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Yugoslav torpedo boat T2

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T2
Austro-Hungarian torpedo boat 81T NH 87683.tif
One of T2's sister ships, 81 T
History
Austria-Hungary
Name77 T
BuilderStabilimento Tecnico Triestino
Laid down24 August 1913
Launched30 January 1914
Commissioned11 August 1914
Out of service1918
FateAssigned to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
NameT2
AcquiredMarch 1921
Out of service1939
Fatescrapped
General characteristics
Class and type250t-class, T-group sea-going torpedo boat
Displacement
  • 262 t (258 long tons)
  • 320 t (315 long tons) (full load)
Length58.2 m (190 ft 11 in)
Beam5.7 m (18 ft 8 in)
Draught1.5 m (4 ft 11 in)
Installed power
Propulsion
Speed28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph)
Range980 nmi (1,810 km; 1,130 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Complement39 officers and enlisted
Armament

T2 was a seagoing torpedo boat operated by the Yugoslav Royal Navy between 1921 and 1939, after being commissioned in August 1914 and spending World War I in Austro-Hungarian Navy service. Originally 77 T, she was a 250t-class torpedo boat, a class built to address the expectation that the Strait of Otranto, where the Adriatic Sea meets the Ionian Sea, would be blockaded by hostile forces during a future conflict. She saw active service during World War I, performing convoy, patrol, escort, minesweeping and minelaying tasks, anti-submarine operations, and shore bombardment missions. In 1917 the suffixes of all Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats were removed, and thereafter she was referred to as 77.

Following Austria-Hungary's defeat in 1918, 77 was allocated to the Navy of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which later became the Yugoslav Royal Navy, and was renamed T2. At the time, she and seven other 250t-class boats were the only modern sea-going vessels of the fledgling maritime force. During the interwar period, T2 and the rest of the Navy were involved in training exercises and cruises to friendly ports, but activity was limited by reduced naval budgets. She was scrapped in 1939.

Background[]

In 1910, the Austria-Hungary Naval Technical Committee initiated the design and development of a 275-tonne (271-long-ton) coastal torpedo boat, specifying that it should be capable of sustaining 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) for 10 hours. This specification was based an expectation that the Strait of Otranto, where the Adriatic Sea meets the Ionian Sea, would be blockaded by hostile forces during a future conflict. In such circumstances, there would be a need for a torpedo boat that could sail from the Austro-Hungarian Navy (German: kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine, Hungarian: Császári és Királyi Haditengerészet) base at the Bocche di Cattaro (Bay of Kotor) to the Strait during the night, locate and attack blockading ships and return to port before morning. Steam turbine power was selected for propulsion, as diesels with the necessary power were not available, and the Austro-Hungarian Navy did not have the practical experience to run turbo-electric boats. Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino (STT) of Triest was selected for the contract to build eight vessels, the T group, ahead of one other tenderer.[1] The T-group designation signified that they were built at Triest, and 77 T was the fourth boat of the T-group to be fully completed.[2]

Description and construction[]

The 250t-class T-group boats had a waterline length of 58.2 m (190 ft 11 in), a beam of 5.7 m (18 ft 8 in), and a normal draught of 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in). While their designed displacement was 262 tonnes (258 long tons), they displaced about 320 tonnes (315 long tons) fully loaded. The crew consisted of 39 officers and enlisted men. The boats were powered by two Parsons steam turbines driving two propellers, using steam generated by two Yarrow water-tube boilers, one of which burned fuel oil and the other coal. The turbines were rated at 5,000 shaft horsepower (3,700 kW) with a maximum output of 6,000 shp (4,500 kW) and were designed to propel the boats to a top speed of 28 kn (52 km/h; 32 mph). They carried 18 t (17.7 long tons) of coal and 24 t (23.6 long tons) of fuel oil,[3] which gave them a range of 980 nautical miles (1,810 km; 1,130 mi) at 16 kn (30 km/h; 18 mph).[2] The T-group had one funnel rather than the two funnels of the later F and M groups of the class.[1] Due to inadequate funding, 77 T and the rest of the 250t class were essentially coastal vessels, despite the original intention that they would be used for "high seas" operations.[4] They were the first small Austro-Hungarian Navy boats to use turbines, and this contributed to ongoing problems with them.[1]

The boats were originally to be armed with three Škoda 66 mm (2.6 in) L/30[a] guns, and three 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes,[1] but this was changed to two of the same guns and four torpedo tubes before the first boat was completed, in order to standardise the armament with the following F-group. They could also carry 10–12 naval mines. The fourth of its class to be completed, 77 T was laid down on 24 August 1913, launched on 30 January 1914 and completed on 11 August 1914.[2] Later that year, one 8 mm (0.31 in) machine gun was added.[1]

Career[]

World War I[]

At the outbreak of World War I on 28 July 1914, 77 T was part of the 1st Torpedo Group of the 3rd Torpedo Craft Division of the Austro-Hungarian 1st Torpedo Craft Flotilla,[6] which was led by the scout cruiser Saida commanded by Linienschiffskapitän (Captain) Heinrich Seitz, and supported by the mother ship Gäa.[7] The concept of operation for the 250t-class boats was that they would sail in a flotilla at the rear of a cruising battle formation, and were to intervene in fighting only if the battleships around which the formation was established were disabled, or in order to attack damaged enemy battleships.[8] When a torpedo attack was ordered, it was to be led by a scout cruiser, supported by two destroyers to repel any enemy torpedo boats. A group of four to six torpedo boats would deliver the attack under the direction of the flotilla commander.[9]

During the war, 77 T was used for convoy, patrol, escort and minesweeping tasks, anti-submarine operations,[1] and shore bombardment missions.[10] In early September 1914, intelligence was received by the Austro-Hungarian command that an Italian volunteer corps were planning to land on the Dalmatian or Istrian coast, and the 1st Torpedo Flotilla was involved fruitless patrolling off Sebenico and Zara between 19 and 24 September. It appears that this was French disinformation intended to keep the Austro-Hungarian fleet engaged while they conducted operations in the southern Adriatic.[11] On the evening of 3 November, the 1st Torpedo Flotilla left Sebenico to make a night torpedo attack on the French fleet, which had begun its seventh raid on the Adriatic on 31 October, but by the time they reached the threatened areas, the French had withdrawn as they were running low on coal.[12]

Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary on the afternoon of 23 May 1915, and almost the entire Austro-Hungarian fleet left Pola soon after to deliver an immediate response against Italian cities and towns along the Adriatic coast, aiming to interdict land and sea transport between southern Italy and the northern regions of that country which were expected to be a theatre of land operations. The fleet split into six groups with a range of targets up and down the coast.[13] On 24 May 1915, 77 T and seven other 250t-class boats participated in the Bombardment of Ancona, which involved shelling various Italian shore-based targets, with 77 T involved in the operation against Ancona itself.[14] On 23 July, 77 T and another 250t-class boat participated in another shore bombardment mission led by the scout cruiser Helgoland against Ortona on the central Adriatic coast of Italy.[15][b]

In late November 1915, the Austro-Hungarian fleet deployed a force from its main fleet base at Pola to Cattaro in the southern Adriatic; this force included six of the eight T-group torpedo boats. This force was tasked to maintain a permanent patrol of the Albanian coastline and interdict any troop transports crossing from Italy.[17] After an attack on Durazzo in Albania on 30 December in which two Austro-Hungarian destroyers were sunk after straying out of a cleared lane through a minefield, 77 T and four other 250t-class boats were sent south with Novara in order to strengthen morale and try to prevent the transfer of the captured crew of one of the destroyers to Italy. No Italian ships were encountered, and the group returned to the Bocche the following day.[18]

On 22 February 1916, 77 T and two other 250t-class boats, accompanied by a Kaiman-class torpedo boat, laid a minefield outside Antivari harbour. With Austro-Hungarian forces closing on Durazzo from the land, the Allies began to evacuate by sea, and Austro-Hungarian naval forces were sent to attempt to interdict. On 24 February, Helgoland, four destroyers, 77 T and five other 250t-class boats were sent to intercept four Italian destroyers covering the evacuation, but were unable to locate them.[19] On the night of 31 May – 1 June 1916, the Tátra-class destroyers Orjen and Balaton, accompanied by 77 T and two other 250t-class boats, raided the Otranto Barrage, an Allied naval blockade of the Strait of Otranto. Orjen sank the British drifter Beneficent, but once the alarm had been raised, the Austro-Hungarian force withdrew.[20][21] In 1917, one of 77 T's 66 mm guns was placed on an anti-aircraft mount.[2] On 21 May 1917, the suffix of all Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats was removed, and thereafter they were referred to only by the numeral.[1] On 23 September 1917, 77 and another 250t-class boat were laying a minefield off Grado in the northern Adriatic when they had a brief encounter with a Royal Italian Navy (Italian: Regia Marina) MAS motor torpedo boat.[22]

By 1918, the Allies had strengthened their ongoing blockade on the Strait of Otranto, as foreseen by the Austro-Hungarian Navy. As a result, it was becoming more difficult for the German and Austro-Hungarian U-boats to get through the strait and into the Mediterranean Sea. In response to these blockades, the new commander of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Konteradmiral Miklós Horthy, decided to launch an attack on the Allied defenders with battleships, scout cruisers, and destroyers.[23] During the night of 8/9 June, Horthy left the naval base of Pola in the upper Adriatic with the dreadnought battleships Viribus Unitis and Prinz Eugen. At about 23:00 on 9 June 1918, after some difficulties getting the harbour defence barrage opened, the dreadnoughts Szent István and Tegetthoff,[24] escorted by one destroyer and six torpedo boats, including 77, also departed Pola and set course for Slano, north of Ragusa, to rendezvous with Horthy in preparation for a coordinated attack on the Otranto Barrage. About 03:15 on 10 June,[c] while returning from an uneventful patrol off the Dalmatian coast, two Italian MAS boats, MAS 15 and MAS 21, spotted the smoke from the Austro-Hungarian ships. Both boats successfully penetrated the escort screen and split to engage the dreadnoughts individually. MAS 21 attacked Tegetthoff, but her torpedoes missed.[26] Under the command of Luigi Rizzo, MAS 15 fired two torpedoes at 03:25, both of which hit Szent István. Both boats evaded pursuit. The torpedo hits on Szent István were abreast her boiler rooms, which flooded, knocking out power to the pumps. Szent István capsized less than three hours after being torpedoed.[25] This disaster practically ended Austro-Hungarian fleet operations in the Adriatic for the remaining months of the war.[27]

Interwar period[]

The Austro-Hungarian Empire sued for peace in November 1918, and 77 survived the war intact.[1] In 1920, under the terms of the previous year's Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye which officially ended the participation of rump Austria in World War I, she was allocated to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia). Along with three other 250t-class T-group boats, 76, 78 and 79, and four 250t-class F-group boats, she served with the Yugoslav Royal Navy (Serbo-Croatian Latin: Kraljevska mornarica, KM; Краљевска морнарица). Taken over in March 1921,[28] in KM service, 77 was renamed T2.[2] When the Navy was formed, she and the other seven 250t-class boats were the only modern sea-going vessels in the KM.[29] In 1925, exercises were conducted off the Dalmatian coast, involving the majority of the Navy.[30] In May and June 1929, six of the eight 250t-class torpedo boats accompanied the light cruiser Dalmacija, the submarine tender Hvar and the submarines Hrabri and Nebojša, on a cruise to the British Crown Colony of Malta, the Greek island of Corfu in the Ionian Sea, and Bizerte in the French protectorate of Tunisia. The ships and crews made a very good impression on the British while visiting Malta.[31] In 1932, the British naval attaché reported that Yugoslav ships engaged in few exercises, manoeuvres or gunnery training due to reduced budgets.[32] In 1939, T2 was stricken from the naval register due to her age and scrapped soon after.[33][34]

See also[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ L/30 denotes the length of the gun. In this case, the L/30 gun is 30 calibre, meaning that the gun was 30 times as long as the diameter of its bore.[5]
  2. ^ According to Cernuschi and O'Hara, the 23 July operation involved 74 T and 78 T in a shore bombardment and landing operation led by Saida against San Benedetto del Tronto, Ortona and Termoli.[16] Freivogel states that a separate group of destroyers attacked Termoli and Campomarino, and a landing party from two more destroyers cut the telegraph cable on the Tremiti Islands, and does not mention the involvement of Saida.[15]
  3. ^ Sources differ on what the exact time was when the attack took place. Sieche states that the time was 03:15 when the Szent István was hit,[25] while Sokol claims that the time was 03:30.[24]

Footnotes[]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Gardiner 1985, p. 339.
  2. ^ a b c d e Greger 1976, p. 58.
  3. ^ Jane's Information Group 1989, p. 313.
  4. ^ O'Hara, Worth & Dickson 2013, pp. 26–27.
  5. ^ Friedman 2011, p. 294.
  6. ^ Greger 1976, pp. 11–12.
  7. ^ Freivogel 2019, p. 70.
  8. ^ Freivogel 2019, p. 68.
  9. ^ Freivogel 2019, p. 69.
  10. ^ Cernuschi & O'Hara 2015, p. 171.
  11. ^ Freivogel 2019, p. 100.
  12. ^ Freivogel 2019, pp. 119–120.
  13. ^ Freivogel 2019, p. 168.
  14. ^ Cernuschi & O'Hara 2015, p. 168.
  15. ^ a b Freivogel 2019, p. 185.
  16. ^ Cernuschi & O'Hara 2015, p. 169.
  17. ^ Halpern 2012, p. 229.
  18. ^ Freivogel 2019, p. 211.
  19. ^ Freivogel 2019, pp. 221–222.
  20. ^ Halpern 1987, p. 151.
  21. ^ Halpern 2015, p. 279.
  22. ^ Cernuschi & O'Hara 2016, p. 67.
  23. ^ Sokol 1968, pp. 133–134.
  24. ^ a b Sokol 1968, p. 134.
  25. ^ a b Sieche 1991, pp. 127, 131.
  26. ^ Sokol 1968, p. 135.
  27. ^ Cernuschi & O'Hara 2015, p. 37.
  28. ^ Vego 1982, p. 345.
  29. ^ Chesneau 1980, p. 355.
  30. ^ Jarman 1997a, p. 733.
  31. ^ Jarman 1997b, p. 183.
  32. ^ Jarman 1997b, p. 451.
  33. ^ Greger 1976, p. 60.
  34. ^ Freivogel 2020, p. 104.

References[]

  • Cernuschi, Enrico & O'Hara, Vincent P. (2015). "The Naval War in the Adriatic Part I: 1914–1916". In Jordan, John (ed.). Warship 2015. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 161–173. ISBN 978-1-84486-295-5.
  • Cernuschi, Enrico & O'Hara, Vincent P. (2016). "The Naval War in the Adriatic Part II: 1917–1918". In Jordan, John (ed.). Warship 2016. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 62–75. ISBN 978-1-84486-438-6.
  • Chesneau, Roger, ed. (1980). Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships, 1922–1946. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-146-5.
  • Freivogel, Zvonimir (2019). The Great War in the Adriatic Sea 1914–1918. Zagreb, Croatia: Despot Infinitus. ISBN 978-953-8218-40-8.
  • Freivogel, Zvonimir (2020). Warships of the Royal Yugoslav Navy 1918–1945. 1. Zagreb, Croatia: Despot Infinitus. ISBN 978-953-8218-72-9.
  • Friedman, Norman (2011). Naval Weapons of World War One. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-84832-100-7.
  • Gardiner, Robert, ed. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906–1921. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-245-5.
  • Greger, René (1976). Austro-Hungarian Warships of World War I. London: Allan. ISBN 978-0-7110-0623-2.
  • Halpern, Paul G., ed. (1987). The Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, 1915–1918. Aldershot, UK: Temple Smith, Gower Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-566-05488-4.
  • Halpern, Paul G. (2012). A Naval History of World War I. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-266-6.
  • Halpern, Paul G. (2015). The Naval War in the Mediterranean: 1914-1918. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-39186-9.
  • Jane's Information Group (1989) [1946/47]. Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II. London: Studio Editions. ISBN 978-1-85170-194-0.
  • Jarman, Robert L., ed. (1997a). Yugoslavia Political Diaries 1918–1965. 1. Slough, UK: Cambridge Archive Editions. ISBN 978-1-85207-950-5.
  • Jarman, Robert L., ed. (1997b). Yugoslavia Political Diaries 1918–1965. 2. Slough, UK: Cambridge Archive Editions. ISBN 978-1-85207-950-5.
  • O'Hara, Vincent; Worth, Richard & Dickson, W. (2013). To Crown the Waves: The Great Navies of the First World War. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-61251-269-3.
  • Sieche, Erwin F. (1991). "S.M.S. Szent István: Hungaria's Only and Ill-Fated Dreadnought". Warship International. Toledo, Ohio: International Warship Research Organization. XXVII (2): 112–146. ISSN 0043-0374.
  • Sokol, Anthony Eugene (1968). The Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy. Annapolis, Maryland: U.S. Naval Institute. OCLC 1912.
  • Vego, Milan (1982). "The Yugoslav Navy 1918–1941". Warship International. Toledo, Ohio: International Naval Research Organisation. XIX (4): 342–361. ISSN 0043-0374.
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