Schnellbootwaffe

€ 20,00

Hrvoje Spajic: Schnellbootwaffe.
Adolf Hitler’s Guerrilla War at Sea. S-Boote 1939-45
184 Seiten, englisch, sehr viele zeitgenössische Abbildungen, broschürt

The Schnellbootwaffe was created in the early 1930s, before the Second World War, in concurrence with the regenerated Kriegsmarine, and young officers, most of whom learned their craft in the old Imperial Navy, would take responsibility for the operational use of these revolutionary vessels.

Working with the naval engineers of Lürssen Shipyard, the Germans designed combat weapons that were never surpassed by their opponents. After the first series of Schnellboote were launched, constantly improved versions of these vessels would follow. The Schnellbootwaffe would achieve significant victories for the Kriegsmarine at the beginning of the war by using these vessels in high-level strategies, including a style of guerrilla warfare.

The British often call German torpedo boats E-boats, and these fast vessels were a genuine threat not only to coastal trade, but also to the movement of Allied ships after D-Day. Indeed, Admiral Rudolf Petersen’s flotillas remained combat-ready until the very end, even after the balance of power was in favour of the Allies.

Allied air bombardment of German torpedo boat bases from 1944 onwards failed to destroy the offensive potential of the Schnellboote and their crews. The Allied disaster at Lyme Bay at the end of April 1944 shows how this guerrilla war at sea was still dangerous, even at this stage of the war. The Allied invasions plans were not yet known to the Germans, but Eisenhower learned a great deal from Lyme Bay and the Schnellbootwaffe was still potentially dangerous right until the end of the war.

This book tells the fascinating story about these special people, whose pirate spirit and guerrilla-style of naval combat is reminiscent of the ancient pirates and their own way of warfare.

There are sometimes when it comes to reviewing books or history that you come across a subject you know little about. Now the Schnellbootwaffe was something I had heard about, being a small part of the German navy, the guerilla warfare arm of small quick, manoeuvrable, boats that were used for multiple uses. But it was a subject I hadn’t ever got round to exploring until now. What a cracking little book it was to start learning about these nimble and fast little vessels. From reading this book you can just see how much use the German navy got out of them, their quickness enabled them to get out early on the water or during the night in order to make quick attacks on hassling small allied shipping routes. They were also easy to use as multi-purpose vessels in that they would often be used for laying mines, and with each of these 30-40 metre long vessels being armed with guns at each end they could certainly hold their own against similar sized vessels. This was a thoroughly informative book indeed and certainly a great addition to the Images of War series, even though it felt like there were slightly fewer photographs in this edition.