CHAPTER 14 -- THE TORPEDO BOATS
Chapter 14: Torpedo Boats
The warship pictured above is an “A Class” coastal torpedo boat of the Kaiserliche Marine. Built between 1914 and 1918, they were small, shallow draft ships designed to operate out of occupied ports along Belgium’s Flanders coast. British big-gun “Monitors” (up to 18 inch) continually harassed the German Army’s flank by standing just offshore and lobbing monster shells into their positions. These coastal torpedo boats were designed to counter just such activity.
Though smaller than their ocean-going cousins, they could make 28 knots, carried two 88mm guns, a single 18 inch torpedo tube, and are indicative of the torpedo boat genre. Long and thin, they were built for speed, and their low freeboard and minimal superstructure provided little to shoot at. The raised forecastle deck, forward of a rather “Spartan” bridge, had a pronounced flare above the waterline to throw waves away from the boat rather than take them over the deck. Taken as a whole, the concept of the torpedo boat had evolved into an inexpensive and efficient ship-killer.
EARLY FRENCH TORPEDO BOAT circa 1880. Note the two cylindrical torpedo tubes protruding from the hull on either side of the bow.
In 1890, when Alfred Thayer Mahan published his “Influence Of Seapower Upon History”, it was a seminal event. The book fired the imaginations of such World leaders as Theodore Roosevelt and Wilhelm II, and was received favorably by serving professionals like the Royal Navy’s Jackie Fisher. The book’s content rode the swelling tide born of the “Industrial Revolution” and it’s effect on modern warship design. Mahan’s theories provided both a valid excuse and the perfect vehicle for a nation to pursue “naval supremacy”. But Mahan did not “invent the wheel”, nor did he “re-invent” the wheel – he simply shined a light on the subject and put out a big “welcome mat”.
DUTCH TORPEDO BOAT 1886. Note the open caps of the bow torpedo tubes, the conning position with searchlight on top, and twin stacks for the coal-fired steam engines.
Britain, last invaded by sea in 1066, had long enjoyed the benefits of an island nation. No particular spot in England was very far from the sea, and the English were, almost by nature, a seafaring people. With the epic “Defeat of the Spanish Armada” in 1588 – they became a seapower to be reckoned with. Roughly two hundred years of on-and-off struggle with France developed the Royal Navy into a force of over three hundred wooden battleships that truly “ruled the waves”. Though challenged by the Dutch (mid 17th Century) and French, these nations were never able to topple British naval dominance.
EXPERIMENTAL TORPEDO BOAT 1883 – carried aboard Brazilian ironclad Riachuelo as part of her armament. Note “notch” in stem for torpedo tube.
By 1820, many French officers and naval theorists had concluded they could never match Britain’s preponderance of shipyards and enormous capacity to launch wooden battleships. Nor could a Loire Valley farmer be turned into a seaman to match the likes of England’s “Jack Tar”. But a small group of young and progressive officers continued to seek ways in which France might achieve parity. Thus, was born the Jeune Ecole school of thought.
SMS S-90 circa 1910 – torpedo boats grew larger and more heavily armed with each new class.
This “Young School” (Jeune Ecole) advocated the use of numerous, small, heavily armed vessels to fight enemy ships-of-the-line, while commerce raiders would cripple the trade of the rival nation. The first serious advance of this strategy came in the 1820’s, when General Henri Paixhans invented explosive shell guns for warships. (See Battle of Sinop for first use.) He advocated the powerful guns for small steam warships that, working in “packs”, could easily destroy much larger wooden battleships. Though the tactical theory was sound, and Paixhans’ guns were, indeed, lethal – there was no further advance in the “David versus Goliath” concept – while the introduction of the ironclad warship (La Gloire – 1859) made it somewhat less of “a sure thing”. But rapidly advancing science tipped the scales yet again.
TORPEDO BOAT 142 1897 – Note the “turtle-back” design and the single bow torpedo tube, but no guns.
In 1864, an obscure Austro-Hungarian naval officer, Giovanni Luppis, approached an equally obscure English engineer, Robert Whitehead, running a small factory in Rijeka (modern Croatia). Luppis provided rough drawings of a crude, floating, explosive device propelled and maneuvered by ropes handled from shore. Luppis’ idea was entirely impractical, but an intrigued Whitehead tinkered with the idea and had, by 1866, produced the self-propelled “Whitehead Torpedo”. (Not to be confused with fixed explosive devices, towed devices, floating mines, spar torpedoes, or even land mines – which were all, at one time or another, referred to as “torpedoes”.) To “cut to the chase” – by 1900, the navies of the world had embraced the weapon and added submarines, torpedo boats, and torpedo-boat-destroyers to carry them into battle.
A MIXED BAG of moored German torpedo boats, circa 1911 – some “S Class”, a “T Class”, and even one “G Class”. Note the side-by-side mooring technique.
In the Imperial Dockyards Wilhelmshaven, space was at a premium by the time torpedo boats had become a necessary adjunct to the battle fleet. But “necessity is the Mother of invention” – so small “nests” of torpedo boats were squeezed into improvised mooring facilities in the harbor. This “nest” hosts ten “G Class” boats of the 2nd Torpedo Boat Flotilla, commanded by Fregattenkapitan Schuur. The Fregattenkapitan will have to make do with cramped quarters for the time being. A new harbor under construction on the east Jade shore will accommodate the hundred or more torpedo boats and destroyers of the Hochsee Fleet.
Based on the concept of “temporary” mooring arrangements for a recently assimilated warship type, I opted for a “base” that looked like it had been thrown together in a couple of weeks. The boats are moored by the bow to the pier with a stern anchor out to prevent “swinging”. In reality, they would have been moored side-by-side, tightly, with fenders between ships to prevent “rubbing”. (Commonly known as “nesting”.) But “game mechanics” prevented that. On shore, port engineers knocked out several Quonset huts for the small crews, and an office / living quarters for the Fregattenkapitan. Messing and other living arrangements would have, of necessity, been quite impromptu. The pier is from the “Nob – 1905 Series”. The Quonset huts are from the PEG “Army Base Series”. And the “office” is a re-purposed “SFBT” railroad signal box.
The G-Class torpedo boats were all built at the Krupp Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel under contract to Argentina. But wartime needs prevailed, and in 1915, the boats were commissioned into the Kaiserliche Marine as “destroyers”. Their physical characteristics, armament, and design put them firmly in the “torpedo boat” category – but the Imperial Navy of that day made no distinction between the two types. The ships were 270 feet long with a beam of only 27 feet, which gave them a length to breadth ratio of 10-1. This hull ratio was ideal to obtain the highest possible speed for the designed ship-horsepower. Two steam turbines drove twin propellers at 33 knots.
This view (above) clearly shows how extremely narrow the boats were, and the utilitarian nature of the design. One 88mm guns is mounted at the bow, another at the stern, and a third amidships – all without protective shields. Just behind the forecastle break, a single 21 inch torpedo tube is mounted on either beam, while two twin torpedo tubes are mounted on centreline, abaft the third funnel. The fact that there are only three small guns is clear indication that the sole purpose of the “torpedo boat” was to deliver torpedoes to the target.
Manning torpedo boats might well have been considered a “suicide mission”. There was precious little cover on their decks, even less armor protection in their hulls – and by virtue of their “mission statement” – anything they were sent to attack would be much bigger, far better protected, and armed to the teeth with a secondary battery of “QF” 6 inch guns.
In the picture below, you see the torpedo crew manning a single tube mount. A crank system was used to rotate and aim the tube, while the men would “push” on the piece to speed up the process. The “gunner” (bent over at rear) would judge the angle of the shot, then pull a lever, launching the torpedo from the tube with a charge of compressed air. Boats designed to carry “reloads” were rare, so one or two torpedoes might be fired in a single attack, saving the rest for later.
Torpedo Tube Crew
It is worth noting that a single 6 inch shell hit could disable a torpedo boat (historically, the shells tended to land in the machinery spaces), while a second hit would likely sink it. On the other side of the coin, the average dreadnought carried a broadside 6 inch battery of between six and eight guns – each capable of firing eight rounds per minute. But sometime around 1909, Admirals lost faith in this “hail of fire” defense and felt their precious dreadnoughts threatened. The logical answer seemed to be more torpedo boats, but with more and heavier guns, to fight off the enemy torpedo boats. Hence, the “torpedo boat destroyer” was born. The Great War strained economies the world over, and having two such similar ship types seemed wasteful. Between the World Wars, the little torpedo boat fell from favor to be replaced by the bigger, faster, and more heavily armed destroyer that we know today.
The tactical employment of the torpedo boat flotillas was fairly straight-forward. The sailing formation of the Hochsee Fleet was usually a line-ahead column for each battle squadron, with three squadrons steaming abreast. Torpedo boat flotillas were deployed on the flanks, front, and rear of the formation to “screen” against submarine attack.
299_Torpedo Boat screening flank of Heligoland Class Bsttleships of 1st Battle Squadron.
When the advance scouting group (1st Scouting Group) located the enemy, the Admiral Commanding would order the fleet to deploy into battle formation – usually a single column, line-ahead. The torpedo boats automatically fell back and took up station along the disengaged side of the battle line. This shielded them, somewhat, from the fire of the enemy fleet while keeping them handy to respond to an enemy torpedo boat attack, or to launch their own attack.
300_Torpedo Boat in battle on disengaged side of Konig Class battleship. Note the great clouds of smoke and difficulty in spotting the enemy.
Torpedo Boats were used much like “cavalry” on 19th Century battlefields. If the enemy launched a torpedo attack, you threw your own torpedo boats out to blunt it. If an enemy ship became isolated, torpedo boats might be sent to sink it. If the pressure on the battle line became uncomfortable, an Admiral could order a torpedo attack to distract the enemy, throw off their aim, and break up their formation. If the battle was going badly, an Admiral might choose to disengage and would send torpedo boats to distract the enemy yet again. Torpedo boats were very versatile – and obviously, considered expendable.
301_Torpedo Boats cutting the line between Nassau Class dreadnoughts of the 1st Battle Squadron.
When ordered to attack, the Kapitanleutnants would ring for full speed, put the helm “hard over”, and cut through the gaps between the shielding dreadnoughts of their own battle line, form-up, and race toward the enemy line. Often, they were accompanied by a light cruiser (their Flotilla Leader) which would attempt to draw fire off the small boats while getting in range to launch torpedoes as well.
HMS UNDAUNTED AND FOUR DESTROYERS ATTACKING DURING THE BATTLE OFF TEXEL 1914.
All of these “seemingly” clear tactics were being carried out in the face of (possibly) some 64 lumbering dreadnoughts blasting out great clouds of gunsmoke and belching blankets of funnel smoke from engines operating at maximum speed. The sky would be quite dark and the constant thunder of gunfire would shake your very bones and pound at your ears. Meanwhile, there are now more than a hundred torpedo boats and their “mother hen” cruisers engaged in a high-speed swirling, slashing melee between the two fleets – fought at close quarters with the desperation of a knife fight in a darkened alley. Suddenly, small groups of torpedo boats break through and race the last few hundred yards to get into firing position – all the while smothered by shell splashes and dodging near misses from the hail of shells fired by the battleship’s secondary batteries.
GERMAN TORPEDO CREW READY TO FIRE.
With the torpedoes gone, the boats execute a sharp turn-away and race to get out of range – twisting and turning to avoid the deadly shells. Some torpedoes might hit a target, some might miss, but the torpedo boat crews rarely knew the outcome. They were too busy staying alive and afloat. And that was just one encounter on what might be a long day of battle.
At Jutland, in 1916, it was, indeed, a long day of battle. After the final “battle-turn-away” of the day, the Hochsee Fleet fumbled around in the failing light, trying to avoid the British Fleet and set a course SE by south for Horns Reef and home. The British also set a course for Horns Reef in hopes of bringing the Germans to battle before they could reach Wilhelmshaven. With, literally, hundreds of warships scattered about – some lost and disoriented – two fleets making for the same spot on the chart would inevitably lead to a night full of terrifying chance encounters.
In the early pre-dawn darkness on June 1st, the cruiser HMS Faulknor was leading several divisions of destroyers when a line of German battleships appeared out of the night. The Germans were expecting to see their own torpedo boats and only two ships opened fire on them – and only briefly. Faulknor circled her small force around in the darkness and approached from ahead of the German ships so that they would pass on opposite courses. About 03:00, the German battleships began to turn away and the British, reluctant to miss an opportunity – fired twelve torpedoes. Ten minutes later, they reached the German line. There were only two hits.
It is generally agreed that two torpedoes fired by HMS Onslaught struck SMS Pommern amidships. The torpedoes probably set off one of the 7 inch magazines, which started a lightning-fast chain of explosions. In mere seconds, flames engulfed the ship and rose mast high before a final massive explosion broke the ship in half. Large pieces of debris hurtled through the air as the two pieces of the ship capsized, floated briefly, then went under. Pommern was one of the Deutschland Class pre-dreadnoughts comprising the 2nd Battle Squadron, and she took all 839 of her crew with her.
That is the clearest demonstration of the terrible power possessed by the tiny torpedo boats.
MANY THANKS to @Barroco Hispano for his superb warship models.
If you enjoyed anything you saw – please punch the “like” button so I will know. A comment would be even more informative.
Comments and critiques requested and gratefully accepted. All questions answered promptly to the best of my ability.
THANK YOU for your visit !
NEXT WEEK…...Marshy Point.
-
10
-
1
7 Comments
Recommended Comments
Sign In or register to comment...
To comment in reply, you must be a community member
Sign In
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In NowCreate an Account
Sign up to join our friendly community. It's easy!
Register a New Account