German ared merchant raiders

[cpaige]

Can you tell me me the names of the most successful German raiders in the war. How many ships were sunk or captured by them.

[Michael Lowrey]

Among the armed merchant raiders, the two that stand out are Möwe and Wolf. In addition to being raiders, both ships are acted as minelayers and because of a number of ships disappeared whose loss may or may not have been cuased by these ship's mines, there's some uncertainty about exactly how many these two ships accounted for. I'll pull some figures together later, if other don't post them sooner.

Best wishes,

Michael

[centurion]

The Wolf also carrried a seaplane that was used to spot shipping and on one occasion forced the surrender of a merchant ship all by itself.

[historydavid]

Hello cpaige, 2 sets of figures from my database:

Finishing order on sinkings AMC Möwe 28

AMC Wolf 18 (inc 8 mined)

Light cruiser SMS Emden 16

Light cruiser SMS Karslruhe 15

Finishing order on ships affected AMC Möwe 30

Light cruiser SMS Emden 23 (inc 4 captured but freed)

AMC Wolf 19

Light cruiser SMS Karslruhe 16

Hope this satisfies your query

David

[Michael Lowrey]

David,

I have it as 39 ships sunk or captured and retained (= sailed successfully to Germany) by Möwe proper, plus two ships sunk by the St. Theodor (Geier) after being captured and armed by Möwe. 176,756 grt for all that.

And then the fun begins when you get to the ships that might have been sunk on Möwe's mines, which is rather obviously unstated in conventional accounts. I have it as HMS King Edward VII plus probably 14 merchant ships or fishing vessels sunk and two more damaged. That's another 26,418 grt for the ships sunk plus the battleship in displacement tons. Even beyond that, there are two ships that disappeared en route to Scapa that might have sunk on Möwe's mines.

For Wolf, I have 12 sunk (scuttled etc.) by Wolf proper plus the tanker Turritella (Iltis), which was captured, turned into auxiliary minelayer/raider and scuttled to avoid capture, and 13 ships sunk by mine (but see below as there could be more). Four more ships are known to have been damaged on Wolf's mines plus two on Iltis' mines. Then there's the Igotz Mendi, which was captured and almost made it back to Germany before running aground in Danish waters.

Also, four steamers that went missing in the Indian or Pacific oceans had routings that would have taken them through minefields laid by Wolf. These vessels may or may not have been lost on these minefields.

Best wishes,

Michael

[historydavid]

Hello cpaige and Michael, I should have qualified my list of raider victims as being British vessel only.

Best wishes

David