The class was a class of armored cruisers built by the German (Imperial Navy). The ships were the culmination of a series of designs that began with the cruiser . The class comprised two ships, and , which were built between 1904 and 1908. They were about 20% larger than the s that preceded them. The increase in size permitted an increase in the main armament of 21 cm (8.2 inch) guns from four to eight and to improve armor protection and raise top speed. As a result of these changes, historians have assessed the class to be the first German armored cruiser design to reach equality with their foreign counterparts.
After briefly serving in home waters, and were assigned to the East Asia Squadron in 1909 and 1910, respectively. relieved the old armored cruiser as the squadron flagship. While in East Asia, the two -class cruisers patrolled the region to protect German interests, including during the Xinhai Revolution in China.
Both ships had short careers; after the outbreak of World War I, they departed East Asia and crossed the Pacific with the rest of the East Asia Squadron in an attempt to return home, bombarding the French town of Papeete on the way. After arriving off the coast of South America, the ships destroyed a British force at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November 1914 and inflicted upon the Royal Navy its first major defeat in a century. The defeat spurred the British to send superior forces to hunt down and destroy the East Asia Squadron. Most of the squadron, including both -class ships, was annihilated at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December.
Design
The Second Naval Law in Germany, passed in 1900, projected a force of fourteen armored cruisers for both overseas service in Germany's colonial empire and as scouts for the main battle fleet in German waters. The naval expansion program was primarily directed against the British Royal Navy, then the world's preeminent naval force. Germany's armored cruiser force followed a series of iterative developments based on the cruiser and continued through the and es; the class represented the culmination of that evolutionary development.
During the design process for the class, the of the Imperial Naval Office issued a request that the new cruisers be capable of fighting in the line of battle in the event that German battleships were damaged and unable to continue fighting. Up to this point, this had not been a consideration in German armored cruiser construction, and so a significant increase in both firepower and armor protection was required to accommodate it. Additionally, firing tests at the Meppen range demonstrated that the belt armor of earlier German armored cruisers could not defeat medium-caliber shells at expected battle ranges. The necessary improvements to meet the General Department's requirements in turn meant much larger ships, and the s were accordingly about heavier than the preceding -class cruisers, amounting to a 20% increase in displacement.
The weight increase secured a doubling of the number of main battery guns, a 50% increase in belt armor, and an increase in top speed by more than a knot over the class. The speed increase was achieved by the addition of two boilers that provided more power for the propulsion system. Several other minor changes were introduced, including a strengthening of the tertiary battery of guns to the number of weapons used in contemporary battleships like the . The design staff considered adding a pair of these guns to the conning tower roof abreast of the bridge, but experience with the same arrangement on the s demonstrated the excessive blast effect interfered with control of the ships, and the idea was dropped from the design.
As a result of these improvements, the two -class ships— and —were the first German armored cruisers to compare favorably to its foreign counterparts, according to the historian Aidan Dodson. According to the naval historian Hugh Lyon, speaking on all of the armored cruisers built in Germany in the early 1900s, "when compared to their British contemporaries they do not show up particularly well, in fact, with the possible exception of the last pair, and , it is probably true to say that the armored cruisers were Germany's worst designed and least battleworthy ships in service in 1905."
General characteristics
The ships of the class were long overall, and long at the waterline. They had a beam of , a draft of , and displaced standard, and at full load. The ships' hulls were constructed of transverse and longitudinal steel frames, over which the outer hull plating was riveted. The vessels had 15 watertight compartments and a double bottom that ran for 50% of the length of the hull. Their hulls featured a pronounced ram bow and a whaleback-type forecastle. The upper deck extended from the forecastle up to the aft gun turret, where it stepped down to main deck level. The ships had a fairly minimal superstructure, consisting primarily of an armored conning tower forward, along with an open bridge, and a smaller, secondary conning tower aft. Both ships were fitted with a pair of heavy military masts.
Like the preceding classes of armored cruisers, and were good sea boats, and their design further improved on their seaworthiness. They also maneuvered well and were responsive to the helm; steering was controlled with a single rudder. With the rudder turned to its maximum extent, the ships lost up to 60 percent of their speed, which was consistent with the previous German armored cruisers. The ships' design placed the casemates for the secondary battery too low, and as a result, they were exceedingly wet, which rendered them impossible to use in heavy seas.
The ships had a standard crew of 38 officers and 726 enlisted men. When served as a squadron flagship, she had a larger crew, including an additional 14 officers and 62 men of the commanding admiral's staff. , when serving as the squadron deputy commander flagship, had an extra staff of 3 officers and 25 men. The ships carried a number of smaller vessels: two picket boats, two launches, one pinnace, two cutters, three yawls, and one dinghy. The cruisers carried a pair of large cranes amidships to handle the boats.
Propulsion machinery The -class ships used the same powerplant as in the preceding class: three 3-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines. Each engine drove a single propeller; the one on the center shaft on was in diameter while the outer two were wide. s screws were slightly smaller, at wide on the center shaft and on the outer pair. The triple expansion engines were supplied with steam by 18 coal-fired marine-type water-tube boilers with 36 fireboxes. The boilers were divided into five boiler rooms and were vented through four funnels located amidships.
The engines were designed to provide , though on trials they achieved higher figures— for and for . The ships were rated at a top speed of , though on trials steamed at a maximum of , while ran at . The vessels carried of coal normally, though they were capable of storing up to of coal. This provided a range of at a cruising speed of . When the ships decreased speed slightly to , the range increased to . The vessels' electrical plant consisted of four turbo-generators that delivered 260 kilowatts at 110 volts.
Armament
The ships' main battery armament consisted of eight SK L/40 guns, four in twin gun turrets, one fore and one aft of the main superstructure on the centerline, and the remaining four were mounted in single casemates located amidships. The turrets were the C/01 type, which was hydraulically operated, and the mounts provided a range of elevation from −5 to +30 degrees. The casemates used electric motors to train the guns, but elevation was hand-operated. These guns fired a armor-piercing shell at a muzzle velocity of . The turrets had a maximum range of , while the casemates could only engage targets out to . The guns were supplied with 700 rounds in total.
The secondary armament included six SK L/40 guns in individual casemates. These guns fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of . They could be elevated to 30 degrees, which provided a maximum range of . For close-range defense against torpedo boats, the ships carried a tertiary battery of eighteen 8.8 cm SK L/35 guns, which were mounted in individual casemates and pivot mounts in the superstructure. The 8.8 cm guns fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of . These guns had a maximum elevation of 25 degrees and a range of .
As was customary for warships of the period, the -class ships were equipped with four submerged torpedo tubes. One was mounted in the bow, one on each broadside, and the fourth was placed in the stern. The ships were supplied with a total of eleven torpedoes. The C/03 torpedo carried a warhead and had a range of when set at a speed of and at .
Armor The ships of the class were protected by Krupp cemented armor, which was the typical choice for German warships of the period. They had an armor belt that was thick in the central portion of the ship, extending from abreast the forward conning tower to just aft of the rear conning tower, where the propulsion machinery areas were located. This was a significant increase in thickness over earlier German armored cruisers. The belt decreased to on either end of the central citadel; the thinner belt extended all the way to the bow and almost completely to the stern, the extreme end of which was not armored. The entire belt was backed with teak planking. The main armored deck ranged in thickness from over critical areas to elsewhere. The deck sloped down to connect to the belt at its lower edge to provide additional resistance to incoming fire; this portion was between thick.
The forward conning tower had thick sides and a thick roof. The rear conning tower was less well-armored, with sides that were only thick and a roof that was thick. The main battery gun turrets had thick sides and thick roofs, while the amidships guns were protected with thick gun shields and thick roofs. The barbettes that supported the turrets were thick. The 15 cm battery was protected by a strake of armor that was thick, while the guns themselves were protected with thick shields.
Ships
+ Construction data Name Builder Namesake Laid down Launched Commissioned Blohm & Voss, HamburgGerhard von Scharnhorst22 March 190523 March 190624 October 1907 AG Weser, BremenAugust Neidhardt von Gneisenau28 December 190414 June 19066 March 1908
Service history Upon commissioning, both ships of the class served with the reconnaissance force of the High Seas Fleet, briefly serving as the flagship of I Scouting Group from mid-1908 to early 1909. During this period, they conducted routine training exercises, went on cruises with the rest of the fleet, and escorted Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht on visits abroad. This included a major fleet cruise into the Atlantic Ocean in mid-1908. Early that year, was badly damaged after she ran aground, necessitating significant repairs.
In early 1909, was assigned to the East Asia Squadron, and joined her there in 1910. served as the squadron flagship upon arriving in East Asia, replacing the older armored cruiser . Over the following four years, the two ships cruised through the region, visiting numerous foreign ports and representing German interests. In 1911, they both moved to China to protect German nationals during the Xinhai Revolution, but no attacks from the warring parties in China materialized. and were regarded as hosting well-trained crews; both ships won awards for their excellence at gunnery. By 1914, the squadron was commanded by Admiral Maximilian von Spee.
World War I