 Torpedo Boat No. 38 (ex-Kranich) underway
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Builders |
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| Operators | |
| Succeeded by | Cobra class |
| Built | 1885–1891 |
| In commission | 1886–c.1944 |
| Completed | 22 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Sea-going torpedo boat |
| Displacement | 88–90 t (87–89 long tons) (full load) |
| Length | 39.88 m (130 ft 10 in) |
| Beam | 4.8 m (15 ft 9 in) |
| Draught | 1.9 m (6 ft 3 in) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion |
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| Speed | 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph) |
| Endurance | 1,200 nmi (2,200 km; 1,400 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement | 16–18 |
| Armament |
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The Schichau class consisted of 22 torpedo boats built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy between 1885 and 1891. The class was one of the first torpedo boat classes built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, and they were initially powered by steam from a single locomotive boiler and were armed with two 37 mm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss guns and two 356 mm (14 in) torpedo tubes. The entire class was reconstructed between 1900 and 1910, when they received two Yarrow boilers and a second funnel.
Ten of the class were converted into minesweepers between 1911 and 1913. One boat was discarded in 1911, with the rest seeing active service as part of local defence forces for the Adriatic naval bases during World War I, with one being lost in the early days of the war. The remaining ten torpedo boats were also converted to minesweepers in 1917, although five still carried torpedoes. After the war, sixteen of the boats were allocated to Italy and four were allocated to the navy of the newly created Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia). Two were commissioned while the other two were used for spare parts. Except for one of the Yugoslav boats which was retained as a training vessel, all of the boats had been discarded by 1929. After capture during the April 1941 Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in World War II, the remaining boat saw service with the Italians and then the Germans. She was lost while in German hands sometime after September 1943.
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