SMS S 178
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SMS S 178 was a large torpedo boat of the official design 1906 with turbine drive of the Imperial Navy . The boat was part of a four-unit series that was built by the Schichau works . S 178 was rammed by the great cruiser Yorck on March 4, 1913 and sank.
In the same year, the Navy had the wreck lifted and repaired. In 1918 it was given the designation T 178 . The boat was scrapped in 1922.
history
Construction and commissioning
The Schichau shipyard in Elbing , West Prussia, began building the series of boats consisting of S 176 to S 179 in 1909 . The third boat with hull number 841, for which the designation S 178 was intended, was ready for launch on July 14, 1910 . The boat was completed by late fall of the year and was put into active service by the Navy on December 9th. The construction cost 1,726,000 marks .
In 1911, the shipyard delivered the almost identical boats S 165 to S 168 . They replaced boats of the same name, which were delivered to Turkey upon completion in 1910 and came into service there as Muavenet-i Milliye , Yadigar-i Millet , Numune-i Hamiyet and Gayret-i Vataniye .
technology
S 178 had a steel hull , which was created in transverse frame construction and was divided into twelve watertight compartments by bulkheads . With an overall length of 74.1 m and a maximum width of 7.9 m , the ready-to-use torpedo boat displaced 781 t, whereby it was up to 3.1 m deep in the water. Was powered S 178 by two steam turbines of Schichau works that three-winged two propellers with a diameter of 2.25 m worked. With a maximum engine output of 17,840 hp, the boat reached a top speed of 32.9 knots . The necessary steam was supplied by three coal-fired and one oil-fired water tube boilers with a total of 1,871 m² heating surface and a steam pressure of 17 atmospheres .
The main armament of S 178 was represented by four torpedo tubes with a diameter of 50 cm, which were set up on the upper deck . Two of them on the center line of the boat in front of and behind the main mast could trigger torpedoes on both sides , the two front pipes were at the same height behind the front chimney and could only fire almost forwards and to port or starboard. In addition, there were two rapid fire guns of the caliber 8.8 cm L / 30 on board, which were soon replaced by more modern guns of the type 8.8 cm L / 45 C / 14.
Downfall
On the night of March 4, 1913, a serious accident occurred 4.5 nm north - east of Heligoland . During an exercise, the torpedo boats involved tried to break through the line of heavy units. S 178 did not succeed. The boat got in front of the bow of the Yorck and was rammed by it. While the cruiser suffered only minor damage and was able to continue to participate in the maneuvers , it had torn the hull of the torpedo boat in the area of the boiler and turbine rooms. Due to the severe damage, S 178 sank within a few minutes, with 69 men of the crew being killed. Due to heavy seas and the prevailing darkness, only 15 crew members could be rescued. In addition to the Yorck , the Oldenburg and S 177 also took part in the rescue operation .
Salvage
Shortly after the sinking of S 178 , initial considerations were made about the lifting of the wreck lying at a depth of 17 m. The lift used for this prahm Unterelbe succeeded in lifting the aft part of the broken torpedo boat. It was towed to Wilhelmshaven together with the pram . During the work on the front part of S 178 there was another accident on May 5, 1913. During a heavy storm the Lower Elbe capsized , with the captain, the helmsman and five sailors drowning. The sister ship Oberelbe was only able to lift the front part of S 178 in July . The bodies of 18 crew members who found their resting place on the Heligoland dune were also recovered .
Whereabouts
The wreck of S 178 was brought to the shipyard and restored. On January 10, 1915, the boat came back into service. It was put back into service with the 16th torpedo boat semi-flotilla of the 8th torpedo boat flotilla and was used with this in the Baltic Sea. Among other things, it took part in the salvage of the V 100 , which was badly damaged by a torpedo hit by the British submarine E18, on May 26, 1916 by submerging the boat together with V 180 and towing it to Libau . The boat was given the new designation T 178 on February 22, 1918 because of the order for the Ms series S 178 to S 185 , in order to avoid confusion. After the First World War , the torpedo boat initially remained in the possession of the Reichsmarine, but finally had to be handed over to the Entente on September 15, 1920 and became British property. The Royal Navy had T 178 finally scrapped in Dordrecht in 1922 .
literature
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 2 : torpedo boats, destroyers, speedboats, minesweepers, mine clearance boats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-7637-4801-6 .
- Heinrich von Gagern: The War at Sea 1914-1918. The war in the Baltic Sea. Vol. III From the beginning of 1916 until the end of the war. Hamburg: Middle 1964
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c Gröner / Jung / Maass: The German warships. Volume 2, p. 54.
- ↑ a b Gröner / Jung / Maass: The German warships. Volume 2, p. 57.
- ↑ Gröner / Jung / Maass: The German warships. Volume 2, p. 59.
- ↑ Gröner / Jung / Maass: The German warships. Volume 2, p. 55.
- ↑ a b On the catastrophe of the torpedo boat S 178 . In: World tour of Reclam's universe . No. 9 . Philipp Reclam jun. , Leipzig 1913, p. 107 (editorial deadline March 10).
- ↑ a b Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 8 : Ship biographies from Undine to Zieten . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 123 (Licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
- ↑ The contemporary reporting speaks of 71 dead, cf. World tour of Reclam's universe , year 1913, pp. 105, 107 and 198.
- ^ Lifting of sunken torpedo boats . In: World tour of Reclam's universe . No. 10 . Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig 1913, p. 114–116 (editorial deadline March 17).
- ↑ a b The lifting work on the torpedo boat S 178 that sank near Heligoland . In: World tour of Reclam's universe . No. 17 . Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig 1913, p. 107 (editorial deadline May 5).
- ↑ a b Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 8, p. 124.
- ^ Heinrich von Gagern: The war at sea 1914-1918. The war in the Baltic Sea. Vol. III From the beginning of 1916 until the end of the war. Hamburg: Mittler 1964 p. 26