SMS was a light cruiser of the German Kaiserliche Marine. Her class included three other ships: , , and . She was built at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen from 1910 to December 1912, when she was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet. The ship was armed with a main battery of twelve 10.5 cm SK L/45 guns and had a top speed of .
was assigned to the reconnaissance forces of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of her career. She saw significant action in the early years of World War I, including several operations off the British coast and the Battles of Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank, in August 1914 and November 1915, respectively. She was not damaged in either action. The ship was in dockyard hands during the Battle of Jutland, and so she missed the engagement. After the end of the war, she served briefly in the before being surrendered to the Allies. She was ceded to the French Navy, where she served as until 1925. She was formally stricken in 1933 and broken up for scrap two years later.
Design
The s were designed in response to the development of the British s, which were faster than all existing German light cruisers. As a result, speed of the new ships had to be increased. To accomplish this, more powerful engines were fitted and their hulls were lengthened to improve their hydrodynamic efficiency. These changes increased top speed from over the preceding s. To save weight, longitudinal framing was adopted for the first time in a major German warship design. In addition, the s were the first cruisers to carry belt armor, which was necessitated by the adoption of more powerful guns in the latest British cruisers.
was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced normally and up to at full load. The ship had a short forecastle deck and a minimal superstructure that consisted primarily of a conning tower located on the forecastle. She was fitted with two pole masts with platforms for searchlights. had a crew of 18 officers and 336 enlisted men.
Her propulsion system consisted of three sets of Bergmann steam turbines driving three screw propellers. These were powered by sixteen coal-fired Marine-type water-tube boilers, although they were later altered to use fuel oil that was sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. The boilers were vented through four funnels located amidships. They were designed to give for a top speed of , but she reached and a top speed of during her initial speed testing. carried of coal, and an additional of oil that gave her a range of approximately at .
The ship was armed with a main battery of twelve SK L/45 guns in single pedestal mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle, eight were located on the broadside, four on either side, and two were side by side aft. The guns had a maximum elevation of 30 degrees, which allowed them to engage targets out to . They were supplied with 1,800 rounds of ammunition, for 150 shells per gun. She was also equipped with a pair of torpedo tubes with five torpedoes; the tubes were submerged in the hull on the broadside. She could also carry 120 mines.
was protected by a waterline armor belt and a curved armor deck. The deck was flat across most of the hull, but angled downward at the sides and connected to the bottom edge of the belt. The belt and deck were both thick. The conning tower had thick sides.
Service history
was ordered under the contract name " ", and was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen in September 1910 and launched on 4 November 1911; during the launching ceremony, the mayor of Stralsund, Ernst Gronow, gave a speech. Fitting-out work thereafter commenced. Named for the earlier schooner , she was commissioned into active service on 10 December 1912. (FK—Frigate Captain) Magnus von Levetzow served as her first commander, though he served only briefly in that role, before being replaced by FK Victor Harder in January 1913. After entering service, conducted sea trials, which lasted until 15 February. The ship then joined the Unit of Reconnaissance Ships, assigned to II Scouting Group, where she took part in the peacetime routine of training exercises and cruises with the High Seas Fleet for the next year.
World War I On 16 August, some two weeks after the outbreak of World War I, and were ordered to carry out a sweep into the Hoofden to search for British reconnaissance forces, in the hopes of surprising patrolling British destroyers. The operation was led by Harder aboard . They were accompanied by the U-boats U-19 and U-24, which were to ambush any British forces that counter-attacked. The two cruisers departed late on 17 August and early the following morning, they passed through the British patrol line in darkness; at around 04:45, they reversed course with the intention surprising the British destroyers from behind. and steamed about apart to increase their chances of locating British forces; at 06:39, spotted a group of eight or ten destroyers and the light cruiser at a distance of about . The British commander aboard Fearless initially mistook for an armored cruiser and he initially ordered his ships to refrain from attacking her. , for her part, immediately opened fire on the nearest destroyers. After about half an hour of inaccurate shooting from both sides, German lookouts spotted what they thought was a second British cruiser approaching, so Harder decided to break off the engagement.
Battle of Helgoland Bight
In response to s raid on the British patrol line, the British naval command decided to stage a retaliatory raid on the German defenses in the Helgoland Bight, to be carried out by the Harwich Force. This led to the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28 August 1914. British battlecruisers and light cruisers raided the German reconnaissance screen in the Heligoland Bight. At the start of the action, and the rest of II Scouting Group were at anchor in Wilhelmshaven, and as soon as reports of British cruisers arrived at the naval command, II Scouting Group was ordered to sea immediately. By 11:30, had gotten underway, following and the light cruiser .
At around 13:40, , heard the sound of shooting in the distance, and shortly after 14:00, she encountered three British cruisers and a battlecruiser. She came under heavy fire, but suffered only a single hit that failed to explode, though shell fragments from near misses injured several crewmen. quickly disengaged and fled south before turning north to come to the aid of the stricken , which had been badly damaged by the British battlecruisers and picked up around sixty men from . and the rest of the surviving light cruisers retreated into the haze and were reinforced by the battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group under (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Franz Hipper. and returned and rescued most of the crew of . During the battle, only received a single hit, and none of her crew were wounded.
Raid on Yarmouth On 9 September, and the cruiser escorted the minelaying cruisers and and the auxiliary minelayer while they laid a minefield in the North Sea. In late September, was temporarily moved to the Baltic Sea, where she took part in a sweep for Russian forces as far north as the northern tip of Gotland. She soon returned to the North Sea, and with II Scouting Group, sortied with the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group for the raid on Yarmouth. The operation was carried out on 2–3 November 1914, and the ships of II Scouting Group served as the reconnaissance screen for battlecruisers. While the battlecruisers bombarded the town of Yarmouth, laid a minefield, which sank a steamer and the submarine which had sortied to intercept the German raiders. After completing the bombardment, the German squadron returned to port without encountering British forces. and II Scouting Group next went to sea on 20 November in company with I Scouting Group for an uneventful patrol.
Raid of Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby Another battlecruiser raid was carried out on 15–16 December, this time against the coastal towns of Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby. The two scouting groups left the Jade at 03:20. Hipper's ships sailed north, through the channels in the minefields, past Helgoland to the Horns Rev light vessel, at which point the ships turned westward, towards the English coast. The main battle squadrons of the High Seas Fleet left in the late afternoon of the 15th. During the night of 15 December, the main body of the High Seas Fleet encountered British destroyers, and fearing the prospect of a night-time torpedo attack, Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl ordered the ships to retreat. Hipper's ships carried out the bombardment regardless, though they were unaware of Ingenohl's withdrawal. They then turned back to rendezvous with the German fleet.
By this time, the British battlecruiser force was in position to block Hipper's egress route, while other forces were en route to complete the encirclement. At 12:25, the light cruisers of II Scouting Group began to pass the British forces searching for Hipper. One of the cruisers in the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron spotted , and signaled a report to Beatty. At 12:30, Beatty turned his battlecruisers towards the German ships. Beatty presumed that the German cruisers were the advance screen for Hipper's ships, however, those were some 50 km (31 mi) ahead. The 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron, which had been screening for Beatty's ships, detached to pursue the German cruisers, but a misinterpreted signal from the British battlecruisers sent them back to their screening positions. This confusion allowed the German light cruisers to escape, and alerted Hipper to the location of the British battlecruisers. The German battlecruisers wheeled to the northeast of the British forces and made good their escape.
1915 On 25 December 1914, the British launched the Cuxhaven Raid, an air attack on the German naval base in Cuxhaven and the Nordholz Airbase. engaged one of the attacking seaplanes, but was unable to shoot it down. joined the light cruiser on 3 January 1915 for a patrol into the North Sea to the west of Amrun Bank that ended without locating British forces. next carried out a minelaying operation in company with on 14–15 January off the Humber. The ship was again part of the reconnaissance screen for the I Scouting Group at the Battle of Dogger Bank on 24 January. and were assigned to the front of the screen and and steamed on either side of the formation; each cruiser was supported by a half-flotilla of torpedo boats. At 08:15, lookouts on and spotted heavy smoke from large British warships approaching the formation. As the main German fleet was in port and therefore unable to support the battlecruisers, Hipper decided to retreat at high speed. The British battlecruisers were able to catch up to the Germans, however, and in the ensuing battle, the large armored cruiser was sunk.
moved to the Baltic for another operation from 17 to 28 March, which targeted Russian forces that were attacking near Memel. On 23 March, she bombarded Russian positions and troop concentrations at Polangen, just to the north of Memel. She returned to the North Sea immediately, in time to participate in a fleet sweep into the North Sea on 29–30 March. She went to sea again on 17 April for a minelaying operation in company with that lasted until the following day, this time to lay mines off the Swarte Bank. and the rest of II Scouting Group carried out a patrol to the Dogger Bank area on 17–18 May. Another sortie by the entire High Seas Fleet took place on 29–30 May, and like the previous operations, the Germans failed to locate any British vessels. embarked on sweeps on 28 June in the direction of Terschelling and on 2 July toward Horns Rev, again without result. That month, FK Karl Weniger replaced Harder as the ship's commander.