SMS V45 was a 1913 Type large torpedo boat (Großes Torpedoboot) of the Imperial German Navy during World War I. V45 was built by AG Vulcan at their Stettin shipyard, being launched on 29 March 1915 and completed on 30 September that year.
V45 served with the German 6th Torpedo Boat Flotilla for the remainder of the war, taking part in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. The torpedo boat carried out operations in the English Channel and in the Baltic Sea, and took part in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917.
V45 was interned at Scapa Flow following the end of the war, and was scuttled on 21 June 1919.
Design and construction
On 22 April 1914, the Imperial German Navy ordered 12 torpedo boats as part of its 1914 shipbuilding programme, with six each ordered from Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft and AG Vulcan.
Vulcan's design was long overall and between perpendiculars, with a beam of and a draft of . Displacement was normal and deep load. Three oil-fired water-tube boilers fed steam to 2 sets of AEG-Vulcan steam turbines rated at , giving a speed of . of fuel oil was carried, giving a range of at . Armament originally consisted of three 8.8 cm SK L/45 naval guns in single mounts, together with six 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes with two fixed single tubes forward and 2 twin mounts aft. Up to 24 mines could be carried. The ship had a complement of 87 officers and men.
V45 was laid down at Vulcan's Stettin shipyard in Prussia (now Szczecin in Poland) as yard number 360, was launched on 29 March 1915 and completed on 30 September 1915. The "V" in V45 denotes at which shipyard she was built (i.e. AG Vulcan).
Service
1915–1916
V45 was assigned to the Sixth Torpedo Boat Flotilla, Twelfth Half-Flotilla, of the German High Seas Fleet. On 25 March 1916, the British seaplane carrier , escorted by the Harwich force, launched an air attack against a Zeppelin base believed to be at Hoyer on the coast of Schleswig. The raid was a failure, with the airship base actually at Tondern, and while engaging German patrol boats, the British destroyer was rammed by the destroyer and badly damaged. (Medusa was later abandoned and eventually sank). Forces of the High Seas Fleet were ordered to sea in response to the attack, and on the evening of 25 March, 18 German torpedo boats of the 1st and 6th Torpedo Boat Flotillas, including V45 were deployed in a wide front with orders to search for Medusa to the North West of Horns Rev. The torpedo boat of the 1st Flotilla encountered British cruisers and was rammed and sunk by the cruiser , which was then rammed and damaged by the cruiser , while another German torpedo boat, , was sunk by a mine. On 24 April 1916, the German battlecruisers of I Scouting Group and the light cruisers of the II Scouting Group set out from Kiel on a mission to bombard the British East-coast towns of Yarmouth and Lowestoft, with the torpedo boats of the 6th Torpedo Boat Flotilla (including V45) and 9th Torpedo Boat Flotilla as escorts. The battleships of the High Seas Fleet were deployed in support, with the hope of destroying isolated elements of the British Forces if they tried to intercept. There was a brief engagement between the German forces and the light cruisers and destroyers of the Harwich Force, which caused the German battlecruisers to break off the bombardment of Lowestoft, but rather than take the change to destroy the outnumbered British force, the Germans chose to retire.