SMS ("His Majesty's Ship ") was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the of the German (Imperial Navy). She was built by Schichau Seebeckwerft in Danzig. was laid down in October 1899, and was completed October 1902. She and her sister ships—, , and —were the first capital ships built under the Navy Law of 1898. was armed with a main battery of four guns and had a top speed of .
saw service in I Squadron of the German fleet for most of her career, along with her sister ships. She was occupied with extensive annual training, as well as making good-will visits to foreign countries. The training exercises provided the framework for the High Seas Fleet's operations during World War I. The ship was decommissioned in June 1911 as dreadnought battleships began to enter service but was reactivated for duty as a gunnery training ship between December 1911 and mid-1914.
After the start of World War I in August 1914, the -class ships were mobilized and designated IV Battle Squadron. She saw limited duty in the Baltic Sea, but the ship played a minor role in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915, though saw no combat with Russian forces. By late 1915, crew shortages and the threat from British submarines forced the to withdraw older battleships like from active service. For the remainder of the war, served as a training ship for naval cadets and as a depot ship. The ship was stricken from the navy list after the war and sold for scrapping in 1921. Her bell is on display at the in Dresden.
Design
After the German (Imperial Navy) ordered the four s in 1889, a combination of budgetary constraints, opposition in the (Imperial Diet), and a lack of a coherent fleet plan delayed the acquisition of further battleships. The Secretary of the (Imperial Navy Office), (VAdm—Vice Admiral) Friedrich von Hollmann struggled throughout the early and mid-1890s to secure parliamentary approval for the first three s. In June 1897, Hollmann was replaced by (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Alfred von Tirpitz, who quickly proposed and secured approval for the first Naval Law in early 1898. The law authorized the last two ships of the class, as well as the five ships of the , the first class of battleship built under Tirpitz's tenure. The s were broadly similar to the s, carrying the same armament but with a more comprehensive armor layout.
Characteristics
was long overall, with a beam of , and a draft of forward and aft. She displaced as designed and up to at full load. The ship had a large superstructure that included an armored conning tower forward, along with a flush deck. Her hull featured a pronounced ram bow. She had a crew of 30 officers and 650 enlisted men.
The ship was powered by three 3-cylinder vertical triple expansion engines that drove three screws. Steam was provided by six Thornycroft boilers and six cylindrical boilers, all of which burned coal and were vented through a pair of large funnels located amidships. s powerplant was rated at , which generated a top speed of . The ship could steam for at a cruising speed of .
s armament consisted of a main battery of four 24 cm (9.4 in) SK L/40 guns in twin gun turrets, one fore and one aft of the central superstructure. Her secondary armament consisted of eighteen 15 cm (5.9 inch) SK L/40 guns that were mounted in casemates. Six of these were placed in the hull and the other six were in the superstructure, two of which were forward-firing under the forward turret. Close-range defense against torpedo boats was provided by a tertiary battery of twelve 8.8 cm (3.45 in) SK L/30 quick-firing guns and twelve machine cannon in the upper superstructure. The armament suite was rounded out with six torpedo tubes, all submerged in the hull; one was in the bow, another in the stern, and two on each broadside.
The ship was protected with Krupp armor plate. In the central citadel that protected her magazines and propulsion machinery spaces, her armor belt was thick, tapering to toward the bow and stern. Horizontal protection was provided by an armor deck that was thick; it sloped down at the sides and connected to the bottom edge of the belt. The sloped sides increased in thickness to . The main battery turrets had of armor plating on their faces and the secondary casemates received of armor plate. Her conning tower was protected with 250 mm of armor.
Service history Construction – 1905 s keel was laid on 10 October 1899, at the Schichau-Werke in Danzig, under construction number 676. She was ordered under the contract name "D", as a new unit for the fleet. was launched on 6 June 1901. King Albert of Saxony, a member of the House of Wettin, gave a speech at the ceremony. In August 1902, a crew of 60 men took the ship to Kiel for sea trials, which were supervised by KAdm Hunold von Ahlefeld. On 10 August, while at Swinemünde during the trials, Kaiser Wilhelm II reviewed from his yacht . was commissioned on 1 October 1902, the first member of her class to enter service. Further sea trials were completed by January 1903 and she joined I Squadron, replacing the battleship . That year, the squadron was occupied with the normal peacetime routine of individual and unit training. This included a training cruise in the Baltic Sea followed by a voyage to Spain from 7 May to 10 June. In July, she embarked on the annual cruise to Norway with the rest of the squadron. The autumn maneuvers consisted of a blockade exercise in the North Sea, a cruise of the entire fleet to Norwegian waters, and a mock attack on Kiel ending on 12 September. The year's training schedule concluded with a cruise into the eastern Baltic that started on 23 November and a cruise into the Skagerrak that began on 1 December.
and I Squadron participated in an exercise in the Skagerrak from 11 to 21 January 1904 and a further squadron exercise from 8 to 17 March. A major fleet exercise took place in the North Sea in May. In July, I Squadron and I Scouting Group visited Britain, including a stop at Plymouth on 10 July. The German ships sailed for the Netherlands on 13 July. I Squadron anchored in Vlissingen the following day, where they were visited by Queen Wilhelmina. The squadron remained in Vlissingen until 20 July, when it departed for a cruise in the northern North Sea with the rest of the fleet. The squadron stopped in Molde, Norway, on 29 July, while the other units went to other ports. The fleet reassembled on 6 August and steamed back to Kiel, where it conducted a mock attack on the harbor on 12 August. During its cruise in the North Sea, the fleet experimented with wireless telegraphy on a large scale and with searchlights for night communication and recognition signals. Immediately after returning to Kiel, the fleet began preparations for the autumn maneuvers in the Baltic, which began on 29 August. The fleet moved to the North Sea on 3 September and took part in a major landing operation. The ships then embarked IX Corps ground troops that had participated in the exercises, transporting them to Altona for a parade before Wilhelm II. On 6 September, the ships conducted their own parade for the Kaiser off the island of Helgoland. Three days later, the fleet returned to the Baltic via the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, where it participated in further landing operations with IX Corps and the Guards Corps. On 15 September, the maneuvers came to an end. I Squadron went on its winter training cruise, this time to the eastern Baltic from 22 November to 2 December.
took part in training cruises with I Squadron from 9 to 19 January and 27 February to 16 March 1905. was sent to assist her sister ship, , which had run aground in the Great Belt on 3 March. Individual and squadron training followed, with an emphasis on gunnery drills. On 12 July, the fleet began a major training exercise in the North Sea. It then cruised through the Kattegat and stopped at Copenhagen and Stockholm. The summer cruise ended on 9 August. The autumn maneuvers would normally have followed shortly thereafter but were delayed by a visit from the British Channel Fleet that month. The British fleet stopped in Danzig, Swinemünde, and Flensburg, where it was greeted by units of the German Navy. and the main German fleet were anchored at Swinemünde for the occasion. The visit was strained by the Anglo-German naval arms race, and the 1905 autumn maneuvers were shortened considerably, to just a week of exercises in the North Sea in early September. The first exercise presumed a naval blockade in the German Bight; the second envisioned a hostile fleet attempting to force the defenses of the Elbe. In October, I Squadron went on a cruise in the Baltic. In early December, I and II Squadrons went on their regular winter cruise, this time to Danzig, where they arrived on 12 December. On the return trip to Kiel, the fleet conducted tactical exercises.
1906–1914 The fleet undertook a heavier training schedule in 1906 than in previous years. The ships were occupied with individual, division and squadron exercises throughout April. Starting on 13 May, major fleet exercises took place in the North Sea and lasted until 8 June, with a cruise around the Skagen into the Baltic. The fleet began its usual summer cruise to Norway in mid-July and was present for the birthday of Norwegian King, Haakon VII, on 3 August. The German ships departed the following day for Helgoland, to join exercises being conducted there. The fleet was back in Kiel by 15 August, where preparations for the autumn maneuvers began. Between 22 and 24 August, the fleet took part in landing exercises in Eckernförde Bay, outside Kiel. The maneuvers were paused on 31 August, when the fleet hosted vessels from Denmark and Sweden, which departed on 3 September. That same day, a Russian squadron visited in Kiel, remaining there until 9 September. The maneuvers resumed on 8 September and lasted five more days.
The ship participated in the uneventful winter cruise into the Kattegat and Skagerrak from 8 to 16 December. The first quarter of 1907 followed the previous pattern. On 16 February, the Active Battle Fleet was re-designated the High Seas Fleet. From the end of May to early June, the fleet went on its summer cruise in the North Sea, returning to the Baltic via the Kattegat. This was followed by the regular cruise to Norway from 12 July to 10 August. During the autumn maneuvers from 26 August to 6 September, the fleet conducted landing exercises in northern Schleswig with IX Corps. The winter training cruise went into the Kattegat from 22 to 30 November. In May 1908, the fleet went on a major cruise into the Atlantic instead of its normal voyage in the North Sea. Stops included Horta, in the Azores. The fleet returned to Kiel on 13 August to prepare for the autumn maneuvers lasting from 27 August to 7 September. Division exercises in the Baltic followed from 7 to 13 September. In early 1909, was rammed by the battleship . She was not damaged in the accident and was able to continue training that year. During the annual maneuvers, won the Kaiser's (Shooting Prize) for the best accuracy with her main battery among I Squadron ships. The year 1910 passed uneventfully for with a similar routine of training, exercises, and cruises as in previous years.
By the time of the training exercises conducted in April, May, and June 1911, was the oldest battleship still in front-line service with the fleet. On 30 June her place in the squadron was taken by the new dreadnought battleship . was reactivated on 1 December to replace her sister ship , which needed a major overhaul after service as the fleet's gunnery training ship. In March and April 1912, , the armored cruiser , and the light cruisers and were temporarily transferred from the artillery school to the Training Squadron. In August, was transferred from the artillery school to III Squadron where she took part in the annual fleet maneuvers.
World War I