SMS was the first of five pre-dreadnought battleships of the built for the German (Imperial Navy). She was laid down in October 1901, launched in December 1902, and commissioned in October 1904. She was named after the Duchy of Brunswick (). The ship was armed with a battery of four guns and had a top speed of . Like all other pre-dreadnoughts built at the turn of the century, was quickly made obsolete by the launching of the revolutionary in 1906; as a result, her career as a front-line battleship was cut short.
The ship served in II Squadron of the German fleet after entering service. During this period, she was occupied with extensive annual training, as well as making good-will visits to foreign countries. She also served as a flagship for most of her pre-war career. Surpassed by new dreadnought battleships, was decommissioned in 1913, but reactivated a year later following the outbreak of World War I. She was assigned to IV Battle Squadron, which operated in both the North Sea, protecting the German coast, and the Baltic Sea, where it opposed the Russian Baltic Fleet. saw action during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915, when she engaged the Russian battleship .
By late 1915, crew shortages and the threat from British submarines forced the to withdraw older battleships like , and she spent the rest of the war first as a headquarters ship, then as a training ship, and finally as a barracks ship. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, she was retained after the end of the war and modernized in 1921–22. served in the reformed , operating as the flagship of naval forces assigned to the North Sea. She made several cruises abroad, including a voyage into the Atlantic in 1924. The ship was decommissioned again in January 1926 and was stricken from the Navy Directory in March 1931, hulked, and subsequently broken up for scrap.
Design
With the passage of the Second Naval Law under the direction of (VAdm—Vice Admiral) Alfred von Tirpitz in 1900, funding was allocated for a new class of battleships, to succeed the ships authorized under the 1898 Naval Law. By this time, Krupp, the supplier of naval artillery to the (Imperial Navy) had developed quick-firing, guns; the largest guns that had previously incorporated the technology were the guns mounted on the s. The Design Department of the (Imperial Navy Office) adopted these guns for the new battleships, along with an increase from to for the secondary battery, owing to the increased threat from torpedo boats as torpedoes became more effective.
Though the class marked a significant improvement over earlier German battleships, its design fell victim to the rapid pace of technological development in the early 1900s. The British battleship —armed with ten 12-inch (30.5 cm) guns—was commissioned in December 1906. Dreadnoughts revolutionary design rendered every capital ship of the German navy obsolete, including .
was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced as designed and at full load. Her crew consisted of 35 officers and 708 enlisted men. The ship was powered by three 3-cylinder vertical triple-expansion engines that drove three screws. Steam was provided by eight naval and six cylindrical boilers, all of which burned coal. s powerplant was rated at , which generated a top speed of . She could steam at a cruising speed of .
s armament consisted of a main battery of four 28 cm (11 in) SK L/40 guns in twin-gun turrets, one fore and one aft of the central superstructure. Her secondary armament consisted of fourteen 17 cm (6.7 inch) SK L/40 guns and eighteen 8.8 cm (3.45 in) SK L/35 quick-firing guns. The armament suite was rounded out with six torpedo tubes, all mounted submerged in the hull. One tube was in the bow, two were on each broadside, and the final tube was in the stern. was protected with Krupp armor. Her armored belt was thick, with the heavier armor in the central citadel that protected her magazines and propulsion machinery spaces, and the thinner plating at either end of the hull. Her deck was thick. The main battery turrets had 250 mm of armor plating.
Service history
Construction to 1914 was laid down on 24 October 1901 at the Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel under construction number 97. The first of her class, she was ordered under the contract name "H" as a new unit for the fleet. The class, which took its name from the lead ship, included four other vessels: , , , and . The ship was launched on 20 December 1902 and was named for the Duchy of Braunschweig by Prince Albert of Prussia, Regent of the Duchy. She was commissioned into the fleet on 15 October 1904, and then began sea trials, which lasted to the end of December. She had already been assigned to II Squadron of the main fleet on 25 September, taking the place of the old coastal defense ship , though she did not formally join the unit until after trials concluded in late December. Upon joining the squadron, she replaced the battleship as the flagship of (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Alfred Breusing, the squadron's deputy commander.
For the next several years, and the rest of the fleet were occupied with the peacetime training regimen that consisted of squadron and fleet training in April and May, a major fleet cruise in June and July, followed by annual fall maneuvers with the whole fleet in August and September. The year would typically conclude with a winter training cruise. During torpedo training on 16 February 1905, ran aground off Stollergrund; unsuccessfully attempted to pull her free and other ships were called to come to s aid. In August, before the annual fleet maneuvers, the British Channel Fleet visited the German fleet in Swinemünde. On 22 November, Prince Heinrich boarded the ship in Kiel, which then steamed to Denmark to take Prince Carl of Denmark to Norway, where he was crowned Haakon VII of Norway. was back in Kiel by 30 November. On 14 December, was replaced as the deputy commander's flagship by the battleship , which had larger facilities for a command staff.
The year 1906 followed the same pattern, concluding with fleet exercises in the North Sea in December before returning to Kiel. resumed deputy flagship duties on 25 September 1907, when KAdm Adolf Paschen transferred his flag from , which was to be decommissioned. Further maneuvers in the North Sea occupied the fleet for much of the first half of 1907, followed by a summer cruise to Norway and the annual autumn maneuvers in August and September. In 1908 and 1909, the fleet, which had been renamed the High Seas Fleet, undertook major cruises into the Atlantic Ocean. During the first, which began on 13 July 1908, stopped in Las Palmas from 23 July to 7 August before returning to Germany on 13 August for the autumn maneuvers. The 1909 cruise began on 7 July and lasted until 1 August, and included a visit to A Coruña, Spain, from 18 to 27 July. In September 1909, after the conclusion of the autumn fleet maneuvers, the crew from was sent to form the core of the new dreadnought battleship , while the crew from was sent to .
The fleet held training exercises in the Kattegat in May 1910. For the summer cruises of 1910 and 1911, the German fleet went to Norwegian waters; both years also saw winter cruises in the western Baltic. On 26 April 1912, was relieved as the deputy flagship by the battleship . That year, did not take part in the summer training cruise, instead having her crew temporarily reduced. More sailors arrived on 8 December, allowing her to return to active service with V Division of III Squadron, under the command of KAdm Ehrhard Schmidt. She took part in a winter training cruise in February and March 1913, along with exercises in the North Sea in May. The ship's return to service proved to be short-lived; on 30 July her crew was reduced a second time in Kiel, now to man the new battleship . was assigned to the Reserve Division of the Baltic Sea as an inactive vessel.
World War I
On 28 July 1914, Germany's ally, Austria-Hungary, declared war on Serbia, beginning World War I. That day, and the rest of the Reserve Division were reactivated for wartime service. The ship was recommissioned on 1 August and joined IV Battle Squadron, which also included her sister ship and the five -class battleships, and was commanded by Schmidt, who had by now been promoted to . The next day KAdm Hermann Alberts, the deputy commander of the squadron, came aboard the ship, making her his flagship. The installation of necessary equipment was completed by 7 August, and the IV Squadron ships were ready for operations four days later. began individual and then squadron training, which lasted until early September. The training exercises were interrupted on 26 August, when the ships were sent to rescue the stranded light cruiser , which had run aground off the island of Odensholm in the eastern Baltic. By 28 August, the ship's crew had been forced to detonate explosives to destroy before the relief force had arrived. As a result, and the rest of the squadron returned to Bornholm that day for further training exercises.
Starting on 3 September, IV Squadron, assisted by the armored cruiser , conducted a sweep into the Baltic. The operation lasted until 9 September and failed to bring Russian naval units to battle. Following the operation, was tasked with coastal defense in the North Sea around the mouth of the Elbe. On 12 September, an accidental explosion aboard the ship killed six men and wounded sixteen more, but only lightly damaged the ship. Later that month, the IV Squadron ships were transferred back to the Baltic. The army had requested that the navy make a demonstration to keep Russian reserves along the Baltic coast, instead of allowing the Russians to re-deploy them to Galicia. On 21 September, Alberts transferred his flag to the battleship . The following day, Prince Heinrich, the commander-in-chief of naval forces in the Baltic, came aboard , making her his flagship for the operation, which was also to include the older pre-dreadnought battleships of the V Battle Squadron. These ships were sent to Danzig to embark ground forces, while and IV Squadron steamed in advance. The operation was called off early, after British submarines were reportedly sighted in the Baltic. The two squadrons rendezvoused off Bornholm before proceeded on to Kiel, arriving on 26 September.
From 5 December 1914 to 2 March 1915, was occupied with guard ship duties in the mouth of the Elbe. On 6 May, the IV Squadron ships were tasked with providing support to the assault on Libau (in modern Latvia). and the other ships were stationed off Gotland to intercept any Russian cruisers that might attempt to intervene in the landings; the Russians, however, did not do so. On 10 May, the British submarines and spotted IV Squadron, but were too far away to attack them. Another stint in the Elbe followed from 28 May to 3 July. The next day, following the loss of the minelaying cruiser in the Baltic, the IV Squadron ships were transferred to reinforce the German naval forces in the area. The army had again requested naval assistance, this time to support operations around Libau. On 7 July, left Kiel, bound for the eastern Baltic. On 11 and 19 July, German cruisers, with the IV Squadron ships in support, conducted sweeps in the Baltic, though without engaging Russian forces.