Yugoslav minelayer Zmaj

Zmaj as originally built
Class overview
Name	Zmaj
Operators	Royal Yugoslav Navy  Kriegsmarine
Built	1928–1930
In commission	1931–1944
Completed	1
Lost	1
History
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Name	Zmaj
Namesake	Dragon
Builder	Deutsche Werft, Hamburg, Germany
Laid down	1928
Launched	22 June 1929
Completed	20 August 1930
Commissioned	1931
Reclassified	As minelayer, 1937
Fate	Captured by the Italians on 17 April 1941 and handed over to the Germans soon after
Nazi Germany
Name	Drache
Namesake	Dragon
Acquired	17 April 1941
Renamed	Schiff 50, 6 November 1942
Reclassified	Aircraft rescue ship, 7 August 1941 Troop transport, 27 December 1941 Minelayer, August 1942
Refit	April–August 1942 as minelayer
Fate	Sunk by aircraft, 22 September 1944, and subsequently scrapped
General characteristics
Type	Seaplane tender
Displacement	1,870 t (1,840 long tons)
Length	83 m (272 ft 4 in)
Beam	13 m (42 ft 8 in)
Draft	4 m (13 ft 1 in)
Installed power	3,260 shp (2,430 kW)
Propulsion	2 shafts, 2 MAN diesel engines
Speed	15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Range	4,000 nmi (7,400 km; 4,600 mi)
Complement	145
Armament	2 × single 83.5 mm (3.3 in) AA guns 2 × twin 40 mm (1.6 in) AA guns
Aircraft carried	1 × Seaplane
Aviation facilities	1 × Handling crane

The Yugoslav minelayer Zmaj was built in Weimar Germany for the Royal Yugoslav Navy in the late 1920s. She was built as a seaplane tender, but does not appear to have been much used in that role and was converted to a minelayer in 1937. Shortly before the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 during the Second World War, she laid minefields along the Dalmatian coast, perhaps inadvertently leading to the sinking of two Yugoslav passenger ships. Slightly damaged by Italian dive bombers and then captured by the Italians during the invasion, she was soon handed over to the Germans. While in their service the ship was renamed Drache, had her anti-aircraft (AA) armament improved, and was used as a seaplane tender and later as a troop transport. In the latter role she participated in over a dozen convoys between the Greek port of Piraeus and the Greek island of Crete between December 1941 and March 1942.

The ship was rebuilt as a minelayer in mid-1942, and her AA armament was further improved. Soon after being recommissioned in August, she was renamed Schiff 50 and was used to evaluate the shipboard use of helicopters for anti-submarine warfare and mine reconnaissance. Between mid-March and May 1943 she was deployed as a convoy escort in the Aegean Sea. During this time she was involved in a gun duel with a surfaced British submarine, in which she was damaged and several of her crew members were killed or wounded. She continued to operate as both a troop transport and minelayer, laying several minefields in the Aegean. One minefield she laid in the Dodecanese in 1943 sank one British submarine and two Allied destroyers, and badly damaged a third destroyer. Her AA armament was further enhanced in 1944 but this did not prevent her from being sunk by British aircraft in September while moored in the port of Vathy on the island of Samos. She was scrapped there after the end of World War II.