SMS () was an armored cruiser built in the early 1900s for the Imperial German Navy. She was named after the earlier screw corvette , and was the lead ship of her class. was built at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel. Her keel was laid in April 1900, and she was launched in June 1901. Her completion in January 1904 had been delayed by an excess of construction projects at the Imperial Dockyard. She was armed with a main battery of four guns, a significant improvement over the previous armored cruiser, , which carried only two guns. The ship was capable of a top speed of .
Upon commissioning, served as a gunnery training ship, a role she held for the majority of her career. She trained with the Home Fleet, later renamed the High Seas Fleet, throughout the early 1900s, and she made several visits to foreign countries. After the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, she was assigned to the reconnaissance forces in the Baltic and was tasked with protecting the German coast from Russian attacks. After her sister ship was sunk in November 1914, she became the flagship of the cruiser squadron in the Baltic. She conducted operations against Russian forces, including bombarding the port of Libau in support of the German Army. She was torpedoed by a British submarine in July 1915, but was able to return to port and was repaired. She was torpedoed a second time on 23 October 1915; the torpedo detonated her ammunition magazines, rapidly sinking the ship. Only three men were rescued from a crew of 675, in the worst German naval loss in the Baltic during the war.
Design
was one of two cruisers in the ; the other was named . Both were ordered under the Second Naval Law of 1900, which called for a force of fourteen armored cruisers that would be able to serve in Germany's colonial empire and scout for the main German fleet in home waters. The need to fill both roles was the result of budgetary limitations, which prevented Germany from building vessels specialized to each task. The design was based on that of the previous armored cruiser, , but incorporated a more powerful armament and more comprehensive armor protection.
Characteristics
displaced as built and fully loaded. She had an overall length of , a beam of and a draft of forward. She had a raised forecastle deck and a pronounced ram bow. Her superstructure consisted of a small, armored conning tower forward and a larger but unprotected structure further aft that had a small, lightly armored secondary conning position atop it. She was fitted with a pair of short military masts, which stepped down to lighter poles to reduce weight high in the ship. Her crew consisted of 35 officers and 551 enlisted men.
She was powered by three vertical triple-expansion steam engines that drove three screw propellers. Steam was provided by fourteen coal-fired Dürr water-tube boilers, which were vented through three funnels. The engines were rated to produce for a maximum speed of , though she slightly exceeded these figures on speed trials. She carried up to of coal, which enabled a maximum range of up to at a cruising speed of .
was armed with four SK L/40 guns arranged in two twin-gun turrets, one on either end of the superstructure, a significant improvement over , which carried only two guns in single turrets. Her secondary armament consisted of ten 15 cm (5.9 in) guns, which were mounted individually in four single-gun turrets and six casemates. These were clustered amidships, with two turrets and three casemates per broadside. For defense against torpedo boats, she carried a battery of twelve guns, also in individual mounts. She was also equipped with four underwater torpedo tubes, one in the bow, one in the stern, and one on each broadside.
The ship was protected by a armored belt consisting of Krupp cemented armor, along with an armored deck that was thick. Her main battery turrets had faces thick and her forward conning tower had an equal amount of armor on its sides.
Service history
was ordered under the provisional name "B" and built at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel under construction number 27. Her keel was laid in April 1900 and she was launched on 22 June 1901. The launching ceremony was attended by Kaiser Wilhelm II, his wife Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, his brother Admiral Prince Heinrich and Wilhelm's son, Prince Adalbert of Prussia. The ceremony of christening the ship was performed by Princess Irene of Prussia, wife of Prince Heinrich, who then delivered a speech. Fitting-out work proceeded slowly, in large part the result of the Imperial Dockyard attempting to build too many ships at once, but the work was eventually completed by 12 January 1904. was commissioned into the Imperial German Navy the same day for sea trials, with () Hermann Jacobsen in command; the ship was slated for service as a gunnery training ship. reached a maximum speed of on speed tests, though endurance testing had to be stopped early because of a crack in one of the cylinders of her starboard engine. The cylinder was repaired instead of being replaced to allow the ship to enter service as soon as possible, though she was prohibited from deployments abroad. conducted shooting tests to evaluate her armament in February. In March, she was drydocked to remove her central screw, which allowed the ship to conduct experiments to determine if the three-shaft arrangement was actually superior to twin-shaft systems. Using this configuration, she reached only . Sea trials were completed by 30 May, after which began her duties as a gunnery training ship.
In September, the ship took part in the annual autumn maneuvers with the rest of the (). A special training unit consisting of reserve ships, training ships like , and a flotilla of torpedo boats was created in early 1905; was the flagship of the unit from 1905 to 1907, flying the flag of () Hugo Zeye. and the light cruiser escorted the Kaiser's yacht to Sweden for a visit to King Oscar II in July 1905. The following month, she joined the light cruisers and for training maneuvers off Swinemünde; the exercises were to test the ships against a simulated night attack by torpedo boats. The tests were observed by Ludwig Schröder, the Inspector of Naval Weapons, aboard . Wilhelm II boarded for the conclusion of the exercises, in which and towed a pair of old torpedo boats filled with cork in a simulated night attack on . The ship fired on the torpedo boats with live shells while steaming on an opposing course. did not participate in the 1905 autumn maneuvers, though she was present for the naval review at the end of the exercises on 13 September. In February 1906, the tender was assigned to support . From 17 to 28 June, the cruiser served as the flagship of Prince Heinrich, then the commander of the Baltic Sea Naval Station. During this period the ship traveled to Norway to take part in the coronation festivities for King Haakon VII.
The cruiser again took part in the autumn maneuvers in 1907 and 1909. During the latter maneuvers, took part in the Reserve Division, commanded again by Zeye, who had now been promoted to (). The ship served as the flagship of the III Scouting Group, under Johannes Merten, who would go on to command the Ottoman fortifications at the Dardanelles during World War I. In March 1910 and March 1911, conducted gunnery tests in the northern North Sea and visited Tórshavn and Vestmanna in the Faeroe Islands. These included tests with a gyro-stabilized mechanized firing device developed by Petravic, which was effective at improving gun direction in heavy seas and in reducing shell dispersion. She visited Ålesund in Norway in July and August that year. The ship's first period in service came to an end in September, following a large naval review in the Kiel roadstead for Wilhelm II and Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, which began on 5 September. was then decommissioned in Kiel on the 29th, with the armored cruiser taking her place as the fleet's gunnery training ship. After a lengthy overhaul, returned to service on 1 November 1912, again with the artillery school. She was based in Sonderburg, where she replaced the armored cruiser . In 1913, was fitted with an experimental, wooden conning tower to test proposals for the planned battleship .
World War I
1914 At the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, was brought into front-line service with the fleet, having received the mobilization order on 1 August. Andreas Michelsen took command of the ship. She was assigned to the IV Scouting Group, under the command of Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz, though on 12 August, that unit and III Scouting Group exchanged designations. In the meantime, was readied for active service by 4 August; this work included removing the wooden conning tower and loading ammunition. The ship got underway for her first wartime patrol on 17 August in company with the armored cruiser , sailing toward Bornholm. On 26 August, was sent to rescue the light cruiser , which had run aground earlier that day, though she was recalled after the Germans received word that s crew had been forced to scuttle the ship.
was transferred to the North Sea on 7 September and was tasked two days later with protecting the minelaying cruisers and and the auxiliary minelayer while they laid a minefield to protect the southern entrance to the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. The ship was briefly detached to guard the Great Belt after the Germans received false intelligence suggesting that British warships would try to penetrate the Baltic. For the duration of October, remained in port for maintenance to her boilers. She then joined the High Seas Fleet for a sortie into the North Sea on 2–4 November; this operation saw the ships of III Scouting Group screening for the battleships of the High Seas Fleet while the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group conducted a raid on Yarmouth in eastern England. They encountered no enemy forces during the operation. Following her return to port, 's crew resumed work on the ship's boilers, which occupied their time for much of the rest of the month.
After her sister ship was sunk in November 1914, was detached from III Scouting Group to replace her in the Coastal Defense Division in the Baltic on 29 November. She became the flagship for Admiral Ehler Behring, the commander of the cruiser detachment in the Baltic, on 7 December. On the 15th, she sortied with the light cruisers , , , and and several torpedo boats for a reconnaissance sweep toward Åland; the ships returned to port on 18 December without having engaged Russian forces. Another sweep followed on 27–29 December, this time to cover a sortie by the five s of V Battle Squadron toward Gotland.
1915