Armed merchantmen

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Armed Merchantmen has come to mean merchant ships taken over by their nation's navies, equipped with guns, and then used for military purposes. However in the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in long distance and high value trade. The most famous of this type were the East Indiamen which were known to be able to defeat regular warships in battle.

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These were used in both World Wars by both Germany and the United Kingdom. Whilst the British used armed passenger liners for protecting their shipping, the German approach was to use them to attack enemy shipping.

The Armed Merchant Cruisers (AMC) of the British Navy were employed for convoy protection against enemy warships. They were found to be of limited usefulness because they lacked the armour and ranging systems of a warship, and many were converted into troopships.

One famous AMC of World War I was the British RMS Carmania which, after a heated battle which caused heavy damage on both sides, succeeding in sinking the German auxiliary cruiser Cap Trafalgar near the Brazilian island of Trinidade in 1914.[1]

The German practice was to arm merchantmen with hidden weapons and use them as commerce raiders. An auxiliary cruiser - Hilfskreuzer or Handels-Stör-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 job. The victim was thus engaged at point-blank range and had no chance to escape. In the First World War, 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 only modified transport ships. These were slower but less recognizable. In both world wars, these ships were found to be vulnerable to attack, and were withdrawn before the war ended.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. The Kaiser Wilhelm der Große was a former passenger liner that sank two freighters in 1914 before being caught by HMS Highflyer. Her sister ship, the 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 she was interned by the Americans and eventually converted into a US Navy troop transport (as the renamed USS Von Steuben). The most famous German commerce raider of WWI probably was SMS Seeadler, a sailing ship commanded by the legendary Count Luckner.

The concept was revived in the Second World War. 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 the Kormoran herself 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 detection.

In World War II, the German Navy operated ten very successful auxiliary cruisers which ranged in tonnage from 3,860 - 9,400; typically these vessels were equipped with:

  • Floatplanes
  • 15 cm 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 re-fuelled and provisioned by special supply ships and from Japanese island bases, or they simply reprovisioned themselves from prizes they had taken.

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.

During World War II German auxiliary cruisers are believed to have either sunk or captured some 800,000 tons of Allied shipping.

Compare to the Q-ship, which was a disguised merchantman for anti-submarine operations.

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".

Note: This listing is incomplete.

Note: This listing is incomplete.
Royal Navy

French Navy

The Armed merchant cruisers were made by requisitioning whatever ships seemed useful and then providing them with guns and other equipment. They ranged from 6,000 tons to 22,000 tons. The armament varied but six 6-inch (152 mm) guns with 3-inch (76 mm) guns as secondary was usual. From 1941 many served as troopships.

Royal Australian Navy

Royal New Zealand Navy

Royal Canadian Navy

Royal Navy

Marine Nationale French auxiliary Cruisers were armed with 138 mm, 152 mm or 150 mm guns, 75 and 37 mm AA guns and 13,2 mm or 8 mm AA HMG

At the outbreak of war, the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) requisitioned a number of fast merchantmen and immediately sent them into naval shipyards. These ships had been built with extra strong decks to facilitate the installation of military equipment, but this was the only difference between them and other merchantmen of the period. Indeed, no precise plans had been drawn up for the conversion of these ships into warships, and consequently the conversion process was painfully long. Compared to the diversity of British auxiliary cruisers, the Hilfskreuzer were standardized insofar as possible. The ships themselves averaged approximately 7,000 tons. Armament usually consisted of six 15 cm (5.9") guns, between two and six torpedo tubes, and an assortment of 40 mm, 37 mm, and 20 mm automatic weapons. Most raiders carried an Arado Ar-196 seaplane for reconnaissance. Kormoran, Komet, and Michel were also equipped with small motor torpedo boats. In addition to armament, increased fuel, water, and coal storage had to be provided for as well. Furthermore, the raiders could not abandon the crews of their captures, so space had to be provided for prisoners. The first Hilfskreuzer got under way in March 1940, shortly before the Norwegian campaign.

See Japanese raiders in Indian Ocean Campaign and List of Japanese Auxiliary Cruiser Commerce Raiders.

Japan converted fourteen merchant ships to "armed merchant cruisers." But, by the end of 1943, five had been sunk and seven had been reconverted to merchant ships.

Unlike the Germans and the Japanese, none of the armed merchant cruisers of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) managed to sink any Allied merchant ships.

  • Ramb I (lost on 27 February 1941)
  • Ramb II (chartered by the Japanese as the Calitea II and lost 12 January 1945)
  • Ramb III - Converted into an escort vessel and never served as an armed merchant cruiser
  • Ramb IV - Converted into a hospital ship and never served as an armed merchant cruiser
  • Eritrea - Never served as an armed merchant cruiser

  • The Oxford Companion to World War II (2005) ISBN -X
  • Alfred Niezychowski, The Cruise of the Kronprinz Wilhelm, 1928, published by Doubleday

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_merchantmen"
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