The -class battleships were a group of five pre-dreadnought battleships of the German (Imperial Navy) built in the early 1900s. They were the first class of battleships authorized under the Second Naval Law, a major naval expansion program. The class comprised five ships—, , , , and —and they were an improvement over the preceding . The s mounted a more powerful armament of and guns (compared to and guns of the s). Less than two years after the first members of the class entered service, the ships were rendered obsolescent by the British all-big-gun battleship , which curtailed their careers.

During their early careers, the five ships served in II Battle Squadron, with its flagship. The fleet was occupied primarily with routine peacetime training and foreign visits. In 1912, was placed in reserve and she was joined the following year by . and were slated to be decommissioned in 1914, but the outbreak of World War I in July prevented this and they remained in service with the High Seas Fleet. They and took part in the fleet operations in the first two years of the war, while and went to the Baltic with IV Battle Squadron, where they eventually saw combat with the during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915. took part in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 and saw limited combat with British battlecruisers late in the battle. All five of the ships were withdrawn from service starting in 1916, thereafter being used in subsidiary roles, including as barracks and training ships.

After the war, the five s were among the vessels that the new was permitted to retain by the Treaty of Versailles. and were converted into parent ships for minesweepers to clear the minefields in the North Sea that had been laid during the war, but the other three were modernized in the early 1920s and served with the fleet into the 1930s. and were eventually stricken from the register in 1931, and along with and were thereafter broken up. remained in service until late 1934, when she was decommissioned and converted into a radio-controlled target ship, a role she filled through World War II. Ceded as a war prize to the Soviet Union, she was commissioned as and used as a target until 1960 when she was scrapped.

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. The previous law had called for a total strength of nineteen battleships by 1 April 1904, which was reached with the class, but the new law increased the projected battle fleet to a total of thirty-eight. The class was the first group of battleships built under this new plan, and they marked a significant advance in combat power over earlier German battleships.

Discussions between the Design Department of the (Imperial Navy Office) and other elements of the naval command on the new class had begun in 1899, before the law had been passed and before work on the s had even begun. The most pressing issue to be settled was the caliber of the main battery. The -class ships were armed with guns, far smaller than the standard in most other navies, which was caliber. The 24 cm guns were, however, the largest weapons for which Krupp, the supplier of naval artillery to the (Imperial Navy), had developed quick-firing technology. The German naval command typically favored high rates of fire rather than heavy shells, on the principal that a flurry of shells would wreck the guns and superstructure of enemy battleships faster than powerful but slow-firing guns. But by the time design work on the class began, Krupp had developed a quick-firing gun, and so the naval command decided to adopt it for the new ships.

With the decision made to mount the 28 cm gun, the next issue was the arrangement of the guns. Previous designs had carried the 24 cm guns in the superstructure, directly above casemates for the secondary battery guns, but the designers believed the greater muzzle blast effects from the 28 cm guns would make those casemates unworkable. Two solutions were proposed, both of which involved lowering the main battery turrets to the upper deck level. The first involved placing all of the secondary guns in an armored battery at the main deck level; these guns would have been in individual pivot mounts in a series of casemates clustered amidships. The second option arranged the guns in a mix of turrets on the upper deck and in a smaller battery in the main deck. The design staff ultimately settled on the second option, with four guns in turrets and eight in the casemate battery.

At the same time, as many countries' navies improved the armor protection of their battleships, they were also increasing the caliber of their secondary batteries to counter the heavier armor, such as the American s that had a heavy secondary battery of and guns. The German design staff followed both trends by increasing the secondary battery for the design from to guns. And the armor layout was improved compared to the s, the primary changes being increasing the height of the belt armor (to prevent it from being submerged at full load) and increasing the thickness of the armor protecting the secondary battery casemates. The design staff considered increasing the anti-torpedo boat guns from to , but decided against the change because the increased weight would have necessitated reducing the number of guns. The heavier shells would have also reduced the rate of fire.

The British battleship —armed with ten 12-inch guns—was commissioned in December 1906, less than two years after the first -class ships entered service. Dreadnoughts revolutionary design rendered every capital ship of the German navy obsolete, including the s. Also, the 17 cm guns proved to be something of a disappointment in service, since the larger shells were significantly heavier and thus harder to load manually, which reduced their rate of fire.

General characteristics and machinery

The -class ships were long at the waterline, and overall. The ships had a beam of , and a draft of . The beam was constrained by logistical considerations, as it was the widest that could be accommodated by the locks at the entrance to the (Imperial Shipyard) in Wilhelmshaven. The ships had thirteen watertight compartments and a double bottom that extended for 60 percent of the length of the hull. The ships displaced at their designed weight, and at a full load. The ships were fitted with a pair of heavy military masts that carried searchlights.

Steering was controlled with a single rudder. The ships were described as good sea-boats, but were prone to heavy pitching. The ships were responsive and had a tight turning radius at low speed, but at hard rudder of 12 degrees, the ships lost up to 70 percent speed. The ships had a crew of 35 officers and 708 men normally, and when serving as a squadron flagship, they had an additional 13 officers and 66 men. The ships carried a number of smaller boats aboard, including two picket boats, two launches, a pinnace (later removed), two cutters, two yawls, and two dinghies. The boats were handled by two large goose-necked cranes located on either side of the rear funnel.

The ships of the -class were propelled by three-shaft triple-expansion steam engines that were rated at . The triple expansion engines were powered by eight Marine-type boilers and six cylindrical boilers, all of which burned coal; these were trunked into three funnels amidships. Three funnels were adopted because in earlier vessels, the two-funnel arrangement tended to obstruct views from the bridge, and by splitting the smoke into three funnels instead of two, the funnels could be thinner and thus less obtrusive. At some point after 1915, oil-firing capability was added to supplement the coal-fired boilers. The two outer propellers were three-bladed, and in diameter, while the center screw was four-bladed and in diameter.

The ships' top speed was rated at . During trials, however, the engines produced between , and a top speed between . The ships of the class could steam at a cruising speed of , with the exception of . suffered from unstable steering, which increased fuel consumption and shortened her operational range to at . The first two ships— and —had four generators that produced 230 kW (74 V), while three following ships—, , and —had four turbo-generators that provided 260 kW (110 V).

Armament and armor

Their main armament was increased from previous designs, but was still weaker than contemporary foreign battleships; the German Navy had a tendency to emphasize rapidity of fire rather than weight of shell, and smaller guns could generally be fired faster than larger ones. The main armament comprised four 28 cm SK L/40 quick-firing guns in hydraulically operated twin turrets. The turrets were placed on the centerline, one forward and one aft. The C/01 turrets allowed the guns to depress to −4 degrees, and elevate to +30 degrees, which enabled a maximum range of . The guns fired shells at a muzzle velocity of . The ships carried a total of 340 shells, 85 per gun.

The secondary battery consisted of fourteen 17 cm SK L/40 quick-firing guns, four of which were mounted in single turrets amidships, with the remaining ten in casemates around the superstructure. The guns fired shells at a muzzle velocity of . These guns were chosen as they used the largest shell that could be reasonably handled without machinery. The turret-mounted guns could be elevated to 30 degrees, for a maximum range of , while the casemated guns could only elevate to 22 degrees, and had a correspondingly lower range of . These guns had a total of 1,820 shells, for 130 rounds per gun. To transit the Kiel Canal, the three central 17 cm casemated guns on each side had to be withdrawn into their housings, as they were unable to train fully flush with the sides of the ships. With the guns fully emplaced, the ships would have been too wide to fit in the canal.

The ships also had fourteen 8.8 cm SK L/35 quick-firing guns in casemates along the length of the ship. The guns fired shells at a muzzle velocity of , and could be elevated to 25 degrees for a maximum range of . They were also armed with six torpedo tubes, with a total of 16 torpedoes. One tube was in the bow, two were on each broadside, and the final tube was in the stern.

The ships were protected with Krupp armor. The main armored belt was thick in the central portion of the ship where it protected the ammunition magazines and propulsion machinery spaces. The deck armor was thick on the horizontal; its edges sloped down to connect to the lower edge of the belt to protect from shells that passed over the belt. The thickness of the slopes ranged from fore and aft and amidships, where the upper belt armor afforded another layer of protection. Above the main belt, the upper belt of 140 mm steel extended between the fore and aft main-gun turrets. Another strake of armor that was 140 mm thick protected the casemate guns at the main deck level. The casemate guns themselves received gun shields. The main battery turrets had 250 mm sides and thick roofs, while the secondary turrets had thick sides. The sides of the forward conning tower were thick and the roof was 50 mm thick, while the aft conning tower received significantly less protection, with 150 mm thick sides and a roof.

Ships

+ Construction data Ship Contract name Builder Laid down Launched Commissioned H Germaniawerft, Kiel 21 October 1901 20 December 1902 15 October 1904 J Schichau-Werke, Danzig 26 May 1901 26 May 1903 29 November 1904 L Germaniawerft, Kiel 15 March 1902 18 September 1903 19 September 1905 K AG Vulcan, Stettin April 1902 30 October 1903 12 July 1905 M Schichau-Werke, Danzig 1 December 1902 27 May 1904 18 May 1906

Service history