S90

S90-Class Torpedo Boats (Destroyers) were built for the German Imperial Navy during the years of 1898 to 1907. S90's were classed as large torpedo boats but, despite their lighter guns, really the equivalent of contemporary foreign destroyers. There were 48 of these ships completed.

S90 Class Torpedo Boats served between the years of 1899 to 1921.

Preceded by:  SMS D10

Succeeded by: S138 class

S90 Class Torpedo Boats were built to ten different designs over the period 1898 to 1907. Thus they varied in dimensions, and they gradually increased in size as more of them were built.  

Four torpedo-boats of the 7th Half-Flotilla (S119 (leader), S115, S117 and S118) set out from the Ems on 17 October 1914, with these elderly ships selected for this mission because they were unfit for other duties and considered disposable. Later that day, the four torpedo boats ran into a British patrol on the Broad Fourteens off Terschelling in the Netherlands. The British patrol, the light cruiser Undaunted and four destroyers Lance, Legion, Lennox and Loyal of the Harwich Force, engaged the four German torpedo boats in the Battle off Texel. The German ships were unable to escape (although originally capable of 28 knots by 1914 they were only capable of 18 knots and were heavily outgunned, with all four German ships sunk with little damage being done to the British ships. S115 was heavily damaged by Lance and Lennox, with survivors abandoning ship, before being finished off by Undaunted.