Konigsberg

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Konigsberg

Post by shipstamps » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:00 pm


A controversial design comes from the Seychelles Islands with a 15c. stamp showing the German cruiser Koenigsberg at Aldabra in 1915. Here the stamp designer has unfortunately made two errors that have immediately raised the comment that the wrong vessel has been depicted on the stamp. The stem and stem of the warship on the stamp are both raked in the wrong direction; the lower parts of both are raking towards the ship instead of outwards from it. Had they been sloping outwards no comment and doubts would have arisen. Now the claim has been made that the wrong Koenigsberg appears on the stamp, a later ship of the name. I have examined the photographs of both warships and apart from the wrong stem and stern angles, I see nothing to quibble about. I am sure the designer meant to show the Koenigsberg laid down in 1905 at the Kiel Yard and completed in 1907. Her dimensions were: length overall 360 ft., at waterline 354ft.; beam 43 ft.; maximum draught, 171/2 ft. and normal displacement, 3,400 tons. She was armed with ten 4.1-in., 40 cal.; eight 3-pdr., 55 cal.; and four machine guns, together with two submerged 17.7 in. torpedo tubes. Machinery consisted of two sets of 4-cylinder triple-expansion engines driving two screws, taking steam from 11 Schulz-Thornycroft boilers. Designed h.p. was 13,200 and speed 25 knots. Normal coal bunkerage was for 400 tons, with a maximum of 850 tons. Costing £319,000 to build, she was engaged as a raiding cruiser in the First World War and after destroying a dozen merchant ships off the East African coast, was eventually trapped and destroyed in shoal waters up the Rufiji River in German East Africa, on July 11, 1915. SG264 SB 71/04

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