The Type 35 was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kriegsmarine to design a fast, ocean-going torpedo boat that did not exceed the 600LT displacement limit of the London Naval Treaty for ships that counted against the national tonnage limit even though Germany was not a signatory to the treaty.[1] The boats displaced 859MT at standard load and 1108MT at deep load, exceeding the planned limit. They had an overall length of 84.3m (276.6feet) and were 82.2m (269.7feet) long at the waterline. After the bow was rebuilt in 1941 to improve seaworthiness, their overall length increased to 87.1m (285.8feet).[2] The Type 35s had a beam of 8.62m (28.28feet), and a mean draft of 2.83m (09.28feet) at deep load. Their crew numbered 119 officers and sailors.[3] Their pair of geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller shaft, were designed to produce 31000shp using steam from four high-pressure water-tube boilers[2] which would propel the boats at 35kn. They carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of 1200nmi at .[4]
As built, the Type 35 class mounted a single SK C/32 gun on the stern. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by a single SK C/30 anti-aircraft gun superfiring over the 10.5 cm gun and a pair of C/30 guns on the bridge wings. They carried six above-water torpedo tubes in two triple mounts and could also carry 30 mines on deck (or 60 if the weather was good). Many boats exchanged the 3.7 cm gun for another 2 cm gun, depth charges and minesweeping paravanes before completion; T3 is only known to have been fitted with paravanes and depth charges before her loss in 1945.[5]
T3 was ordered on 16 November 1935 from Schichau, laid down at their Elbing, East Prussia, shipyard on 14 November 1936[6] as yard number 1382,[2] launched on 23 June 1938 and commissioned on 3 February 1940. In April T3 and her sister ship suffered 400 boiler tube failures when raising steam, causing the formation of a special commission to investigate the high-pressure powerplant in the Type 35s. The investigation revealed that much more steam was required to operate the turbines and the auxiliary machinery than anticipated and that circulation of the boiler feedwater was inadequate. Both ships were to serve as testbeds for the necessary modifications to remedy these issues. The boat was working up until early August when she joined the 2nd Torpedo Boat Flotilla in escorting the replenishment oiler Dithmarschen from Germany to Norway.[7] Now assigned to the 5th Torpedo Boat Flotilla, T3, her sister, and the torpedo boats,,,, and escorted minelayers as they laid a minefield in the southwestern North Sea on 14–15 August. The following month, T3, T2 and Kondor were transferred to the 1st Torpedo Boat Flotilla with the torpedo boat . On 6–7 September they escorted a minelaying mission in the English Channel. After an attack by British aircraft on Le Havre, France, on the evening of 18 September, T3 capsized with the loss of nine crewmen after being hit by a bomb. She was refloated in 1941 and towed to Germany for repairs.[8]
The boat was recommissioned on 12 December 1943 at Danzig (modern Gdańsk), still lacking radar and a reinforced anti-aircraft suite like the later ships of her class, and was assigned to the Torpedo School as a training ship. A year later she was transferred to the 2nd Torpedo Boat Flotilla in the Baltic Sea. Escorted by the 2nd Flotilla (T3, her sisters,, and the torpedo boats and), the heavy cruisers and shelled Soviet positions during the evacuation of Sworbe, on the Estonian island of Saaremaa, between 20 and 24 November. She rammed and sank the on 6 January 1945 when the submarine surfaced 100m (300feet) directly ahead of the torpedo boat. T3s machine gunners opened fire on S-4s conning tower while the torpedo boat reversed her engines to break free from the submarine's hull. S-4 sank bow first with her stern protruding above the water so T3 completed her destruction with a barrage of 20 depth charges. The boat had damaged her bow in the attack and had to return to Gotenhafen (modern Gdynia) for repairs. While escorting a convoy near Hela, East Prussia, T3 and T5 struck mines laid by the Soviet submarine L-21 on 14 March and sank. Including refugees aboard T3, some 300 people died when she sank.[9]