Kaiman-class torpedo boat

The "Kaiman" class were high-seas torpedo boats built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy between 1904 and 1910. A total of 24 boats were built by three shipbuilding companies. Yarrow Shipbuilders built the lead ship, Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino of Trieste built 13 boats, and Ganz-Danubius constructed the remaining 10 boats at their shipyards at Fiume. The class was considered to be a successful design, and all boats saw extensive active service during World War I, undertaking a range of tasks, including escort duties, shore bombardments, and minesweeping. All survived, although several were damaged by naval mines and collisions. One was torpedoed and badly damaged by a French submarine, and two sank an Italian submarine. All the boats were transferred to the Allies and scrapped at the end of the war, except for four that were allocated to the navy of the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. These were discarded and broken up between 1928 and 1930.
Design and construction.
After the commissioning of the last of four torpedo boats for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1900, there was a four-year hiatus in Austro-Hungarian construction of destroyers and torpedo boats. In 1904, a prototype of a new torpedo boat was ordered from Yarrow Shipbuilders at Poplar, London, and this became the lead boat of the "Kaiman" class. The name was in keeping with other reptilian names given to sea-going vessels. Two Austro-Hungarian naval shipbuilders then received plans and engineering assistance from the British and commenced construction; 13 boats were built by Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino, located at Trieste, and the remaining 10 boats by Ganz-Danubius at their shipyards at Fiume. All boats used a single four-cylinder vertical triple expansion engine driving one propeller shaft using steam generated by two coal-fired Yarrow boilers. They had a waterline length of , a beam of , and a normal draught of . They had a standard displacement of about . The crew consisted of 31 officers and enlisted men. Their machinery was rated at and was designed to propel the boats to a top speed of . They carried of coal, which gave them a radius of action of at , or at .
They were armed with four Škoda L/33 guns and three torpedo tubes. The 47 mm guns were license-built versions of the British QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss gun; they had a rate of fire of 25 rounds per minute and an effective range of . The 450 mm torpedoes were the L/5 type, which carried a warhead and had a range of 3,000 m at a speed of . Later variants increased the warhead to and the range to at . In 1915, one machine gun was added. The boats were initially given names, but were redesignated with numbers on 1 January 1914, with three suffixes; E for the Yarrow boat built in England, T for the boats built in Trieste, and F for the boats built in Fiume.
Service history.
At the outbreak of World War I, the "Kaiman"-class torpedo boats were split between the 1st and 2nd Torpedo Craft Flotillas, based at Cattaro and Pola respectively. In the 1st Torpedo Craft Flotilla, the 3rd Torpedo Craft Division had two groups of "Kaiman"-class boats: "50 E", "51 T" and "73 F" made up the 2nd Torpedo Boat Group, and "53 T", "54 T" and "56 T" made up the 3rd Torpedo Boat Group. In the 2nd Torpedo Craft Flotilla, the 5th Torpedo Craft Division had three groups of the class: "55 T", "68 F" and "70 F" made up the 4th Torpedo Boat Group; "61 T", "65 F" and "66 F" comprised the 5th Torpedo Boat Group; and "64 F", "69 F" and "72 F" made up the 6th Torpedo Boat Group. Also in the 2nd Torpedo Craft Flotilla, the 6th Torpedo Craft Division had three more groups of "Kaiman"-class boats: "52 T", "58 T" and "59 T" were in the 7th Torpedo Boat Group; "60 T", "62 T" and "63 T" made up the 8th Torpedo Boat Group; and "57 T", "67 F" and "72 F" comprised the 9th Torpedo Boat Group.
The "Kaiman" class was considered to be a very capable design, and all boats saw significant active service during the war. All survived, although several were badly damaged by naval mines and collisions. On 8 August 1914, "72 F" accompanied the protected cruisers and and the during a shore bombardment of Antivari in Montenegro. This was followed, on 2 September, by another shore bombardment of the Montenegrin coast by the "Huszár"-class destroyers and , assisted by "64 F" and "66 F". On 16 September, "68 F" and "72 F" were involved in a raid and landing at San Giovanni di Medua on the Albanian coast. On 14 February 1915, "68 F", the "Huszár"-class destroyer and another torpedo boat bombarded Dulcigno and Antivari on the Montenegrin coastline. On 2 March 1915, the "Huszár"-class destroyers "Ulan", "Csikos" and , accompanied by "66 F" and "67 F", bombarded Antivari and sank the Montenegrin royal yacht "Rumija". Three days later, "57 T" also bombarded Antivari.
On 24 May 1915, a large Austro-Hungarian force of three dreadnought battleships, six pre-dreadnought battleships, and four destroyers, accompanied by fifteen "Kaiman"-class boats and four s, participated in the Bombardment of Ancona, a shore bombardment operation against the northern Adriatic coast of Italy. On the same day, the pre-dreadnought , accompanied by "56 T" and "73 F", bombarded Potenza Picena, Termoli and Campomarino. On 18 June, the armoured cruiser conducted a bombardment of a bridge near Rimini, accompanied by "57 T", "58 T", "63 T" and "67 F". On the same day, "Szigetvár", "64 F" and "69 F" bombarded Colonnella, sinking one freighter during the shelling, and sinking two motor schooners encountered off Rimini following the bombardment. On 9 September 1915, "51 T" was torpedoed and had her bow blown off by the while she was patrolling off Palagruža. She was towed to port and presumably repaired.
On 9 July 1916, the scout cruiser , "54 T", "73 F" and another torpedo boat raided the Otranto Barrage, the Allied naval blockade of the Strait of Otranto, which resulted in the sinking of two drifters, and damage to two more. Ten days later, "65 F" and "66 F" sank the Italian submarine "Balilla" off Lissa. On 8 October, "68 F" encountered the Italian off San Giovanni di Medua, but after a brief chase was able to reach the cover of a shore battery. On 16 November 1917, "61 T" and "65 F" were part of a minesweeping force supporting the bombardment of a Italian shore battery at Cortellazzo near the mouth of the Piave. All boats were due to have their aft torpedo tube replaced by a single Škoda L/30 anti-aircraft gun in late 1918, but it is not clear whether this actually occurred. "52 T" ran aground near Split in December 1918. Following World War I, the "Kaiman"-class boats were allocated to Great Britain, Italy and the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia). Great Britain and Italy scrapped their boats, but the Yugoslavs retained "54 T", "60 T", "61 T" and "69 F" as "T12", "T9", "T10" and "T11" respectively. All four were discarded and broken up between 1928 and 1930.