Großes Torpedoboot 1916-18 follow on designs?

ptdockyard

ptdockyard

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I have been unable to find anything on potential "paper designs" for destroyers being considered by the High Seas Fleet at the end of WW1. Can anyone shed any light on these or provide a source for information?

Thanks,
Dave G.
 
Apart from all the ordered but not laid down destroyers of various builders: Germania, Schichau, AEG-Vulcan, Blohm & Voss: etc I know only one Destroyer or Destroyer Leader project, an "export" version for Austria-Hungary in 1917 from Blohm & Voss:

Dimensions: 96,9 (wl) x 9,35 x 2,8 meters
Displacement: 1.320tons (standard), 1.780tons (full load)
Engines: Unknown probably Marine Steam Turbines
Speed: 65km/h (35knots)
Armaments:
4x1 10,5cm/45 Ubts L/45 C/16 Guns,
3x2 530mm Torpedo Tubes
12x Mines

It's your typical German Destroyer design but with all twin torpedo tubes in the usual triangular arrangement, with a 4 tube broadside.

Other than this I don't know never were projects for the post war fleet.
 
Judging the numbers of ships ordered, but never finished, or not even begun, the "Standard Torpedoboot" may have
been along the lines of the V 170, with around 50 boats ordered. There may have hardly been much more capacity left
in the yards for other destroyer projects.
The 12 boats of the S 113 type (two actually finished), with 4 15 cm guns could have been flotilla leaders for them, though
some sources describe them as triggered by the British C-class cruisers, so perhaps intended for a different role.
(drawings from Erich Gröner "Die deutschen Kriegsschiffe 1815 - 1945", volume 2)
 

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To my knowledge the late-war Destroyer production:
Schichau yard ones:
S113 class, 3 ordered in 1916, 1 finished, launched in 1918, "commissioned" in 1919
S131 class, 9 ordered in 1916, 9 finished, first launched in 1917, commissioned in 1917
S152 class, 6 ordered in 19167 0 finished, launched in 1918
S178 class, 21 ordered in 1917, 0 finished

AEG-Vulcan yard ones:
V116 class, 3 ordered in 1916, 1 finished, launched in 1918, "commissioned" in 1918
V125 class, 11 ordered in 1916, 7 finished, first launched in 1917, commissioned in 1917
V158 class, 8 ordered in 1917, 0 finished, first launched in 1918
V170 class, 16 ordered in 1917, 0 finished

Germania yard ones:
G119 class, 3 ordered in 1916, 0 finished, first launched in 1918
G148 class, 4 ordered in 1917, 0 finished

Blohm & Voss yard ones:
B122 class, 3 ordered in 1916, 0 finished, first launched in 1917

Howaldtswerke yard ones:
H145 class, 3 ordered in 1917, 3 finished, first launched in 1917, commissioned in 1918
H166 class, 4 ordered in 1917, 0 finished, first launched in 1918
H186 class, 17 ordered in 1917, 0 finished
 
I remember of a late war project for a destroyer armed with 17 cm guns but I am unable to find references, maybe my memory is just confused
 
Thanks all. Very good information. I would be very interested in that late war one with the 17cm guns or any other "paper" projects.

Thanks,
Dave
 
I vaguely remember something about 170mm armed destroyers, but I have a feeling that this was a British Admiralty planning 'fear' rather than an actual design by the Germans.
A 170mm gun would have been pretty unwieldy for use aboard a destroyer.
 
Hood said:
I vaguely remember something about 170mm armed destroyers, but I have a feeling that this was a British Admiralty planning 'fear' rather than an actual design by the Germans.
A 170mm gun would have been pretty unwieldy for use aboard a destroyer.
Click to expand...

Indeed the trend looked by the end of WW1 that large destroyers or destroyer leaders will carry 15cm or 6" guns to likely fight light cruisers while normal desttoyers go for 10-12-13cm or 4-4,7-5" calibre.

Italy built 4, the Aquila class of 1.600tons

Austria-Hungary designed 2.000ton ones with 4x1 15cm

Germany dedigned and built similar 2.000ton destroyers with 15cm guns: S113, V116, G119 and B122 classes

Japan seems to be not preferred such large or leader destroyers, but designed a 2.000ton one post WW1 with 4x1 14cm guns though IJN destroyers already carried heavier 12cm guns by the end of WW1

France too increased it's standard calibre post WW1 from 100mm to 130mm.

Russia seems to be not interested in large destroyers.

In the RN only the 1.500ton destroyer leaders carried larger, 4,7" guns the rest 4" but post war the 4'7" became the standard for them as well

The USN designed a few 5" destroyer leaders in late WW1 of 1.200-2.100tons but none built,though indeed when they finally decided to build destroyers in the 1930's their standard calibre too become the 5".
 
Soviet destroyer-leader (or big destroyer) post-WWI project, planned in the Headquarters of RKKF in 1925:

Displacement - 4000 tons(!) full.

Speed - 40 knots

Range - 3000 miles

Armament - guns:

4x1 183mm (7,2") main guns;
2x1 102mm - 127 mm (4" - 5") AA guns.

Armament - torpedoes & mines:

2x3 533mm- 584mm (21" - 23") torpedo tubes;
100 mines;
20 depth charges.

Other:

3 searchlights;
1 catapult;
1 "fighter type" seaplane.
 
I would classify that as a light cruiser! Especially with catapult and 180mm guns!
I presume 180mm and not 183 because Russia/Soviet Union (well nobody else to that matter) did not wield such calibre.
 
After the Washington naval conference agreements from 1930, even heavy cruisers, I think !
But "destroyer leaders" qite often had not much to do with the then current destroyers , but
were closer to light cruisers anyway. HMS Swift from 1907, or the French Fantasque and Mogador
classes. On the other hand, the Japanese Yubari, was designated as light cruiser. A kind of gray area...
 
Yubari was indeed a special case all books states it was designed as a cruiser from start but her design number of F-42 puts her in the destroyer series! (A were battleships, B were Armoured/Battlecruisers, C were Cruisers, D were 3rd rate cruisers, E were Gunboats/Escort ships/Dispatch vessels, F were Destroyers, G were Carriers, H were Minelayers, I were Minesweepers, J were auxiliary vessels, K were submarine Chasers, R were Assault ships, and S were submarines)

As for the German Destroyers for post war I could see a larger heavier one with 15cm armament and a smaller combined Torpedo boat / Destroyer kind of design.
 
Hood said:
I vaguely remember something about 170mm armed destroyers, but I have a feeling that this was a British Admiralty planning 'fear' rather than an actual design by the Germans.
A 170mm gun would have been pretty unwieldy for use aboard a destroyer.
Click to expand...
The 150mm gun proved to be overkill, I don't want to even think about a 170mm on such a small hull...
 
eltf177 said:
Hood said:
I vaguely remember something about 170mm armed destroyers, but I have a feeling that this was a British Admiralty planning 'fear' rather than an actual design by the Germans.
A 170mm gun would have been pretty unwieldy for use aboard a destroyer.
Click to expand...
The 150mm gun proved to be overkill, I don't want to even think about a 170mm on such a small hull...
Click to expand...
IIRC the Admiralty looked at a limited traverse 12" mounting on a destroyer leader hull.
 
According to an article on Imperial German Navy Designs for 1920 by Christopher Kluxen in Sitrep 50 (available from the Wargames Vault/DriveThruRPG), the Mobilization Type 1916 destroyers (V 125 - 130; S 131- 133; V 140 - 144; H 145 - 147) were to be followed by Mobilization Type 1917 (G 148 - 150; Ww 151; S 152 - 157; V 158 - 165; H 166 - 169) with delivery dates Jan-1919 to Autumn 1920, differences between the classes were small.

But Mobilization Type 1917 was then to be followed by Mobilization Type 1918 , which the Imperial Navy wanted to match or exceed the V&W type, with 125-130mm guns. They were told they couldn't have the guns - no available capacity - but Mob Typ 1918 was to be a 35kt, 1,563 ton design with 4 10.5cm SKL/45 Utof, 5 50cm G7 torpedoes, and rails for 40 mines, or in one or two per flotilla a seaplane. 24 ordered Jan 1918, 30 ordered June 1918 (V 170 - 177; S 178 - 185; H 186 - 202; V 203 - 210 and S 211 - 223. Existing destroyers with the same numbers would be reclassified as torpedo boats with the flag superior changing to T) deliveries to run between September 1919 and end 1920. In August 1918 there was discussion of exchanging the 4 10.5cm SKL/45 for 3 15cm Tbts KL/45 Utof.

Also in the article are Flottenkreuzer 1916 / FK1a, Schnellboot Type 1918, the Project 47 armoured U-Cruiser and the Project 50/UD-1 steam-powered U-Cruiser.
 
Tzoli said:
I would classify that as a light cruiser! Especially with catapult and 180mm guns!
I presume 180mm and not 183 because Russia/Soviet Union (well nobody else to that matter) did not wield such calibre.
Click to expand...
Some my thoughts about the 183/180mm caliber:

The USSR switched to the metric system of measures by the decree of the SNK of the USSR of July 21, 1925. But the Russian, then Soviet Navy continued to traditionally use a number of Imperial measures, such as inches for certain gun calibers. The first project of the 180-mm B-1 gun appeared in 1925, as well as the project of a "large destroyer". Perhaps, initially, the B-1 project had a caliber of 7.2 inches - and the "large destroyer" was designed for this data - but then it became a "metric" 180 mm.
 
Tzoli said:
... I could see a larger heavier one with 15cm armament and a smaller combined Torpedo boat / Destroyer kind of design.
Click to expand...
That certainly would still be manually loaded, annd I think, that's the main limitation. What I read about the German Narvik class
destroyers, that sometimes was a handicap, as loading a 15 cm gun manually isn't an easy task. Going up with the calibre wouldn't
make have things easier, but that may have been noticed only after finishing those 17 cm designs.
 
An idea I had overnight was, that maybe the 17 cm gun was just proposed, because it was surplus ?
The only ships carrying it, were the Deutschland and Braunschweig pre-dreadnoughts, obsolete at the end
of the war. According to Friedman, the 17 cm shell was regarded as the largest, that still could be handled
by body strength only. So principally no obstacles to mounting them on a destroyer of sufficient size and
giving additional hitting power. The drawbacks of such over gunned ships may still not have been understood,
as there were no former experiences.
 
Weren't all WW1 cruisers (and battleships) with 15cm guns had manual loading? I thought power ramming become a thing when the turrets introduced for cruisers.
 
AFAIK, even the 15 cm guns in later cruisers had manual loading, actually giving them a higher rate of fire,
than bigger calibres, which needed powered loading. But according to Erich Gröner, the seaworthiness of the
German destroyers of the 1936a type, fitted with 15 cm guns and a twin turret forward, suffered from that
heavy armament. And handling the heavier shells on a rolling and pitching, relatively small ship, was found to
be much more straining, and even dangerous, than on bigger ships. Additionally, the accuracy suffered from
heavy motions, certainly not helped by fitting 17 cm, instead of the already heavy 15 cm guns (According to
Friedman "Naval Weapons of WW I" the (pure) 17cm gun had a weight of about 10.7 tons, whereas the 15 cm
TK L/45 had just about 4 tons. So that gun probably would have been a significant burden for the ship.
Alternatively it would have been a ship really in the cruiser, and not in the destroyer class.
 
DDL Swift had a 6-inch gun forward, it proved troublesome and was replaced with a pair of 4-inch guns.
 
A bit late to the conversation and off-topic (maybe post in another thread and link it?), but...

DWG said:
IIRC the Admiralty looked at a limited traverse 12" mounting on a destroyer leader hull.
Click to expand...

I really want to know more about this. Who? Why? How far did the investigation of this idea go? Sources?
 
Tzoli said:
To my knowledge the late-war Destroyer production:
Schichau yard ones:
S113 class, 3 ordered in 1916, 1 finished, launched in 1918, "commissioned" in 1919
S131 class, 9 ordered in 1916, 9 finished, first launched in 1917, commissioned in 1917
S152 class, 6 ordered in 19167 0 finished, launched in 1918
S178 class, 21 ordered in 1917, 0 finished

AEG-Vulcan yard ones:
V116 class, 3 ordered in 1916, 1 finished, launched in 1918, "commissioned" in 1918
V125 class, 11 ordered in 1916, 7 finished, first launched in 1917, commissioned in 1917
V158 class, 8 ordered in 1917, 0 finished, first launched in 1918
V170 class, 16 ordered in 1917, 0 finished

Germania yard ones:
G119 class, 3 ordered in 1916, 0 finished, first launched in 1918
G148 class, 4 ordered in 1917, 0 finished

Blohm & Voss yard ones:
B122 class, 3 ordered in 1916, 0 finished, first launched in 1917

Howaldtswerke yard ones:
H145 class, 3 ordered in 1917, 3 finished, first launched in 1917, commissioned in 1918
H166 class, 4 ordered in 1917, 0 finished, first launched in 1918
H186 class, 17 ordered in 1917, 0 finished
Click to expand...
Will you be designing any German ww1 Destroyers?
 
One shot every 30 minutes XD it will be legendary and the longest naval battle XD
 

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