SMS V 48
 Deck view of the sister boat V 47
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SMS V 48 was a large torpedo boat of the so-called “Official Draft 1913” of the German Imperial Navy . Immediately before the outbreak of World War I , the V 25 was the first boat of this type to enter service in the Navy. Seventy other boats of the type, built by four different shipyards, followed by May 1917. When V 48 was delivered on December 10, 1915, the Imperial Navy had already 24 boats of the type in service.
V 48 was lost in the Battle of the Skagerrak when it was hit by heavy ships as well as destroyers of the Shark division during an attack on an additional British battlecruiser squadron arriving on the battlefield . Only one seaman of the boat was rescued by a Danish ship after many hours in the water.
history
The large torpedo boats of the 1913 draft were a departure from the 1911 preliminary draft and an attempt to procure smaller, inexpensive boats. The new design reached the size of the British destroyer, but had a lighter artillery armament. The boats were the first torpedo boats of the Imperial Navy whose boiler systems were fired exclusively with oil. As always with the procurement of torpedo boats for the Imperial Navy since the beginning of the century, the construction contracts went to Ferdinand Schichau's shipyard in Elbing , the Kruppsche Germania shipyard in Kiel and the AG Vulcan in Stettin . Accordingly, the boats were designated with the first letters of the shipyards (S, G, V) and consecutive numbers.
The first order according to the new official draft went to the Vulcan shipyard in the budget year 1913 with V 25 to V 30 . In April 1914 the regular appointment for the budget year 1914 was made with S 31 to S 36 , G 37 to G 42 and V 43 to V 48 . All further orders were then made within the framework of the MS program (mobilization program) and were accordingly paid for from the war fund.
The construction of the three shipyards differed slightly; the boats were also continuously improved. The first six boats from Szczecin were 78.5 m long, the first four boats of the second Vulcan series were one meter longer at 79.6 m, and the V 47 and V 48 were then 83.1 m long. The Schichau newbuildings also had an extension of over 3 meters after the first ten completed boats and those of the Germania shipyard after four newbuilds. The boats were armed with three 8.8 cm L / 45-C 14 guns. However, in 1916, after only a few weeks of service on V 47 and V 48, they were replaced by three 10.5 cm L type guns / 45-C 16 Tk replaced. Many of the boats coming in from November 1915 on behalf of the Hamburg Vulcan branch for V 67 to V 84 were also converted in this way after short periods of service; the last three boats in this series were even delivered with the heavier armament. The same was done with the boats of the other shipyards.
The V 48 , launched on August 6, 1915 , was the 25th boat of the 1913 type and was taken over by the navy on December 10, 1915 and joined the 6th Torpedo Boat Half Flotilla (THFl), which together with the 5th T-HFl the III. Torpedo boat flotilla formed. It was the thirteenth boat of this type delivered by AG Vulcan, which was followed by 17 other boats by November 1916 in addition to the V 67 with V 68 to V 84 already delivered by the Hamburg branch .
Calls
As the guide boat of the 6th T-HFl commanded by Corvette Captain Theodor Riedel , V 48 took part in the Skagerrak Battle under Kapitänleutnant Friedrich Eckoldt together with S 54 under Corvette Captain Otto Karlowa and G 42 under Bernd von Arnim . At that time, the other boats in the flotilla, the S 55 and the Hamburg-built V 70 , were in the shipyard in Kiel.
V 48 was one of the few boats that had already been converted to the 10.5 cm L / 45 C 16 torpedo boat cannons. The III. T-Flotilla ran on the evening of May 31, 1916 at the head of the high seas fleet that wanted to relieve the battle cruisers of the First Reconnaissance Group under Admiral Hipper , when the first units of the Grand Fleet intervened on the British side .
When turning off an aborted torpedo attack on the newly arriving British units, the V 48 and the broken down British destroyer Shark shot at each other , the hits of which put the V 48 propulsion system out of action for a short time. However, a short time later, at around 7:33 p.m., the boat again participated in the torpedo attack on the British battle line, where a torpedo could be launched. Shortly afterwards, however, the boat was badly hit. The attempt by the G 42 to tow V 48 had to be abandoned in the fire of the British heavy units. The battleship Valiant scored more hits on the German boat with its medium artillery. At 8:05 p.m., the Colossus ship of the line opened fire with all of its artillery on a German destroyer , which was then observed sinking. It remains unclear whether the boat was sunk here or in the course of the night finally at 56 ° 54 '22 " N , 6 ° 6' 28" O went down . 90 men were lost with V 48 . The only survivor, Hans Robert Tietje, drifted in the water for 14 hours before being rescued by a Danish fishing boat .
Honors
The German Navy honored the semi-flotilla chief who had fallen on V 48 by naming the destroyer Z 6 Theodor Riedel and the boat commander by naming the destroyer Z 16 Friedrich Eckoldt . Of April 21 1917 G 42 fallen commander of G 42 was prepared by the designation of the destroyer Z 11 Bernd von Arnim honored in the same way as well as at S 35 fallen commander through the designation of Z 14 Friedrich him .
Individual evidence
- ^ Campbell: Jutland, p. 25
- ↑ The III. T-Flotilla was missing five of its eleven boats in the battle due to routine docking times. (Bennett / Lochner, Skagerrakschlacht , p. 277).
- ↑ Campbell, pp. 161f.
- ↑ Campbell, pp. 215, 339, 398.
- ^ Bennett: Battle of the Skagerrak , p. 215
Web links
- Large torpedo boat 1913
- Sink of V 48 in 1916
- An article in the New York Times on the aftermath of the Battle of the Skagerrak with a mention of V 48
literature
- Geoffrey Bennett: The Skagerrakschlacht , Wilhelm Heyne, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-453-00618-6
- John Campbell: Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting , Conway Maritime Press, London 1998, ISBN 0-85177-750-3
- Robert Gardiner, Randal Gray: Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 , Conway Maritime Press, London (1985), ISBN 0-85177-245-5 .
- Anthony Preston: Destroyer , Hamlyn, London (1977), ISBN 0-600-32955-0