The Type 101 ''Hamburg'' class was the only class of destroyers built during post-war Germany. They were specifically designed to operate in the Baltic Sea, where armament and speed is more important than seaworthiness. They were named after Bundesländer ( states of Germany) of West Germany.

Design

The German shipyard Stülcken was contracted to design and build the ships. Stülcken was rather inexperienced with naval shipbuilding, but got the order, since the shipyards traditionally building warships for the German navies like

Blohm + Voss Blohm+Voss (B+V), also written historically as Blohm & Voss, Blohm und Voß etc., is a German shipbuilding and engineering company. Founded in Hamburg in 1877 to specialise in steel-hulled ships, its most famous product was the World War II battle ...

Howaldtswerke Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (often abbreviated HDW) is a German shipbuilding company, headquartered in Kiel. It is part of the ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) group, owned by ThyssenKrupp. The Howaldtswerke shipyard was founded in Kiel in 183 ...

or Lürssen were all occupied constructing commercial vessels (no naval ship had been built in Germany since World War II). Originally, they had only barreled weapons, but from 1976 to 1978 they were upgraded with

guided missile In military terminology, a missile is a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously unguided rocket ...

s to increase their effectiveness against modern surface warships and were re designated Type 101A. One 100 mm gun was replaced by two Exocet missile launchers, the Bofors were replaced by Breda 40 mm, and the torpedo tubes were removed. Modifications were also made to the operations center, radar and bridge. The design of the Hamburg class has been criticized for many of the same failures of the

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the a ...

destroyers: too top-heavy and bad sea-keeping capabilities. This is in part due to the low freeboard on the hull. They were replaced up from 1994 by the ''Brandenburg'' class frigates (F123).

Ships

All ships were built by Stülcken and were based in Wilhelmshaven as the ''2. Zerstörergeschwader'' (second destroyer squadron) of the Bundesmarine/Deutsche Marine ( German Navy).

Citations

References

*Gerhard Koop/Siegfried Breyer: Die Schiffe, Fahrzeuge und Flugzeuge der deutschen Marine 1956 bis heute. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, München 1996, ISBN 3-7637-5950-6

Design

Ships

See also

Citations

References

External links