangement also offers the advantage that if it is impossible to stay on deck by gunfire from the river bank or by stink pots used by the Chinese in their battles, the crew will find a refuge in the forecastle from which they in turn can access the deck can master. The latter also provides the opportunity to comfortably accommodate the crew, which for military reasons has been rather high, because the space below deck in front of the machine, in which the material, provisions and ammunition must also be stored, is for this purpose alone would not have been sufficient.
Propulsion system
The gunboat had two standing two-cylinder steam engines with simple steam expansion . The machines together produced 142 PSi and each drove a four-winged screw with a diameter of 1.0 m. The steam supply was ensured by a cylinder boiler , which had two furnaces and 59 m² heating surface and generated a steam pressure of 5 atmospheres . The machinery brought the otters to a top speed of 8 knots . The 15 t coal reserve enabled a driving range of 1,181 nm at a speed of 7 kn.
The planned use in East Asia required the largest possible sailing area, which is why a schooner rig with 325 m² sail area was also provided for the ship . However, since the otter was only used in home waters due to its unseaworthiness, the rigging was not installed.
Armament
The ship had two ring cannons with a caliber of 8 cm as well as a 12 cm L / 23 Rk installed in the bow . However, the armament was dismantled again in 1880 after a tween deck beam and several thinking boards during a target practice on July 16, 1880 broke. As a result, the Otter became the only warship of the Imperial Navy that was not capable of saluting under the war flag .
commitment
The commissioning took place on March 11, 1878 to transfer the otters from Elbing to Kiel . The following sea trials showed that the ship had a serious design flaw. It was not seaworthy enough for an overseas voyage, apparently due to the shallow draft. Even a trip to Wilhelmshaven around Cape Skagen seemed so risky that the boat was sluiced through the Eider Canal to get into the North Sea. In Wilhelmshaven, the Otter was taken out of service on June 19. In connection with the sinking of the Great Elector , the lack of use of the gunboat was also criticized by the Reichstag . The head of the Admiralty, Albrecht von Stosch , explained that the original intention to dismantle the gunboat in order to transport it in individual sections could not be carried out due to technical problems.
In order to use the otters , the Admiralty decided to use the boat in the coastal waters of the North and Baltic Seas. Because of this, the planned rigging was not installed. From 1880 to 1886 the gunboat served as a tender for the artillery school ships Renown and Mars . During this time, the Otter was never officially put into service, only manned when necessary and commanded by an officer of the artillery training ship. From 1884, the ship was officially removed from the gunboat class and listed as a tender for the artillery training ship .
In 1887 the Otter was assigned to the newly formed ship inspection commission. This time a trip around Cape Skagen was undertaken for the transfer to Kiel. After some modifications, the tender was put back into service on September 1, 1887 and remained in active use for almost 20 years. No special activities of the boat are recorded until 1895. In May 1895, the Otter sailed the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal , presumably for testing, before it opened.
In 1898, the Otter was assigned to the Mine Test Commission that was newly formed that year, which used the boat in the Cuxhaven sea area in the following years until it was decommissioned on March 18, 1907 .
Whereabouts
On May 27, 1907, the Otter was removed from the list of warships. After being used as a teaching hulk and charcoal cream , it was acquired by a company in Brake in February 1914 , but shortly thereafter sold to the Anschütz company in Kiel. The Otter used this as a test ship for compass tests. In 1926 the boat was scrapped.
Commanders
| March 11 to June 19, 1878 | Leutnant zur See / Kapitänleutnant Max Piraly |
| May 19 to June 3, 1880 | Lieutenant for the sea in Hüpeden |
| July 11-22, 1887 | unknown |
| September 1, 1887 to September 1889 | Lieutenant at sea / Lieutenant Carl Friedrich |
| September 1889 to March 1890 | Lieutenant Commander / Corvette Captain Wachenhusen |
| April 1890 to August 1891 | Captain Johannes Stein |
| August to September 1891 | Captain Fritz Sommerwerck (deputy) |
| September 1891 to March 1893 | Lieutenant Stein |
| March 1893 to September 1895 | Lieutenant Commander / Corvette Captain Wentzel |
| September 1895 to August 1897 | Lieutenant / Corvette Captain Johannes Schröder |
| August to November 1897 | Captain Georg Schur (deputy) |
| November to December 1897 | Lieutenant at sea Walter Engelhardt |
| December 1897 to January 1898 | Captain Georg Schur |
| January 1898 to October 1900 | Lieutenant at sea / Kapitänleutnant Walter Engelhardt |
| October 1900 to March 1901 | Oberleutnant zur See Erich Butterlin |
| March to October 1901 | Lieutenant Captain Albertus Petruschky |
| October 1901 to April 1902 | Lieutenant Memminger |
| April to July 1902 | First lieutenant to the sea Theodor Eschenburg |
| July 1902 to April 1903 | Lieutenant Meinardus |
| April 1903 | Captain Walter Michaelis (deputy) |
| April to November 1903 | Captain Wilhelm Schultz |
| November to December 1903 | Captain Walter Michaelis (deputy) |
| December 1903 to September 1904 | Captain Wilhelm Schultz |
| September 1904 to March 1906 | Lieutenant Captain Walter Michaelis |
| March 1906 to March 18, 1907 | Lieutenant Paul Wolfram |
literature
- Eberspächer, Cord: The "Texas case" and the Oldenburg foreign policy . The diplomatic consequences of the shipwreck and plundering of the crew of the Oldenburg barque “Texas” in 1857 in the China Sea . In: Oldenburger Jahrbuch 2001 . 2001, p. 93-108 .
- 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 , p. 165 .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 6 : Ship biographies from Lützow to Prussia . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen 1999, p. 205-207 .
- Petter, Wolfgang: The overseas base policy of the Prussian-German navy 1859-1883 . Freiburg (Breisgau) 1975.
Web links
- Illustration of a model of the otter and a sketch drawing
- Illustration of the otters at deutsche-schutzgebiete.de
Footnotes
- ↑ The designation of the lower officer ranks was set or changed in the years 1849, 1854 and 1864. On January 1, 1900, the names Fähnrich zur See, Leutnant zur See, Oberleutnant zur See and Kapitänleutnant, which are still in use today, were introduced.
- ↑ a b c d e The rank corresponds to a first lieutenant at sea.