 Right elevation and plan of the Type 23
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
  Germany | |
| Name | Kondor |
| Namesake | Condor |
| Builder | Reichsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven |
| Yard number | 106 |
| Laid down | 17 November 1925 |
| Launched | 22 September 1926 |
| Commissioned | 15 July 1928 |
| Decommissioned | 28 June 1944 |
| Fate | Constructive total loss, 31 July or 2 August 1944 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Class and type | Type 23 torpedo boat |
| Displacement | |
| Length | 87.7 m (287 ft 9 in) (o/a) |
| Beam | 8.25 m (27 ft 1 in) |
| Draft | 3.65 m (12 ft) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | 2 × shafts; 2 × geared steam turbine sets |
| Speed | 32–34 knots (59–63 km/h; 37–39 mph) |
| Range | 1,800 nmi (3,300 km; 2,100 mi) at 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph) |
| Complement | 120 |
| Armament |
|
Kondor was the fifth of six Type 23 torpedo boats built for the German Navy (initially called the Reichsmarine and then renamed as the Kriegsmarine in 1935). The boat made multiple non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. During World War II, she played a minor role in the attack on Oslo, the capital of Norway, during the Norwegian Campaign of 1940. Kondor spent the next several months escorting minelayers as they laid minefields and damaged heavy ships back to Germany before she was transferred to France around September. She started laying minefields herself that month and continued to do so for the rest of the war. The boat returned to France in 1942 and helped to escort blockade runners, commerce raiders and submarines through the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay. Damaged by a mine shortly before the Allied Invasion of Normandy in June 1944, Kondor was under repair on the day of the landings. Recognizing that she could not be repaired quickly, the boat was decommissioned later that month and was then further damaged by British bombers so that she was declared a constructive total loss.