Radio-controlled Target-ships

varjag · #1

The US Navy hade one or two - the Kriegsmarine had the 'Hessen' - all radio-controlled 'target ships'. HOW were they controlled? Did they have 'steam up' and everything moving - under radio control or WHAT was actually moving under that radio control?

Andy H · #2

They also had the Zahringen another former battleship. This ship like the Hessen, was fitted out as a wireless controlled ship, with automatically fired boilers.

Andy H

Andy H · #3

The Wittelsbach Class of German battleships of the Imperial German navy were improved Kaiser class Battleships, designed in 1897 to 1898. they were the first ships to be ordered by Tirpitsz's new navy law of 1898. At the outbreak of world war one they were part of the 4th squadron but proved to be slow and vulnerable and were decommissioned. There new task were in training. during 1916. and alls hips were disarmed.. soon after the Mecklenburg became a floating prison, Schwaben and Wittelsbach became depot ships for minesweeping motor launches each carrying 12. shallow draught F - type minesweepers. being used in this role between in 1919 finally being scrapped with their sister ships in 1921-1922. all except Zahringen which was converted into a radio controlled gunnery target ship, (1926 - 1927) used during World war two, but sunk by royal Air Force bombing at Gotenhafen on the 18th December 1944. and finally scrapped 1949 -1950

http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/wittelsbach.htm

varjag · #4

Thanks Andy for your posts and the link. What interests me is; under normal conditions it would have taken at least a dozen crew to keep such a ship going, changing it's speed and course a.s.f. It would be nice to read a tech. descript on HOW that was achieved under R/C? And how long it was possible to maintain R/C with everything on 'automatic'. I somehow visualize 'the dirty dozen' firing up and checking everything before hastily abandoning ship so the practice can begin - only to re-board after the fireworks - to secure everything and bring the ship back to port. And what about if something went wrong with the R/C gear and the target began to act without control, gives a new meaning to the term 'loose cannon'. I assume that during firing they used practice ammunition, so as not to damage a valuable target-ship beyond repair. Varjag

varjag · #5

Trying to kick some life into this subject, I've trawled the net and found at least two, so called Ferngelenk-Leitschiffe (distance-controlling-ships) named BLITZ and KOMET (probably NOT the better-known surface raider) that related to the target ship ZÄHRINGEN. Obviously these were used to 'control' the radio-controlled target ship. But I'm still curious about HOW that control was excercised on the target ship.