SMS was the second built by the German (Imperial Navy) before World War I. Ordered as a replacement for the old protected cruiser , was launched on 29 November 1913, but not completed until 1916. was a sister ship to from which she differed slightly in that she was armed with an additional pair of 15 cm (5.9 inch) secondary guns and had an additional watertight compartment in her hull. She was named in honor of the Prussian general Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow who fought in the Napoleonic Wars.
was commissioned on 8 August 1915, but did not join I Scouting Group until 20 March due to engine damage during trials. This was after most of the major actions conducted by the German battlecruiser force had taken place. As a result, saw very little action during the war. She took part in only one bombardment operation: the Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft on 24–25 April 1916, after which she became Admiral Franz von Hipper's flagship. One month later, the ship was heavily engaged during the Battle of Jutland, on 31 May–1 June. During the battle, sank the British battlecruiser and is sometimes given credit for sinking the armored cruiser . However, she was heavily damaged by an estimated 24 heavy-caliber shell hits. With her bow thoroughly flooded, the ship was unable to make the return voyage to Germany; her crew was evacuated and she was sunk by torpedoes fired by one of her escorts, the torpedo boat .
Design
The class was authorized for the 1911 fiscal year as part of the 1906 naval law; design work had begun in early 1910. After their British counterparts had begun installing guns in their battlecruisers, senior officers in the German naval command came to the conclusion that an increase in the caliber of the main battery guns from to would be necessary. To keep costs from growing too quickly, the number of guns was reduced from ten to eight, compared to the earlier , but a more efficient superfiring arrangement was adopted. , the second member of the class, was allocated to the 1912 construction program.
was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft. She was designed to displace normally and she reached at full load. The ship was powered by four Parsons steam turbines that drove four screw propellers. Steam was provided by eighteen naval boilers, fourteen of which burned coal, the other four burning fuel oil. s powerplant was rated at , which generated a top speed of . The ship had a crew that consisted of 44 officers and 1,068 to 1,138 enlisted men. While serving as the squadron flagship, her crew was augmented by an additional 14 officers and 62 enlisted men in the commander's staff.
s armament consisted of a main battery of eight 30.5 cm SK L/50 guns in four gun turrets, mounted in superfiring pairs fore and aft of the central superstructure. Her secondary armament consisted of fourteen 15 cm SK L/45 guns mounted in casemates at main deck level. She also carried eight 8.8 cm SK L/45 quick-firing guns in anti-aircraft mounts. The armament suite was rounded out with four torpedo tubes, all placed in the hull, below the waterline.
was protected by an armor belt that was thick in the central citadel of the ship where it protected the ammunition magazines and propulsion machinery spaces. Her deck was thick, with the thicker armor sloping down at the sides to connect to the lower edge of the belt. Her main battery turrets had thick faces. Her secondary casemates received of armor protection. The forward conning tower, where the ship's commander controlled the vessel, had 300 mm walls.
Service
was ordered as , to replace the elderly protected cruiser , which was by then 20 years old. Built by Schichau-Werke in Danzig, her keel was laid down in May 1912, and she was launched on 29 November 1913. was commissioned on 8 August 1915 for trials, and was sent to Kiel on 23 August. The torpedo boats , , and provided a screen for hostile submarines that might be operating in the area, the four vessels arriving the next day. There she completed her final fitting out, including her armament. On 13 September, she began her trials, including torpedo firing tests on 15 September and gunnery tests on 6 October. While on trials on 25 October, s port low-pressure turbine was badly damaged. Repairs were conducted in Kiel until late January 1916, after which the ship underwent further trials. These were finished on 19 February; was assigned to I Scouting Group on 20 March, and arrived at her new unit four days later.
The ship's first and only commander was (Captain at Sea) Victor Harder. On 24 April, and the battlecruisers and made a brief sortie into the North Sea, cruising to the eastern end of the Amrun Bank, since British destroyers had been reported to have been in the area. A second sweep followed two days later, also to the Amrun Bank. While on this operation, a British submarine attempted to torpedo without success. (Rear Admiral) Friedrich Boedicker, the deputy commander of I Scouting Group, temporarily raised his flag aboard the ship from 29 March to 11 April. On 21–22 April, joined the rest of the High Seas Fleet for a sortie into the North Sea that failed to locate any British warships.
Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft
first major operation was the bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft on 24–25 April. Franz von Hipper, the commander of I Scouting Group, was away on sick leave, so the German ships were under the command of Boedicker. , the flagship, followed by , , , and left the Jade Estuary at 10:55 on 24 April, and were supported by a screening force of six light cruisers and two torpedo boat flotillas. The heavy units of the High Seas Fleet sailed at 13:40, with the objective to provide distant support for Boedicker's ships. The British Admiralty was made aware of the German sortie through the interception of German Wireless signals, and deployed the Grand Fleet at 15:50.
In the meantime, by 14:00, Boedicker's ships had reached a position off Norderney, at which point he turned his ships northward to avoid the Dutch observers on the island of Terschelling. At 15:38, struck a mine, which tore a long hole in her hull, just abaft of the starboard broadside torpedo tube, allowing 1,400 short tons (1,250 long tons) of water to enter the ship. turned back with the screen of light cruisers at a speed of . The four remaining battlecruisers turned south immediately in the direction of Norderney to avoid further mine damage. By 16:00, was clear of imminent danger, so the ship stopped to allow Boedicker to disembark. The torpedo boat took Boedicker to .
At 04:50 on 25 April, the German battlecruisers were approaching Lowestoft when the light cruisers and , which had been covering the southern flank, spotted the light cruisers and destroyers of Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt's Harwich Force. Boedicker refused to be distracted by the British ships, and instead trained his ships' guns on Lowestoft. The German battlecruisers destroyed two 6 in (15 cm) shore batteries and inflicted other damage to the town. In the process, a single 6 in shell from one of the shore batteries struck , but the ship sustained no significant damage.
At 05:20, the German raiders turned north, towards Yarmouth, which they reached by 05:42. The visibility was so poor that the German ships fired one salvo each, with the exception of , which fired fourteen rounds from her main battery. The German ships turned back south, and at 05:47 encountered for the second time the Harwich Force, which had by then been engaged by the six light cruisers of the German screening ships. Boedicker's ships opened fire from a range of 12,000 m (13,000 yards). Tyrwhitt immediately turned his ships around and fled south, but not before the cruiser sustained severe damage. Due to reports of British submarines and torpedo attacks, Boedicker broke off the chase and turned back east towards the High Seas Fleet. At this point, Admiral Reinhard Scheer, commander of the High Seas Fleet, turned back towards Germany, having been warned of the Grand Fleet's sortie from Scapa Flow.
Battle of Jutland
At 02:00 CET, on 31 May 1916, I Scouting Group departed the Jade estuary; , Hipper's flagship, was the leading vessel, followed by her sister , , , and . The ships were accompanied by II Scouting Group, under the command of Rear Admiral Boedicker, composed of the four light cruisers , , , and . The reconnaissance force was screened by 30 torpedo boats of II, VI, and IX Flotillas, directed by the cruiser . An hour and a half later, the High Seas Fleet—under the command of Admiral Scheer—left the Jade with 16 dreadnoughts. It was accompanied by IV Scouting Group, composed of the light cruisers , , , , and , and 31 torpedo boats of I, III, V, and VII Flotillas, led by the light cruiser . The six pre-dreadnoughts of II Battle Squadron had departed from the Elbe roads at 02:45, and rendezvoused with the battle fleet at 5:00. The operation was to be a repeat of previous German fleet actions: to draw out a portion of the Grand Fleet and destroy it.
Opening actions
Shortly before 16:00, Hipper's force encountered Vice Admiral David Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron. At 16:00, Hipper ordered the signal "Distribution of fire from left" be hoisted on . The German ships were the first to open fire, at a range of approximately . The two leading British battlecruisers, and , concentrated their fire on , while engaged only Lion. The ship's gunners aimed their initial salvo at a range of , well over their intended target. The ship fired semi-armor-piercing (SAP) shells, unlike the other German battlecruisers, which had loaded armor-piercing (AP) shells instead. The British rangefinders had misread the range to their German targets, and so the first salvos fired by the British ships fell a mile beyond their German opponents; Lions gunners fired their opening salvo at . In the span of three minutes, had fired four more salvos, alternating between the four forward and four aft guns, and had struck with the last one at 16:51.
scored a second hit a minute later at 16:52. Eight minutes later, Lion scored the first hit on ; a salvo from the British ship struck the battlecruiser on her forecastle, but no major damage was done. These two hits would prove to be very important, however, as took on more water due to damage sustained later in the battle, since they allowed water to enter the ship above the armored deck. Nearly simultaneously, dealt a tremendous blow to Lion; one of her 30.5 cm shells penetrated the roof of Lions center "Q" turret and detonated the munitions that were stored inside. Only by the resolute actions of the turret commander—Major Francis Harvey, who ordered the magazine be flooded—did the ship avoid a catastrophic magazine explosion. Indeed, approximately 30 minutes after the turret was destroyed, the fire in the turret spread to the working chamber that was directly above the magazine; there it detonated propellant charges that had been stored there. The resulting explosion would have likely destroyed the ship if the ammunition magazine had not been flooded.