Cobra-class torpedo boat


The Cobra class was a class of four torpedo boats built by the British shipbuilder Yarrow for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the late 1890s. All four ships served through the First World War and were scrapped in 1919.

Design and construction

In 1895, the Austro-Hungarian Navy purchased one torpedo boat each from the British shipbuilder Yarrow and the German shipbuilder Schichau-Werke, two specialist builders of torpedo vessels. The two torpedo boats, which carried identical armament, were evaluated against each other. While there was little to choose between the seaworthiness of the two ships, the German-built ship,, suffered vibration at high speed, while the Yarrow-built torpedo-boat,, did not suffer such vibration and the Yarrow design was chosen for further development, with four more torpedo-boats ordered from Yarrow to a modified design.
The new torpedo boats were long at the waterline and between perpendiculars, with a beam of and a draught of. Two coal-fired Yarrow water-tube boilers fed a single three-cylinder triple expansion steam engine which drove a single propeller shaft. The machinery was rated at giving a speed of, although was generated during sea trials, when Python reached a speed of.
The ships were armed by two L/33 Skoda guns and three torpedo tubes,, with two forward on the sides of the ship, where they could fire almost dead ahead, and one on the ships' centreline aft. The ships had a crew of 21.

Service

The four ships were laid down at Yarrow's Poplar, London shipyard in 1897–1898 and completed in 1898–1900. In 1910, all Austro-Hungarian torpedo-boats were redesignated, replacing their names by numbers, with the Cobra class becoming Tb 13 – Tb 16.
On the outbreak of the First World War three of the torpedo-boats were based at Cattaro as part of the local defence forces, serving as escorts and minesweepers throughout the war, while Tb 14 was used as a salvage vessel for the naval air station at Pola and were scrapped in 1920.

Ships

  • – laid down 1897, launched 1898, completed 1899. Renamed Tb 16 in 1910.
  • – laid down 1897, launched September 1898, completed 1898. Renamed Tb 15 in 1910.
  • – laid down 1898, launched 11 April 1899, completed 31 January 1900. Renamed Tb 14 in 1910.
  • – laid down 1898, launched 11 April 1899, completed 12 October 1899. Renamed Tb 13 in 1910.