Torpedoboot 1915

Like their predecessors, the Torpedoboot (Design 1914), the 30 boats of the Torpedoboot Design 1915 were specially designed to operate in the shallow waters at the Coast of Flanders. With the lessons from the first operation of the Torpedoboot 1914, the new design was improved in several respects. A26-A55 were enlarged over 50% and to keep the required speed, they were equipped with a steam turbine instead of an expansion engine.

There was a radical change in armament. The main armament - the torpedoes - were reduced to only one tube left, but therefore the ships were equipped with two 8,8 cm guns to defend themselves against British torpedo boat destroyers. The Torpedoboot 1915 was built to be used as a minesweeper as well, a duty that got their main task in the later years of the war. When being used as minesweepers, the torpedo tube was removed to save weight for the mine sweeping equipment.

Seven of those boats were dismantled and transported to Antwerp to be put together again, one of the boats - the A51 - was even transported to Pola by train to be used in the Mediterranean.

Only one Torpedoboot 1915 was lost during the war. Most of the boats survived and were taken over by Britain as a war prize in 1920 and scrapped in the following years. Several boats were interned in Belgium and used by the Belgian navy until the late 1920s. A few boats were even used during World War 2 in several auxiliary roles, the last of them was scrapped in 1955.