Merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes
An
armed merchantman
is a
merchant ship
equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail,
piracy
and
privateers
, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in long distance and high value trade.
In more modern times,
auxiliary cruisers
were used offensively as
merchant raiders
to disrupt trade chiefly during both World War I and World War II, particularly by Germany.
While armed merchantmen are clearly inferior to purpose-built warships, sometimes they have scored successes in combat against them. Examples include
East Indiamen
mimicking
ships of the line
and chasing off regular French warships in the
Battle of Pulo Aura
in 1804, and the
German auxiliary cruiser
Kormoran
sinking the Australian light cruiser
HMAS
Sydney
in
their battle
in 1941, although
Kormoran
was also destroyed and had to be scuttled.
Pre-20th century
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East Indiamen of various European countries were heavily armed for their long journeys to the
Far East
. In particularly dangerous times, such as when the home countries were at war, a
convoy
system would be used whereby the ships were escorted by a
warship
. However, many East Indiamen also travelled on their own, and therefore were heavily armed in order to defend themselves against
pirates
and
privateers
. They also defended themselves against warships, scoring signal victories at the
Battle of Pulo Aura
and the
action of 4 August 1800
. The British
Royal Navy
purchased several that it converted to
ships of the line
.
Development of auxiliary cruisers
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In 1856, privateering (or seizure of a belligerent country's merchant ships as a private enterprise) lost international sanction under the
Declaration of Paris
. From 1861 to 1865 European countries built high-speed ships to run the
Union Blockade
during the
American Civil War
. Some of these were armed and served as
Confederate States Navy
raiders.
Russia
purchased three ships in 1878 of 6,000
long tons
(6,100
t
) armed with 6-inch (150 mm) guns for use as auxiliary cruisers for a
Russian Volunteer Fleet
.
Germany
and the
United Kingdom
responded to the precedent by asking their shipping companies to design fast steamers with provision for mounting guns in time of war.
In 1890 German and British shipyards built new civilian ships designed for wartime conversion, and
France
,
Italy
,
Japan
,
Austria-Hungary
, and the
United States
made similar agreements with their shipyards. In 1892 Russia likewise built two more auxiliary cruisers.
In 1895 the
Imperial German Navy
mobilized the provisional auxiliary cruiser
Normannia
for a 15-day trial armed with eight 6-inch guns, two 3.5-inch (89 mm) guns, six 37-millimetre (1.46 in) guns, and two torpedo boats.
[1]
20th century
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In both World Wars, both
Germany
and the
United Kingdom
used auxiliary cruisers. While the British used armed passenger liners defensively for protecting their shipping, the German approach was to use them offensively to attack enemy shipping.
Armed merchant cruisers
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The armed merchant cruisers (AMC) of the British
Royal Navy
were employed for convoy protection against enemy warships. They ultimately proved to have limited value and many, particularly
ocean liners
, were later converted into troopships, a role for which they were more suited. Documentary evidence quoted by the
BBC
researched from the early stages of the First World War suggests that the express liners had greater speed than most warships (few warships of the period could exceed 21 knots), which made them suitable as AMCs.
[
citation needed
]
The downside proved to be their high fuel consumption; using them in a purely AMC role would have burned through the Admiralty reserve supplies of
steam coal
in less than three months.
[
citation needed
]
The ships were vulnerable to enemy fire because they lacked warship armour, and they used local control of guns rather than director
fire-control systems
, which reduced their effective fire power.
A famous AMC of World War I was the British
RMS
Carmania
which, after a battle that caused heavy damage on both sides, sank the German auxiliary cruiser
SMS
Cap Trafalgar
near the Brazilian island of
Trindade
in 1914.
[2]
By coincidence,
Cap Trafalgar
was disguised as
Carmania
. In World War II,
HMS
Jervis Bay
, the sole escort for
convoy HX 84
in November 1940, stood off the
pocket battleship
Admiral Scheer
, when the German ship attacked the convoy. Though she and five vessels of the convoy were sunk, this enabled the rest of the convoy to escape. Her master, Acting Captain
Edward Fegen
was awarded the
Victoria Cross
posthumously for his actions. Another famous action involving an armed merchant cruiser was the November 1939 battle between
HMS
Rawalpindi
and the German
battlecruisers
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
. Outgunned, the
Rawalpindi
was quickly sunk.
Auxiliary cruisers
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The
Spanish
and
United States Navies
used auxiliary cruisers during the
Spanish?American War
of 1898. In
World War I
, too, American auxiliary cruisers fought several engagements with German U-boats.
The German practice was to arm merchantmen with hidden weapons and use them as
commerce raiders
. An auxiliary cruiser,
Hilfskreuzer
or
Handels-Stor-Kreuzer
(HSK), usually approached her target under a false flag with guns concealed, and sometimes with her appearance altered with fake funnels and masts and often a fake paint scheme. The victim was thus engaged at point-blank range and had no chance to escape. In World War I, the
Imperial German Navy
initially used fast passenger ships, such as past holders of the
Blue Riband
for fastest North Atlantic crossings, but they made obvious and easy targets because of their very familiar silhouettes. The Germans, therefore, soon moved on to using captured and refitted
Allied
vessels, but principally modified transport ships. These were slower, but less recognizable. In both world wars, these ships were vulnerable to attack, and were withdrawn before the war ended. Many were sunk after being caught by regular warships ? an unequal battle, since auxiliary cruisers had poor fire control and no armor. There were, however, a few success stories.
Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse
was a former passenger liner that sank two freighters in 1914 before being caught by
HMS
Highflyer
. Her sister ship,
Kronprinz Wilhelm
, had a legendary journey, sinking or capturing a total of 15 ships in 1914 and 1915, before finally running out of supplies and having to put into port in
Virginia
, where the Americans interned her and eventually converted her into the United States Navy troop transport USS
Von Steuben
. The most famous German commerce raider of World War I probably was
Seeadler
, a sailing ship under the command of the legendary Count
Felix von Luckner
. However, both
Wolf
and
Mowe
were each much more successful than
Seeadler
.
In World War II, Nazi Germany's
Kriegsmarine
operated ten very successful auxiliary cruisers, ranging in tonnage from 3,860 to 9,400; typically these vessels were equipped with:
- Observation seaplanes
- 15 cm (6 in) guns
- Smaller armaments (typically hidden away behind specially designed and hinged bulwarks, or beneath fake deckhouses and/or skylights)
- Torpedoes
- Mines
To preserve their cover, these ships flew the flags of neutral or occasionally Allied nations. They were refueled and provisioned from special supply ships, from Japanese island bases or from
prizes
they had taken.
[
citation needed
]
To counter the effectiveness of these disguises, the Allies introduced the
check-mate system
in 1942 to identify individual ships on a one-by-one basis with the
Admiralty
in London.
In one incident, the German
Kormoran
(ex-merchantman
Steiermark
) managed to surprise and sink the Australian
light cruiser
HMAS
Sydney
, which approached too close, though
Kormoran
was also sunk in the engagement. This was the only occasion in history when an armed merchantman managed to sink a modern
warship
; in most cases, auxiliary cruiser raiders tried to avoid confrontation with warships.
Kormoran
'
s attack upon
Sydney
was motivated by desperation.
[
citation needed
]
She was not the most successful German raider of World War II (both
Atlantis
and
Pinguin
scored higher kill tonnages). Another,
Stier
, was also sunk in a mutually destructive engagement with the American
Liberty ship
SS
Stephen Hopkins
.
The only encounters between Allied and Axis auxiliary cruisers in World War II were all with the raider
Thor
. This small vessel, which captured or sank 22 merchantmen, encountered three British AMCs in her career, defeating
RMS
Alcantara
and
HMS
Carnarvon Castle
and later sinking HMS
Voltaire
in the
Action of 4 April 1941
. During World War II, German auxiliary cruisers are believed to have either sunk or captured some 800,000 long tons (812,838 t) of Allied shipping. Compare to the
Q-ship
, which was a disguised merchantman for anti-submarine operations.
Others
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The
CAM ship
(from catapult armed merchantman) was a British merchantman fitted with a catapult that could launch, but not recover, a single fighter aircraft.
The
merchant aircraft carrier
or "MAC" was a British or Dutch cargo ship with a flight deck that could carry a small number of aircraft.
CAM and MAC ships remained as civilian ships operated by civilian crews, with
Fleet Air Arm
or
Royal Netherlands Navy
"air parties".
21st century
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Despite a rise in
modern piracy
, it was up until the early 2010s very unusual for modern merchant ships to be armed, save for maybe a number of
small arms
and the use of the ship's
fire hoses
to repel boarders. One notable exception to this were the ships of
Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited
,
[3]
which are used to transport
spent nuclear fuel
and
reprocessed uranium
on behalf of
British Nuclear Fuels Limited
. Transporting enough
fissile
material between them to produce 50?60 nuclear weapons, these ships, beginning with the
Pacific Pintail
and
Pacific Teal
, became armed in 1999 to avoid the cost of a Royal Navy escort.
[4]
Travelling together in convoy during these ships' intermittent voyages, they have an onboard escort of armed police from the
UKAEAC
and its successors
[5]
and are equipped with two or three 30 mm (1.18 in)
autocannons
.
[6]
Another exception were various ships of the Soviet Union's Merchant Marine (MORFLOT) during the Cold War (MORFLOT often operated as an adjunct to Soviet foreign and military policy, both overtly and otherwise).
In 2007, facing a chronic shortage of naval vessels the Cuban Navy placed into service the
Rio Damuji
class of frigates
, which are large fishing trawlers converted into warships.
In April 2010, it was reported that a Russian company was offering a version of the
3M-54 Klub
missile that could be disguised and launched from a shipping container, in theory enabling any cargo ship to be armed with an anti-ship missile. This type of missile was allegedly capable of disabling or even sinking an aircraft carrier, but "it's not known how many of them would have to hit a carrier to knock it out of action, much less sink it."
[7]
During the
2011 Libyan civil war
, forces loyal to Gaddafi armed several merchant vessels and attempted to use them to blockade the port of
Misrata
.
In October 2011, British Prime Minister
David Cameron
announced that British merchant shipping passing through areas known for
piracy
were permitted to carry firearms.
[8]
Ship list
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Since the late 19th century various navies have used armed merchant ships in the role of
auxiliary cruisers
, also called
armed merchant cruisers
. Significant use of this type of ship was made by Britain and Germany in both World Wars.
Some of the ships used in this role include:
See also
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References
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Citations
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Sources
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- Duffy, James P.,
Hitler's Secret Pirate Fleet
, 2001, Praeger, Westport (Connecticut) and London,
ISBN
0-275-96685-2
- The Oxford Companion to World War II
(2005).
- Alfred von Niezychowski
,
The Cruise of the Kronprinz Wilhelm
, 1928, published by Doubleday.
External links
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