SMS Ulan (1876)
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The SMS Ulan was a torpedo steamer of the Imperial Navy . The ship was built to test the spar torpedo technology.
history
Development and construction
The North German Federal Navy and the resulting Imperial Navy examined the usability of spar torpedoes at the beginning of the 1870s. These were first used in the American Civil War . During the Franco-Prussian War , small civilian ships were provisionally equipped with spar torpedoes. After the war ended, six small and three larger torpedo boats were built for use near the coast. In 1875 the decision was made to build torpedo steamers suitable for the sea. It was next to in the Grabower shipyard Möller & Hollberg commissioned torpedo ship "no. IV ”, which was to be equipped with spar torpedoes, also ordered a significantly larger torpedo vehicle from Thames Ironworks in London . The later Zieten acted as a test ship for the so-called "fish torpedoes" of the Whitehead design , which should ultimately prevail in principle.
With the construction of the torpedo steamer “No. IV ”began the shipyard in 1875. On April 3, 1876 the launch took place, at which the ship was named Ulan . The torpedo steamers were to be named after the various types of cavalry , such as dragoons or hussars . Since the Ulan remained the only ship of this type, the other cavalry designations were not used. The completion of the torpedo steamer took another six months. The construction cost a total of 437,000 marks .
Attack conception
Before an attack with the spar torpedo, the explosive device had to be attached to the spar . Initially divers took on this task, later a correspondingly constructed mechanism. During the actual attack, the Ulan should go on a collision course with the target. The torpedo steamer drove towards the target until the spar touched the enemy hull and detonated the explosive device. The possible loss of the ship was taken into account. In order to keep the Ulan as buoyant as possible, there was a collision bulkhead in the foredeck that formed a cork-filled cavity. The crew had to leave the torpedo steamers and to a coupled for this purpose cork flowed to surmount when the rudder was set on the collision course. The raft was connected to the Ulan by a long line so that the crew could return to the ship after an attack if it was still buoyant.
commitment
On October 8, 1876, the Ulan was handed over to the navy and was officially put into service for transfer to Kiel . The decommissioning took place just a month later after test drives had previously taken place. In the following years the automated spar armament was installed and various tests were carried out by the shipyard. From October 25 to December 3, 1879, tests took place again. These finally showed that the armament was unusable. The Ulan therefore went back to the shipyard and received a “fish torpedo system” from the Whitehead system. From March 29 to May 1, 1881, the ship was put back into service to test the new armament.
In the following years was Ulan as a tender of a torpedo training ship serving Blucher allocated. The commander of the Blücher was automatically also the commander of the Ulan , but if necessary assigned one of his officers to this task. The torpedo steamer took part in a fleet parade in front of Kaiser Wilhelm I in front of Düsternbrook on September 17, 1881 in the association of torpedo vehicles led by Kapitänleutnant Alfred Tirpitz , without being officially commissioned . From July 1, 1885, the Ulan served not only as a tender, but also as a guide boat for the II and III. Torpedo Division. In autumn the ship took part in the maneuvers of the fleet and in September tried together with the Blücher to salvage the torpedo boat V 3 , which had sunk off Langeland . From October 1885 to April 1886 the Ulan was used as a training ship for revolver cannons, and from May onwards she was used again as a tender by the Blücher . On June 24th, the ship collided with the quay wall while leaving the Imperial Shipyard in Kiel and had to be taken out of service on July 8th for repairs.
The Ulan was put back into service on October 19, 1886. The torpedo steamer continued to serve as a tender, initially for the Blücher , later for the Elisabeth . After a brief decommissioning in mid-April 1887, the ship carried out attempts to lay and search for sea mines together with the Rhine until September 1 . During this time, the Ulan was also involved in the festivities for the laying of the foundation stone of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal . From 14 to 31 July 1888, the ship served in the torpedo boat flotilla, where she replaced the Blitz . The use of the Ulan as a tender ended for the time being on August 21 .
The Kaiserliche Werft Kiel carried out a major overhaul on the Ulan in the following years. The boiler and the steam engine were exchanged and the two chimneys were merged into one. The torpedo armament was also expanded. The ship was then without use until 1895.
On March 22, 1895, the Ulan was put back into service and assigned as a tender to the artillery training ship Mars . At the same time, the ship was also subjected to the inspection of the naval artillery. In the years 1895 to 1899, the Ulan was active from spring to November. In 1895, a Mars officer took command of the Ulan if necessary , and from 1896 the tender was given its own commander. After another major overhaul in 1900, the Ulan continued to serve as a tender from September 25, 1900 to October 26, 1908. The decommissioning during the winter months was omitted, only the crew number was temporarily reduced. Due visits to the shipyard also took place mainly in winter.
Whereabouts
The Ulan was removed from the list of warships on May 26, 1909. From then on, the hull served as a pram . On August 13, 1919, bought Cuxhaven-Brunsbüttel Steamer AG the Ulan and sold it six years later to the company M. Faber & Co. in Hamburg . The ship was finally broken up in 1926 in Hamburg-Moorburg by W. Ritscher & Co.
technology
The Ulan had an iron hull designed as a transverse rib construction. This was divided by three watertight transverse bulkheads. In addition, there was an additional collision bulkhead in the forecastle, which was supposed to keep the Ulan buoyant in the event of an attack with the spar torpedo. The ship displaced a total of 438 t , with the construction displacement calculated at 374 t. The Ulan was 36 m , with extended spar torpedo 38 m long. The waterline measured 35.05 m when the structure was displaced. The greatest width of the ship was 8.0 m, the draft at maximum displacement was 2.65 m forward and 4.57 m aft .
Propulsion system
The drive system of the Ulan was divided into a boiler room and an engine room. The ship had four longitudinal cylinder boilers with a total heating surface of 382 m². These generated a vapor pressure of 5.5 atmospheres . The steam drove a vertically installed two-cylinder steam engine with simple steam expansion. The machine made 782 PSi and acted on a four- bladed propeller with a diameter of 3.9 m. The drive accelerated the Ulan up to 12.0 kts . At this speed, the fuel supply of 25 t of coal carried along enabled a range of 300 nm .
Armament
When it was commissioned, the spar torpedo attached to the bow was the only armament of the Ulan . The torpedo was equipped with an explosive device weighing 63 kg. Since this type of construction did not prove to be promising for the future, the ship received a 38.1 cm diameter torpedo tube installed in the bow below the waterline in 1881 . The Ulan carried three torpedoes. In addition, three 3.7 cm revolver cannons came on board. During the major overhaul in the early 1890s, the torpedo tube was removed again, but the revolver cannons were left on board.
crew
The crew initially consisted of two officers and 39 NCOs and men . When it was used as a tender, the nominal strength of the crew was 52 men. However, the commander was the only officer on board the Ulan .
Commanders
| October 8 to November 8, 1876 | Lieutenant at sea Altag |
| October 25 to December 3, 1879 | Lieutenant to the Sea Rudolf Siegel |
| March 29 to May 1, 1881 | Leutnant zur See / Kapitänleutnant August Thiele |
| May 2 to October 16, 1882 | Officers of the Blücher |
| May 1 to October 17, 1883 | Officers of the Blücher |
| July 1885 | Lieutenant Jaeschke |
| July 1885 | Lieutenant Hasenclever |
| July 1885 | Lieutenant Jaeschke |
| July 1885 | Lieutenant at sea Wilhelm Peters |
| July 1885 | Lieutenant Hasenclever |
| July to October 1885 | Lieutenant Jaeschke |
| October to December 1885 | Lieutenant Boerner |
| December 1885 to February 1886 | Captain Robert Stoltz |
| February to April 15, 1886 | Lieutenant Captain Hermann da Fonseca-Wollheim |
| May 5 to July 8, 1886 | Officers of the Blücher |
| October 19, 1886 to April 16, 1887 | Officers of Elisabeth |
| May 6 to September 1, 1887 | Lieutenant Carl Friedrich |
| May 15 to August 21, 1888 | Lieutenant at sea Ernst Schäfer |
| March 22 to November 6, 1895 | Mars officers |
| February 25 to November 14, 1896 | Lieutenant to the sea Heinrich Löhlein |
| February 25 to September 1897 | Lieutenant to the sea Heinrich Löhlein |
| September 18 to November 18, 1897 | Lieutenant Kinel |
| February 26 to May 1898 | Lieutenant Kinel |
| May to November 30, 1898 | Lieutenant at Sea Reiche |
| May 1 to September 1899 | Lieutenant to the Sea of Wise |
| September 24th to November 24th, 1899 | Lieutenant to the Sea Noelle |
| September 25, 1900 to September 1901 | First Lieutenant Karl Keller |
| September 1901 to March 1902 | Oberleutnant zur See Adalbert Zuckschwerdt |
| March 1902 to September 1903 | First lieutenant to the sea Volhard |
| September 1903 to March 1904 | Lieutenant to the sea Becké |
| March 1904 to March 1905 | First Lieutenant Reinhard Mönch |
| March to September 1905 | First Lieutenant Franz Strauch |
| September 1905 to April 1906 | First Lieutenant Guischard |
| April 1906 to April 1907 | Oberleutnant zur See / Kapitänleutnant von Lattorff |
| April to September 1907 | First Lieutenant Fritz Schreiber |
| October 1907 | Oberleutnant zur See Röpcke |
| October to December 1907 | First lieutenant at sea Ernst Siemens |
| December 1907 to July 1908 | First lieutenant to the sea Erich Schröder |
| July to September 1908 | First Lieutenant Michael |
| September to October 1908 | Oberleutnant zur See Lühmann |
literature
- Gröner, Erich : The German warships 1815–1945 . tape 1 . JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1966, p. 212 .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 7 : Biographies from Prussian Eagle to Ulan . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 249–252 (Licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c d Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Vol. 7, p. 250.
- ↑ a b Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz, Vol. 7, p. 252.
- ↑ a b c d e Gröner: The German warships. Vol. 1, p. 212.
- ↑ a b c d e f Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz, Vol. 7, p. 251.
- ↑ 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 (cf. Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz, vol. 7, p. 101).
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n The rank corresponds to a first lieutenant at sea.