SMS was the second vessel of the of dreadnought battleships of the German Imperial Navy. s keel was laid on 26 January 1910 at the AG Vulcan dockyard in Hamburg, her hull was launched on 10 June 1911, and she was commissioned into the fleet on 15 October 1912. The ship was equipped with ten guns in five twin turrets, and had a top speed of . was assigned to III Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of World War I, and served as fleet flagship from her commissioning until 1917.
Along with her four sister ships, , , , and , participated in all the major fleet operations of World War I, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916. Toward the center of the German line, was not as heavily engaged as the leading German ships, such as the battleships and and the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group— emerged from the battle completely unscathed. In 1917, the new battleship replaced as the fleet flagship.
After Germany's defeat in the war and the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, and most of the capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were interned by the British Royal Navy in Scapa Flow. The ships were disarmed and reduced to skeleton crews while the Allied powers negotiated the final version of the Treaty of Versailles. On 21 June 1919, days before the treaty was signed, the commander of the interned fleet, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, ordered the fleet to be scuttled to ensure that the British would not be able to seize the ships. was raised in 1936 and broken up for scrap metal. Her bell was returned to Germany in 1965 and is now located at the Fleet Headquarters in Glücksburg.
Design
The German 1909 construction program included the last two members of the s, along with two additional dreadnoughts to be built to a new design. The primary change was intended to be the adoption of steam turbines in favor of triple-expansion steam engines used in the earlier vessels. The space savings of turbines permitted a more efficient superfiring arrangement of the main battery, along the same model as the s. The new ships' armor layout was significant improved over earlier designs; the Kaiser class was also far superior in defensive characteristics to their British counterparts of the and es, even if markedly inferior in terms of firepower.
Characteristics
was long overall and displaced a maximum of at full load. The ship had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft. The ship had an inverted bow and a long forecastle deck that extended for two-thirds the length of the hull. Her superstructure was fairly minimal, consisting primarily of a short, armored conning tower forward and a smaller, secondary conning tower aft. was fitted with a pair of pole masts for observation and signaling purposes. She had a crew of 41 officers and 1,043 enlisted men.
She was powered by three sets of AEG Curtis turbines, which drove three screw propellers. The turbines were supplied with steam by sixteen coal-fired water-tube boilers that were vented through a pair of widely spaced funnels. On trials, the powerplant produced a top speed of . She carried of coal, which enabled a maximum range of at a cruising speed of .
The ship was armed with a main battery of ten 30.5 cm SK L/50 guns in five twin turrets. She disposed with the inefficient hexagonal turret arrangement of previous German battleships; instead, three of the five turrets were mounted on the centerline, with two of them arranged in a superfiring pair aft. The other two turrets were placed en echelon amidships, such that both could fire on the broadside. The ship was also armed with a secondary battery of fourteen SK L/45 guns in casemates amidships. For close-range defense against torpedo boats, she carried eight SK L/45 guns in casemates. The ship was also armed with four 8.8 cm L/45 anti-aircraft guns. Her armament was rounded out by five torpedo tubes, all mounted in the ship's hull; one was in the bow, and the other four were on the broadside.
Her main armored belt was thick in the central citadel, and was composed of Krupp cemented armor (KCA). Her main battery gun turrets were protected by of KCA on the sides and faces. s conning tower was heavily armored, with sides. As with the other four ships in her class, carried anti-torpedo nets until after the Battle of Jutland in 1916.
Service history
Ordered under the contract name as a replacement for the obsolete coastal defense ship , was laid down at the AG Vulcan dockyard in Hamburg on 26 January 1910. She was launched on 10 June 1911, after which AG Vulcan conducted builder's trials. At her launching ceremony, Princess Alexandra Victoria performed the christening and Field Marshal Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz gave a speech. She was then transferred to Wilhelmshaven and commissioned into the fleet on 15 October 1912. Exercises in the Baltic Sea followed; then went to Kiel for final fitting-out work. On 22 January 1913, the ship was finally ready for active service.
After her commissioning in January 1913, conducted sea trials before becoming the fleet flagship on 2 March, replacing . The ship participated in her first round of fleet maneuvers in February 1913, which were conducted in the Kattegat and the North Sea. The next month saw another round of exercises, from 12 to 14 March. The ship went into dock for periodic maintenance in April, and was ready for artillery training by the end of the month. Extensive fleet maneuvers were conducted in the North Sea from 5 to 27 May. , as the Navy's newest battleship, was sent to Kiel for Kiel Week in June. While there, she was visited by the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III and his wife Elena. In mid-July, the fleet conducted its annual summer cruise to Norway, which lasted until mid-August. During the cruise, visited Balholmen, Norway. The autumn maneuvers followed after the fleet returned; they lasted from 31 August to 9 September. Unit drills and individual ship training were conducted in October and November.
In early 1914, participated in additional ship and unit training. The annual spring maneuvers were conducted in the North Sea at the end of March. Further fleet exercises followed in April and May in the Baltic and North Seas. The ship again went to Kiel Week that year. Despite the rising international tensions following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June, the High Seas Fleet began its summer cruise to Norway on 13 July. During the last peacetime cruise of the Imperial Navy, the fleet conducted drills off Skagen before proceeding to the Norwegian fjords on 25 July. The following day the fleet began to steam back to Germany, as a result of Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia. On the 27th, the entire fleet assembled off Cape Skudenes before returning to port, where they remained at a heightened state of readiness. War between Austria-Hungary and Serbia broke out the following day, and in the span of a week all of the major European powers had joined the conflict.
World War I The High Seas Fleet, including , conducted a number of sweeps and advances into the North Sea. The first occurred on 2–3 November 1914, though no British forces were encountered. Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, the commander of the High Seas Fleet, adopted a strategy in which the battlecruisers of (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Franz von Hipper's I Scouting Group raided British coastal towns to lure out portions of the Grand Fleet where they could be destroyed by the High Seas Fleet. The raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on 15–16 December 1914 was the first such operation. On the evening of 15 December, the German battle fleet of some twelve dreadnoughts—including and her four sisters—and eight pre-dreadnoughts came to within of an isolated squadron of six British battleships. Skirmishes between the rival destroyer screens in the darkness convinced Ingenohl that he was faced with the entire Grand Fleet. Under orders from Kaiser Wilhelm II to avoid risking the fleet unnecessarily, Ingenohl broke off the engagement and turned the battle fleet back toward Germany.
Following the loss of at the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, the Kaiser removed Ingenohl from his post on 2 February. Admiral Hugo von Pohl replaced him as commander of the fleet. Pohl conducted a series of fleet advances in 1915 in which took part; in the first one on 29–30 March, the fleet steamed out to the north of Terschelling and return without incident. Another followed on 17–18 April, where and the rest of the fleet covered a mining operation by II Scouting Group. Three days later, on 21–22 April, the High Seas Fleet advanced toward Dogger Bank, though again failed to meet any British forces.
II Scouting Group performed another minelaying operation on 17–18 May, and and the rest of the fleet steamed out in support. Less than two weeks later on 29–30 May, the fleet attempted to conduct a sweep in the North Sea, but inclement weather forced Pohl to cancel the operation some off Schiermonnikoog. The fleet remained in port until 10 August, when it sortied to Helgoland to cover the return of the auxiliary cruiser . A month later, on 11–12 September, the fleet covered another mine-laying operation off the Swarte Bank. The last operation of the year, conducted on 23–24 October, was an advance without result in the direction of Horns Reef.
On 11 January 1916, (VAdm—Vice Admiral) Reinhard Scheer replaced Pohl, who was suffering from liver cancer. A week later on the 18th, Scheer hoisted his flag aboard . Scheer proposed a more aggressive policy designed to force a confrontation with the British Grand Fleet; he received approval from the Kaiser in February. The first of Scheer's operations was conducted the following month, on 5–7 March, with an uneventful sweep of the Hoofden. On 25–26 March, Scheer attempted to attack British forces that had raided Tondern, but failed to locate them. Another advance to Horns Reef followed on 21–22 April.
On 24 April, the battlecruisers of Hipper's I Scouting Group conducted a raid on the English coast. and the rest of the fleet sailed in distant support. The battlecruiser struck a mine while en route to the target, and had to withdraw. The other battlecruisers bombarded the town of Lowestoft unopposed but, during the approach to Yarmouth, they encountered the British cruisers of the Harwich Force. A short artillery duel ensued before the Harwich Force withdrew. Reports of British submarines in the area prompted the retreat of I Scouting Group. At this point, Scheer, who had been warned of the sortie of the Grand Fleet from its base in Scapa Flow, also withdrew to safer German waters.
Battle of Jutland
Soon after the Lowestoft raid, Scheer began planning another foray into the North Sea. He had initially intended to launch the operation in mid-May, by which time the mine damage to was scheduled to be repaired—Scheer was unwilling to embark on a major raid without his battlecruiser forces at full strength. On 9 May, several battleships developed problems with their engines, which delayed the operation further, to 23 May. By 22 May, was still not fully repaired and the operation was again postponed, to 29 May. At noon on 29 May, the repairs to were finally completed, and the ship returned to I Scouting Group. The plan called for Hipper's battlecruisers to steam north to the Skagerrak, with the intention of luring out a portion of the British fleet so it could be destroyed by Scheer's waiting battleships.