German ocean-going torpedo boats and destroyers of World War I  The German large, or ocean-going, torpedo boats and destroyers of World War I were built by the Imperial German Navy between 1899 and 1918 as part of its quest for a “High Seas” or ocean-going fleet. At the start of the First World War Germany had 132 such ships, and ordered a further 216 during the conflict, 112 of which were actually completed. Of these, 55 were lost during the war, 50 were interned on 23 November 1918 under the terms of the Armistice, and subsequently scuttled at Scapa Flow on 21 June 1919. Of the survivors, 32 were included in the post-war Germany navy (some surviving to see service as auxiliaries in the Second World War), 36 were surrendered to Allied powers in 1920, and the remainder were scrapped in 1921. Officially they were called "large torpedo-boats" ("Große Torpedoboote") or "ocean-going torpedo-boats" ("Hochseetorpedoboote"), they were in many ways the equivalent of the contemporary destroyers in other navies (and were often referred to as such by their crews). The Imperial German Navy also had a number of vessels officially designated "destroyers" ("Zerstörer"), but numbered sequentially as torpedo-boats. These were, primarily, vessels under construction for foreign navies and taken over at the outbreak of the First World War. The first German Naval Law of 1898 legislated the construction of an ocean-going battle fleet by Imperial Germany. To accompany the squadrons of battleships and cruisers, the law called for the construction of flotillas of considerably larger, better armed and more seaworthy than the previous torpedo boats built by Germany. Although they were initially given numbers in the same series as the smaller torpedo-boats, they were separated in 1911, with the large torpedo boats numbered from SMS "V1", and the older vessels re-numbered with a 'T-'prefix. During the next 20 years a total of 336 such vessels were ordered for the German navy; these vessels are listed in this article. The German Navy's strength during the years prior to the outbreak of the First World War was mandated by a series of acts of the Reichstag, which prescribed the numbers of ships constituting the fleet, as well as age at which these ships should be replaced. The original 1898 Naval Law called for a force 19 Battleships (in two battle squadrons), 8 Armored Coastal Defense Vessels (forming a third battle squadron), 12 large and 30 small cruisers, supported by six flotillas of Ocean-going torpedo boats (two flotillas each for the three battle squadrons).