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The last remaining viable example of the feared German Schnellboots, S130 has been in restoration at the Roving Commissions yard at Southdown in Cornwall for some time.
Roving Commissions is run by John Owles, the man who identified the wreck of the historic yacht Scoter as a bawley type. Read more about Scoter.
The 35m torpedo boats had three 2500hp engines a maximum speed of 40knots, and it turns out that S130 was a particularly successful example. Commissioned in the autumn of 1943, she was part of the 9th S-Boot flotilla that in March 1944 found and attacked the American invasion force in Lyme Bay during Operation Tiger, the D-Day preparation training exercise at Slapton Sands that ended in the deaths of more than 740 American forces.
where can I obtain model boat plans of the paddle steamer `Kingswear Castle ?`
S130 was featured in the BBC's excellent documentary, Battle of Britain, the real story. Apparently they were typical of German weapons – excellent technically but costing so much to build they sucked funds and scarce materials from other programmes which might have had bigger rewards strategically.
We saw that programme – and a very interesting piece of work it was.
If you haven't seen it, catch it when you can…
It's good that you are restoring the S-130 over there in Britain. If someone would do it here in Germany he would be called Neonazi and lots of blame would be put on him. There was this chap in our parts here who had been a tank mechanic whith the Bundeswehr. He wanted to rebuild a Tiger Panzer. The Krauss-Maffei company, who built this one during WW II didnt sell him the plans. Because of natinional security! So the guy flew to America, where there is a Tiger on display in Texas, measured it up and then rebuilt it. It's now in a museum. That how phobic we are here with things from our dark 12 years. Back to the Schnellboot: they were so superior from the technical side, that when the Germans were put back to arms in 1956, the new Bundesmarine was forbidden by the Allies to go in production with them again, because they were still the best around. They had to buy American ones.
G'day all.
One of my wife's uncles spent part of the war in aircraft hunting them and subs in the channel and spotting downed airmen for the rescue boats. In style they resemble the first torpedo boat destroyers minus the funnels.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d…