German destroyer Z12 Erich Giese

Historie

Z12 Erich Giese was a built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine in the late 1930s. At the beginning of World War II, the ship was used in the German Bight to lay minefields in German waters. In late 1939 the ship made one successful minelaying sortie off the English coast that claimed two merchant ships. While returning from that sortie, she torpedoed a British destroyer without being detected and continued on her way. During the early stages of the Norwegian Campaign, Erich Giese fought in both naval Battles of Narvik in mid-April 1940 and was sunk by British destroyers during the Second Battle of Narvik.Design and descriptionErich Giese had an overall length of 119m and was 114m long at the waterline. The ship had a beam of 11.30m, and a maximum draft of 4.23m. She displaced 2171t at standard and 3190t at deep load. The Wagner geared steam turbines were designed to produce 70000PS which would propel the ship at 36kn. Steam was provided to the turbines by six high-pressure Benson boilers with superheaters. Erich Giese carried a maximum of 752t of fuel oil which was intended to give a range of 4400nmi at, but the ship proved top-heavy in service and 30% of the fuel had to be retained as ballast low in the ship. The effective range proved to be only 1530nmi at.