S 90 Class Torpedo Boat (1899)

Eleven S 90 class torpedo boats were completed for the Imperial German Navy in 1899-1900.

Design & Construction

With this class, the German Navy abolished the distinction between torpedo boats and divisional boats by constructing torpedo boats of similar size of the earlier divisional boats. No more smaller torpedo boats would be built until the A boats of the First World War.

Steel-hulled and galvanized below the waterline with two vertical triple-expansion engines and three Thorycroft-pattern boilers. The raised forecastle of the D 9 was increased in height, as had already been done by the U.S. Navy's Rowan.

Performance

The raised forecastle greatly improved seakeeping, to the point where the S 90s were superior to contemporary Royal Navy destroyers. Favorable reports from British destroyermen who saw them at Kiel were one of the influences on the subsequent and highly-successful River class.

Armament

• Three 50mm/40 caliber quick-firing guns
• Four 450mm torpedo tubes, five torpedoes

See Also

• Wikipedia

Bibliography

• Chesneau, Robert; Kolesnik, Eugene (editors) (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. (on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk).
• Gray, Randal (editor) (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. London: Conway Maritime Press. (on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk).
• Gröner, Erich (revised and expanded by Dieter Jung and Martin Maass) (1990). German Warships 1815-1945. Volume One: Major Surface Vessels. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
• "Die deutsche Marine im Jahre 1899". Uhland's Verkehrszeitung und Industrielle Rundschau. 25 January, 1900. XIV (4): p. 23.