Black Sea unit ship
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The Black Sea unit ships were a planned class of twelve coasters of the Kriegsmarine from the Second World War , which were specially developed for use in the Black Sea and some of which were also intended as tenders . The ships were not completed until after 1945 and sailed under the Soviet and Romanian flags until the 1970s.
Development and technical data
After the German attack on the Soviet Union ( Operation Barbarossa ), the expansion of the front lines and longer supply routes, the sea route across the Black Sea offered the Wehrmacht an alternative to the overloaded railways. At the same time, the Germans and Romanians had only a few ships, the number of which was constantly decreasing due to war losses. In order to increase the transport space, German shipyards developed the war transporter and the "Black Sea standard ship", two types of cargo ships that were to be built in series and used there.
For the "Black Sea Unit ship" the plans came from the shipyard DW Kremer from Elmshorn in Hamburg , which was dedicated to the construction of coasters. She developed a small freighter, which was equipped with a deckhouse arranged aft over the engine room , three cargo holds and two masts with cargo booms .
The ships were 59.73 meters long, 9.00 meters wide and had a draft of 3.17 meters. The design displacement was 765 tons, the maximum 1270 tons at 706 GRT . The drive consisted of a 630 hp Halberg six-cylinder four-stroke diesel engine , which acted on a screw and reached a speed of 10.3 knots. The crew consisted of 2 officers and 23 men. Two 20 mm anti-aircraft guns were provided as armament .
Procurement and construction
The Reich Ministry of Transport in Berlin officially acted as the client ; the “OKM” ( High Command of the Navy ) is more clearly named in the shipyard documents . Two shipyards were selected for the construction : The Korneuburg shipyard in Korneuburg an der Donau in Lower Austria received the order for the first eight ships . The DW Kremer shipyard in Elmshorn was commissioned to build the other four units .
The first launch in Korneuburg took place on July 8, 1943, the others followed until November 16, 1944. However, none of the ships on the Danube were completed, as the repair of inland vessels had meanwhile been given priority. It is unclear when exactly the shipyard in Elmshorn began construction or when the ship was launched. In the course of the year, the ships built there were dismantled and transported to the Danube, where they were to be brought directly to the Black Sea.
The buildings of the Korneuburg shipyard are said to have been intended as a tender of the Kriegsmarine, of which SME 2 were to be named Spessart and SME 7 the name Taunus . The intended names of the other ships are known, but not certain. After the coup d'état in Romania in August 1944 and the subsequent withdrawal of the Wehrmacht from the country, these ships were no longer needed. They were shut down on the Danube until the end of the war .
Use of the ships
After the end of the war, the Soviet Union confiscated the ships lying on the Danube and completed the unfinished buildings between 1948 and 1951 at the Obuda shipyard in Budapest . The first came into service from 1948 - the Soviet Union used ten of the twelve ships, two were given to Romania. The ships built in Korneuburg mainly sailed routes between Izmail in Odessa Oblast on the lower reaches of the Danube and the surrounding ports on the Black Sea. In the case of the ships built in Elmshorn, it can only be proven that they started moving. Some of the ships remained in service until the 1970s.
List of ships
| ship | Shipyard | Build number | Keel laying | Launch | Notes, whereabouts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SME 1 |
Korneuburg shipyard , Korneuburg |
417 | December 22, 1943 | September 6, 1944 | intended as tender resin , Soviet booty, completed in 1950 as Pecora , decommissioned in 1978 |
| SME 2 | 418 | July 8, 1943 | April 20, 1944 | intended as tender Spessart , Soviet booty, completed in 1949 as Irtys , out of service in 1971 | |
| SME 3 | 438 | December 30, 1943 | November 14, 1944 | intended as tender Hundsrück [!], Soviet booty, completed in 1950 as Suchona , out of service in 1977 | |
| SME 4 | 439 | February 1, 1944 | November 16, 1944 | intended as tender Zobten , Soviet booty, completed as Kolyma , out of service in 1971 | |
| SME 5 | 440 | July 1, 1944 | .. 1948 (?) | intended as tender chunks or Schneekoppe , Soviet booty, completed in 1950 as Romanian. Constanta , whereabouts unclear | |
| SME 6 | 441 | July 1, 1944 | .. 1948 (?) | intended as tender chunks or Schneekoppe , Soviet booty, completed in 1950 as Romanian. Mangalia , whereabouts unclear | |
| SME 7 | 424 | July 8, 1944 | May 17, 1944 | intended as Tender Taunus , Soviet booty, completed in 1949 as Dunaj , decommissioned in 1968 | |
| SME 8 | 425 | July 8, 1944 | June 27, 1944 | intended as tender Feldberg , Soviet booty, completed in 1948 as Seksna , decommissioned in 1968 | |
| SME 9 |
Kremer shipyard , Elmshorn |
876 | 1943/44? | 1943/44? | as a Soviet motor ship underway, further details unclear |
| SME 10 | 877 | 1943/44? | 1943/44? | as a Soviet motor ship underway, further details unclear | |
| SME 11 | 878 | 1943/44? | 1943/44? | as a Soviet motor ship underway, further details unclear | |
| SME 12 | 879 | 1943/44? | 1943/44? | as a Soviet motor ship underway, further details unclear |
literature
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815–1945, Vol. 7: Landing associations II: Landing vehicles in the narrow sense (Part 2), landing ferries, landing support vehicles, transporters; Ships and boats of the army, ships and boats of the Seeflieger / Luftwaffe, colonial vehicles , Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1990, ISBN 3-7637-4807-5 .
- Wilhelm Donko : The Black Sea standard ships SME 1 - SME 12. Concept, use, whereabouts. , Verlag epubli, 2nd slightly revised edition, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-8442-9919-9 .
- Wilhelm Donko: The series production program of the "Black Sea Standard Ships " (SME 1 - SME 12) of the Navy , in: Hans Jürgen Witthöft (Ed.): Köhlers Flottenkalender 2017 , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-7822-1250- 2 , pp. 228-231.
- Wilhelm M. Donko: German Military Cargo Ships Produced in Series Programs in Southern Europe 1941-1945. A Photographic Documentation of the KT and SME Vessels of the Kriegsmarine built in the Mediterranean and Black Sea Area , Verlag epubli, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-7450-1677-2 .
- Hans Jürgen Witthöft : Lexicon on German naval history . Two volumes, Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1977f., ISBN 3-7822-0144-2 .
Web links
- Photo of Mangalia , ex SME 6 romaniaforum.info, accessed September 15, 2018
Footnotes
- ↑ cf. Elmar B. Potter, Chester W. Nimitz , Jürgen Rohwer : Seemacht. From antiquity to the present , Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft, Herrsching 1982, ISBN 3-88199-082-8 , p. 633
- ↑ Gröner, p. 141; Donko, series production program, p. 229; Donko, Black Sea Standard Ships, p. 26f.
- ↑ cf. Gröner, p. 141; Donko, series production program, p. 230; Donko, Schwarzmeer-Einheitsschiffe, p. 47f., P. 56f.
- ↑ Donko, Schwarzmeer-Einheitsschiffe, p. 87ff .; Donko, series production program, p. 231; see. Witthöft, Volume 2, p. 69
- ↑ Gröner, p. 141; Donko, series production program, p. 230; Donko, Black Sea Unit Ships, p. 89ff.