IJN Small Combattants

[Q-Ball]

That Czech site is a Gold Mine of pics; that's pretty much a picture of everything, even the Barges.  Doesn't get any better.

[Monter_Trismegistos]

ORIGINAL: Tiornu
The prewar German torpedo boats were reasonable designs. The wartime T-boats were very poor, an attempt to get more capability than an S-boat could provide, but I'd much rather have an equal tonnage of S-boats rather than the T-boats.

TB's are not MTB's.

S-boats couldn't do escort duty.

[Tiornu]

TB's are not MTB's. S-boats couldn't do escort duty.

I'm not sure what point you're aiming at. The new torpedo boats weren't built for escort duties. They were built as super-MTBs to make surprise torpedo attacks in the roughest portions of the North Sea. If you wanted to make an escort, you'd use half the TB's engine power, provide a respectable gun armament, and pull off some torpedo tubes.

[Monter_Trismegistos]

But it had proved that torpedo capability was not needed anymore when new T-boats entered service. What was really needed was high-speed escorts, which could keep up with fleet. This is why Raubtiers and Raubvogels were not a succesfull design.

[Tiornu]

The Germans would have done better to have built more Type 24 (Wulf) torpedo boats rather than those lame Type 35 (T1) and Type 37 (T13) boats. The uber-S-boats proved to have weak hulls, poor seakeeping, and troublesome machinery--not to mention the anemic armament. The Type 39 (T22) finally got back to the conventional TB model, but even here, the older boats were probably as good despite being 75% as large--another case of German warship design actually getting worse over time.
All these ships, except the Type 39, had their origins in treaty dictates, and the value of the torpedo boat 40 years after the maturing of the torpedo-boat destroyer lay more in expedience than in combat capability.

[Monter_Trismegistos]

ORIGINAL: Tiornu
The Germans would have done better to have built more Type 24 (Wulf) torpedo boats rather than those lame Type 35 (T1) and Type 37 (T13) boats. The uber-S-boats proved to have weak hulls, poor seakeeping, and troublesome machinery--not to mention the anemic armament.

These ships were intended to be a small destroyers, not big MTB's.
Since Wulf class had no DC's they were totally useless. T1 and T13 classes had ASW capability - and at least had been useful in their main role (freeing destroyers to other tasks).

The Type 39 (T22) finally got back to the conventional TB model, but even here, the older boats were probably as good despite being 75% as large--

No, they were in opposite in their precedessors - they went even more into direction of DD's.

All these ships, except the Type 39, had their origins in treaty dictates, and the value of the torpedo boat 40 years after the maturing of the torpedo-boat destroyer lay more in expedience than in combat capability.

Agreed. Möwe/Wolf classes were a total crap. Such unbalanced torpedo armed ships were not needed at all. Later designs were more balanced and armed with DC's.

[Tiornu]

These ships were intended to be a small destroyers, not big MTB's.

The Types 35 and 37 were intended for the same role as S-boats except with better seakeeping. See Whitley's German Destroyers of World War Two, pp 48-49.

Since Wulf class had no DC's they were totally useless.

A picture on Whitley p 48 shows the depth charges on the stern of one of these old torpedo boats.

Möwe/Wolf classes were a total crap.

At least they were reliable and well-built and suited, if prodigal, for the jobs given them. T 1-21 were none of these, which explains why they spent so much time sitting in reserve.

[HansenII]

Hi!
In fact, the german prewar designs following the "Raubtier" and "Raubvogel"-Classes were underarmed in terms of artillery with just one 4'', but pretty good seaboats, in fact better than every other german destroyer of that area.
During the war, the so-called Fleet-Toprpedoboats were build, in fact small destroyers with a decent allround capability, considered quite successful.
The E-Boats were undinably one of the best small combattant-designs in the first half of the war with thei're fast running, reliable and powerful diesels (at the end of the war, the poweroutput of those diesel has been doubled without changing the basic design..). The seakeeping capabilities of the E-Boats where well suited for the north sea, which would have been very rough on Elco's etc.
But, the escort capability of E-Boats was not very high.

By the way, there is a kind of revival of the Torpedoboat Idea as cheaper supplement to destroyers & frigates: corvettes in France, Germany, Israel with basically the same problem: too many function put into a too small hull....

Regards,

[Tiornu]

The primary shortcoming in seakeeping for the T 1-21 was wetness. They handled well.
Flaws for the earlier boats included their marginal stability and the degree to which winds affected them. They were hard to maneuver in windy conditions. They could have done with better range, but I don't think that got in their way much.

[HansenII]

They did have some problems due to poor (new?) welding technics, as far as I heard.
But an earlier statement concerning german naval designs in WWII is right: it was getting poorer & poorer (not only the actual production, but also the design). Of course there where exceptions to the rule, but there was too much wishful thinking and absolutly nuts people involved (gigantomania etc....).

Anyway, back to work now!

Regards,