S-1 Schnellboot / UZ (S).16

After WWI, the Allied Powers imposed a strong control over Germany’s rearmament through the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. This meant the impossibility for German Navy to build “offensive vessels”. Since 1923, Germany began various secret developments of small displacement ships that had been outside the limitations of the Treaty. In August 1930, the Reichsmarine put into service a motor torpedo boat (MTB) designated simply as “Schnellboot” (fast ship). Since then, all ships of this type were so called within the German Navy. The S-1 vessel was built in mahogany and light metal and had three petrol engines of 900 hp each, with which exceeded 34 knots maximum speed. Its main armament consisted of two 500mm torpedoes, (the same as in all future classes of “Schnellboot”), which was completed with a 20mm gun on the afterdeck. The ship was transferred to the Spanish Navy in December 1936 and was renamed as “LT-15 Badajoz“, being decommissioned in 1944.

S-1 Schnellboot gallery and more info