SMS S 116

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The sister ship S 115 in its original condition
Overview
Type	Big torpedo boat
Shipyard	Ferdinand Schichau , Elbing , construction no .: 703
Keel laying	1902
Launch	October 14, 1902
delivery	March 28, 1903
period of service	1903-1914
Whereabouts	Sunk October 6th 1914 by British submarine HMS  E 9
Technical specifications
displacement	Construction: 315 t Maximum: 415 t
length	63.2 m
width	7.0 m
Draft	up to 2.69 m
crew	57 men
drive	3 Schichau-Thornycroft water tube boilers 2 triple steam engines 5900 HP 2 screws, three-wing Ø 2.25 m
speed	27 kn
Range	2015 sm at 15.5 kn
Armament	3 × 5 cm Tbts KL / 40 (252 rounds, 70 hm ) 3 torpedo tubes Ø 45 cm (5 torpedoes C / 03)
Bunker quantity	117 tons of coal

SMS S 116 was a large torpedo boat of the type 1898 of the German Imperial Navy . S 116 and its sister boats S 114 , S 115 , S 117 , S 118 and S 119 ordered in 1902 belonged to the third series of this type built by Schichau. The boat was lost on October 6, 1914 after a torpedo hit by the British submarine HMS  E 9 .

S 115 , S 117 , S 118 and S 119 were sunk by British units in a naval battle off Texel on October 17, 1914 .

Building history

The 1898 deep-sea torpedo boats were procured by the Imperial Navy from 1898 to 1907 with 48 units. The first boat, SMS S 90 , entered service on October 24, 1899. It remained in China until 1914 after it was moved there with two sister boats as part of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 . The boats of the type 1898 were built in several series, mainly at the Ferdinand Schichau shipyard in Elbing . From 1900, two series were also produced by the Germania shipyard in Kiel . The boats had triple expansion steam engines as a drive, with two exceptions: S 125 was the first torpedo boat of the Imperial Navy with a turbine drive; The boat G 137 , which was occasionally assigned to the following type in 1906 , was also a turbine-powered boat.

S 116 and its sister boats ordered in 1902 were launched between August 1902 and July 1903 and were used by the Imperial Navy between October 25, 1902 and September 6, 1903.

Mission history

The boats S 114 to S 119 formed under the command of Korvettenkapitän Georg Thiele at the beginning of the First World War the 7th torpedo boat half flotilla within the IV torpedo boat flotilla.

Destiny S 116

From the beginning of the war, the boat provided outpost service in front of the mouth of the Ems . On October 6, 1914, the boat, now renamed T 116 , patrolled the German outpost strip in front of the mouth of the Ems. It was used by the British submarine E 9 under Lt. Cdr. Max Horton to 01:20 on the position of 53 ° 42 '  N , 6 ° 9'  O coordinates: "" 53 ° 0 42  N , 6 ° 9 '0'  O northwest with a torpedo 20 nautical miles from Borkum sunk. Nine men of the crew, including commandant Kurt Freiherr von Ziegesar (1885–1914), were killed.

Destruction of the 7th torpedo boat semi-flotilla

On October 17, 1914, the 7th torpedo boat semi-flotilla left Emden under its boss, Korvettenkapitän Thiele, on the guide boat S 119 and with the boats S 115 , S 117 and S 118 to lay mines off the south coast of England . In the early afternoon of October 17, 1914, the British light cruiser HMS Undaunted on a routine patrol with the destroyers Lennox , Legion , Loyal and Lance belonging to the 3rd flotilla landed the German semi-flotilla off the Dutch island of Texel at around 53 ° 17 ′  N , 3 ° 28 '  O .

The British ships were far superior to the German boats in terms of artillery. In addition to the two 152-mm and six 102-mm guns of the Undaunted , there were three additional 102-mm guns on each of the four Laforey- class destroyers . The most powerful weapon used by German boats was their torpedo tubes . The British were able to determine the conduct of the battle through their high speed. The comparatively old German boats, which once ran 28 knots , now only reached a little more than 18 knots with their piston engines, so that an attempt to escape was hopeless. The British divided their unit and attacked with Legion and Loyal first on S 118 , which sank at 3:17 p.m., while the other two destroyers hit S 115 so hard that this boat could no longer be steered. The two remaining torpedo boats attempt a torpedo attack on the Undaunted , which was able to avoid the torpedoes and concentrated its fire on the attacking boats. At 3:30 p.m., S 117 , which the Legion had previously shot at the helm , sank . At 3:35 p.m. the guide boat S 119 also sank in the fire of Lance and Loyal after it had carried out another torpedo attack on the Lance . A torpedo hit the destroyer amidships without exploding. The last floating but incapable of maneuvering boat S 115 was boarded by the Lennox , which was only able to capture one German on board. Then the Undaunted sank this boat at 16:30. 218 sailors died on the four boats. 30 sailors were captured by the British. Two sailors were rescued the next day by a neutral ship. The loss of the entire semi-flotilla led to a considerable reduction in German activities against the British coast.

Remaining of the rest of the boats in the class

The boats of the series S 114 to G 137 that still existed to date were renamed on September 27, 1916 when these boats changed their manufacturer identification to T + number . On September 24, 1917 and on February 22, 1918, the next general renaming of old torpedo boats took place due to the order of new boats, since after reaching number 197 the imperial navy counted their boats from the large torpedo boat 1911 onwards again from V 1 .

The other sister boat of the series described, S 114 , was renamed T 114 and, as the only surviving boat of this series, was deleted from the fleet list in 1920 and canceled in 1921.

literature

• Harald Fock: Black journeymen , Volume 2: Destroyers before 1914 , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1981, ISBN 3-7822-0206-6 .
• Erich Gröner : The German warships 1815-1945 Volume 2: Torpedo boats, destroyers, speed boats, minesweepers, mine clearance boats , Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-7637-4801-6 .
• Robert Gardiner: Conway's All the world's fighting ships 1860-1905 , Conway Maritime Press, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ [1]

Web links

• Page about the torpedo boat type 1898