- Yes
- Maybe
- Unsure
- No
Background
The Tiger class fast attack craft was as the title suggest were a class of fast attack craft which saw service in the Bundesmarine from the early 1970’s to the early 2000’s. The class itself consisted of 20 vessels however as with a number of other classes of fast attack craft in the Bundesmarine they initially did not have proper names but instead were given different numbers however they were eventually all given names after the insistence of the crews, the original “names” of the ships in the class were between S21 to S60.
Something important to note is that class however does not share its true origins with Germany but can be traced back to France though it can still be traced back to Germany as it is a bit more complex than the class being built for a specific purpose. The Tigers were based off the French La Combattante IIa which were in fact designed by Lürssen of Germany however due to political reason nearly half were built in France though most were built in Germany. These ships can be best described as the sort of predecessors of the Albatross fast attack craft which did follow this class and as these ships may share a number of visual similarities compared to their predecessors these ships used the OTO Melara 76mm gun and now came equipped with anti-ship missiles and which resulted them moving away from the lines of a torpedo boat, in fact the tigers actually did not use any torpedo’s.
The ships would enter service from the early to mid 1970’s and served for around 30 years and received in the early 1980’s as well as the early 1990’s and would also begin leaving service in the 1990’s and early 2000’s with the last vessel leaving service in 2002 however most would be sold off to other navies with vessels seeing service in the Hellenic Navy, Chilean Navy, Egyptian Navy, and Georgian Navy.
Specifications
Displacement 265 tons (261 long tons)
Length 47 m (154 ft 2 in)
Beam 7 m (23 ft)
Draft 2.70 m (8 ft 10 in)
Propulsion
4 MTU MD 16V 538 TB90 turbo diesel engines, 8,800 kW (11,800 hp) total
4 propeller shafts
Speed 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph)
Complement 30
Sensors and processing systems
Pre modernization
SMA 3RM20 navigation radar
Triton surveillance radar
Pollux fire-control radar
Post modernization
SMA 3RM20 navigation radar
Triton G surveillance radar
CASTOR II fire-control radar
Link 11 communications
Electronic warfare & decoys (Post modernization)
Decoy and flare launcher
ECM suite
Armament
Primary armament
1 × OTO Melara 76mm/62 naval gun
Anti-aircraft armament
1 × 40mm/70 Breda-Bofors 564 gun (can be removed)
Anti-ship missiles
4 × MM38 Exocet launchers
Other weaponry
*40mm gun can be removed and have mine laying rails
8 × naval mines (cannot be used as long as 40mm is equipped)
Sources
Image Sources