SMS S34 was a large torpedo boat of the Imperial German Navy that served during the First World War. She was built by the Schichau-Werke shipyard in Elbing, East Prussia in 1913–1914 and was completed in being launched on 4 April 1914 and was completed in November 1914.
S34 served in the Baltic and with the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea during the First World War, taking part in the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915 and the Battle of Jutland on 31 May–1 June 1916. She also took part in attacks on shipping in the English Channel, including the Battle of Dover Strait in October 1916. She was sunk by a British mine in the North Sea on 3 October 1918.
Construction and design
In 1913, the Imperial German Navy decided to build larger and more seaworthy torpedo boats in place of the smaller s that had been ordered in 1911 and 1912, which had not proved successful. The new, larger, designs would, as well as being more seaworthy, carry a heavier armament and would be oil-fueled only, rather than use the mix of oil- and coal-fueled boilers that German torpedo boats had used up to then. As was normal, orders were placed for a flotilla of 12 torpedo boats in the 1913 fiscal year, with 6 each ordered from AG Vulcan (V25–V30) and Schichau-Werke (S31–S36). The two groups of torpedo boats were of basically similar layout but differed in detailed design.
The 1913 Schichau torpedo boats were long overall and at the waterline, with a beam of and a draught of . displacement was design and deep load.
Three oil-fired water-tube boilers fed steam at at two sets of Schichau direct-drive steam turbines. The machinery was rated at and gave a design speed of . 220 t of oil was carried, giving a range of at .
The ship was armed with three 8.8 cm (3.4 in) L/45 guns and six 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes, with two single tubes forward and two twin tubes aft of the ship's funnels, with the twin tubes angled out by 15 degrees. Up to 24 mines could be carried. The ship had a crew of 83 officers and men.
S34, yard number 909, was launched on 13 June 1914 and was completed on 5 November that year.
Service
On 23 January 1915, a German force of battlecruisers and light cruisers, escorted by torpedo boats, and commanded by Admiral Franz von Hipper, made a sortie to attack British fishing boats on the Dogger Bank. S34, part of the 18th Torpedo Boat Half-Flotilla, formed part of the escort for Hipper's force. British Naval Intelligence was warned of the raid by radio messages decoded by Room 40, and sent out the Battlecruiser Force from Rosyth, commanded by Admiral Beatty aboard and the Harwich Force of light cruisers and destroyers, to intercept the German force. The British and German Forces met on the morning of 24 January in the Battle of Dogger Bank. On sighting the British, Hipper ordered his ships to head south-east to escape the British, who set off in pursuit. The armoured cruiser was disabled by British shells and was sunk, but the rest of the German force escaped, with the German battlecruiser badly damaged.
S34, part of IX Torpedo Boat Flotilla, took part in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915, and helped to rescue survivors from the German torpedo boat after V99 had been sunk by mines on 17 August. This was an attempt by German forces, supported by the High Seas Fleet to enter the Gulf of Riga, destroy Russian naval forces in the Gulf and to mine the northern entrances to the Gulf in order to prevent Russian reinforcement. The attempt failed with Germany losing the torpedo boat and the minesweeper T46 as well as V99, while failing to destroy any major Russian warships or lay the planned minefield.