NMS Trotușul

NMS Trotușul was a small torpedo boat of the Romanian Navy. Along with her three sister ships, she saw service in both world wars, being the most successful vessel in her class. The four boats were in service for at least 50 years.

Construction and specifications
Trotușul was a vessel of the Vedea-class, a group of small torpedo boats built in Germany for the Romanian Navy in 1894. The class consisted of four boats: Vedea, Argeșul, Trotușul and Teleorman. They were referred to as șalupe torpiloare (torpedo motorboats) by their Romanian owners. Along with her sisters, Trotușul was built at Schichau-Werke, having a displacement of 30 tons, measuring 20 meters in length, with a beam of 3 meters and a draught of 1.5 meters. Each boat had a crew of 16 and a top speed of 10 knots. Armament consisted of one 37 mm Hotchkiss revolving gun, one machine gun and two spar torpedoes. During World War II, the four boats were numbered 31 to 34 (thus Trotușul was number 33), being simply referred to as șalupe (motorboats). However, they were in fact small versatile gunboats, each carrying 6 depth charges for anti-submarine warfare, as well as being armed with one 20 mm anti-aircraft gun and one 8 mm machine gun. They were also employed as minesweepers.

World War I
Trotușul during World War I was commanded by Lieutenant Aschinger Bruno. Along with the Romanian monitor Mihail Kogălniceanu, she carried out the last action of the Romanian Navy during the war, which took place after Romania re-declared war on the Central Powers on 10 November 1918. In the morning of 11 November, three hours before the Allied Armistice with Germany was signed, the monitor and the torpedo boat occupied the port of Brăila, after the Germans retreated from the city. The two Romanian warships captured 77 assorted German vessels abandoned in the city's port (barges, tankers, tugs, floating cranes, motorboats).

World War II
Very little is known about the career of the Vedea-class in the Second World War. During the first month of Operation Barbarossa, as part of the prelude to Operation München, Trotușul and one of her sisters supported the Romanian 15th Marine Infantry Battalion in its successful defense of the Stipoc Island in the Danube Delta against Soviet attacks.

The ultimate fate of the Vedea-class is unknown, but they were most likely scrapped after the war, due to their age.