SMS S49 was a of the Imperial German Navy. S49 was built by Schichau-Werke, at their Elbing shipyard. She was launched on 10 April 1915 and completed in July that year.
S49 served in the North Sea and English Channel for the rest of the First World War. After the end of the war, she was interned at Scapa Flow, and was scuttled with the rest of the interned German fleet on 21 June 1919. S49s wreck was salvaged in 1924 and scrapped.
Construction and design
On 6 August 1914, as a result of the outbreak of the First World War, the Imperial German Navy placed orders for 48 high-seas torpedo-boats, with 18, including S49, to be built by Schichau-Werke on 6 August 1914 as part of the 1914 mobilisation order. S49 was laid down at Schichau's Elbing (now Elbląg in Poland) as yard number 939, was launched on 10 April 1915 and commissioned on 12 July 1915.
S49 was long overall and at the waterline, with a beam of and a draught of . Displacement was normal and deep load. Three oil-fired water-tube boilers fed steam to 2 sets of direct-drive steam turbines rated at , giving a speed of . of fuel oil was carried, giving a range of at and 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 85 officers and men.
Service
1915–1916
Between 16 and 18 November 1915, S49, part of the 11th torpedo-boat half-flotilla, was one of 18 torpedo boats that carried out a sortie into the Skagerrak to intercept merchant shipping. On 10 February 1916, V26 took part in a sortie by 25 torpedo boats of the 2nd, 6th and 9th Torpedo-boat Flotillas into the North Sea. The sortie led to an encounter between several German torpedo boats and British minesweepers off the Dogger Bank, which resulted in the British minesweeper being torpedoed and sunk by ships of the 2nd Flotilla. 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 S49 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 and 9th Torpedo Boat Flotillas as escorts, and S49 as part of the 6th Flotilla. 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 chance to destroy the outnumbered British force, the Germans chose to retire. In May 1916, S49 was listed as part of the 11th half-flotilla of the 6th Torpedo Boat Flotilla. S43 did not sail with the rest of the 6th Torpedo-boat Flotilla when it left Kiel on 31 May 1916, and so missed the Battle of Jutland.