SMS was the lead ship of the of dreadnought battleships of the Imperial German Navy. was built by the Imperial Dockyard at Kiel, launched on 22 March 1911 and commissioned on 1 August 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.
In 1913, and her sister conducted a cruise to South America and South Africa. The ship participated in most of the major fleet operations during the war. She fought at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, during which she was hit twice and suffered negligible damage. The ship was also present during Operation Albion in the Baltic Sea in September and October 1917, and at the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917.
During peace negotiations after the end of the war in 1918, she was interned with other ships of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow. On 21 June 1919 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. The wreck was raised in 1929 and broken up in Rosyth in 1930.
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
The ship was long overall and displaced a maximum of at full load. She 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. had additional facilities for an admiral's staff, as she was intended to serve as a divisional flagship. The ship 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.
was powered by three sets of Parsons 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. The powerplant produced a top speed of . She carried of coal, which enabled a maximum range of at a cruising speed of .
was armed with a main battery of ten 30.5 cm SK L/50 guns in five twin turrets. The ship dispensed with the inefficient hexagonal 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, so 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. The ship's 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.
Service history Ordered under the contract name as a replacement for the obsolete coastal defense ship , was laid down at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel in December 1909. The hull was completed by 22 March 1911, when the ship was launched; this date was specifically chosen, as it was the birthday of (Emperor) Wilhelm I. His grandson, Wilhelm II, attended the launching ceremony, where German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg gave a speech while (Empress) Augusta Victoria christened the ship. The vessel was named for the earlier ironclad . Fitting-out work then began, which was completed by the end of July 1912. On 1 August, the ship was commissioned for sea trials. These were concluded by 7 December; the following day joined the fleet as the flagship of V Division. Her first commander was (KzS—Captain at Sea) Georg von Ammon, though he was replaced by KzS Friedrich von Bülow in October. Her crew consisted largely of men who had been transferred from the recently decommissioned battleships and . The first divisional commander was (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Ehrhard Schmidt.
After joining the active fleet in December 1912, was stationed in Kiel. The ship then conducted individual training. Bülow fell ill in January 1913, so he was relieved by KzS Ernst Ritter von Mann und Edler von Tiechler. In February, was transferred to Wilhelmshaven, along with her sister ship . She then took part in several training exercises with the rest of the High Seas Fleet. These included maneuvers in the North Sea in March and April, artillery drills in the Baltic at the end of the month, and further fleet maneuvers in May. In June, took part in the Kiel Week regatta. Kaiser Wilhelm II and Italian King Victor Emmanuel III inspected the ship. The annual summer cruise to Norway was conducted in July and August, followed immediately by the autumn maneuvers in August and September. In September 1913, KzS Adolf von Trotha became the ship's commanding officer, a post he held until January 1916. In October 1913, as the remaining Kaiser-class ships began to enter service, III Battle Squadron was created, and Schmidt became the squadron commander, though he was soon replaced by KAdm Christian Schütz on 1 November. Ten days later, he transferred his flag to Prinzregent Luitpold, which had been built to serve as a squadron flagship.
was selected to participate in a long-distance cruise to test the reliability of the new turbine propulsion system. The ship was joined by her sister and the light cruiser in a special "Detached Division" under the command of KAdm Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz. The trio departed Germany on 9 December 1913 and proceeded to the German colonies in western Africa; this was the first time that German battleships had visited the colonies. The ships visited Lomé in Togoland, Duala and Victoria in Kamerun, and Swakopmund in German South-West Africa. From Africa, the ships sailed to St. Helena and then on to Rio de Janeiro, arriving on 15 February 1914. There, Hermes da Fonseca, the President of Brazil, visited the ships. was detached to visit Buenos Aires, Argentina before returning to meet the two battleships in Montevideo, Uruguay. Rebeur-Paschwitz fell ill in Buenos Aires, so Trotha temporarily took command of the division during his convalescence at a military hospital. The three ships sailed south around Cape Horn and then north to Valparaíso, Chile, arriving on 2 April and remaining for over a week.
On 11 April, the ships departed Valparaíso for the long journey back to Germany. On the return trip, the ships visited several more ports, including Bahía Blanca, Argentina, before returning to Rio de Janeiro. On 16 May the ships left Rio de Janeiro for the Atlantic leg of the journey; they stopped in Cape Verde, Madeira, and Vigo, Spain while en route to Germany. , , and arrived in Kiel on 17 June 1914. In the course of the voyage, the ships traveled some . A week later, on 24 June, the Detached Division was dissolved and returned to III Squadron. then participated in squadron exercises in July. joined the High Seas Fleet for its annual summer cruise to Norway in July 1914, about two weeks after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. As a result of rising international tensions, the cruise was cut short and the German fleet was back in Wilhelmshaven by 29 July. Following the outbreak of war on 28 July and the subsequent German invasion of Belgium and France, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany at midnight on 4 August. Two days before, KAdm Carl Schaumann hoisted his flag aboard Kaiser as the deputy commander of III Squadron.
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 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. However, 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 battlefleet 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 towards the Dogger Bank, though again failed to meet any British forces. was in dock in Kiel for periodic maintenance during the operation on 17–18 May, but she was back with the fleet for the sortie on 29–30 May, during which the fleet advanced as far as Schiermonnikoog before being forced to turn back by inclement weather. On 10 August, the fleet steamed to the north of 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 12 January 1916, (Vice Admiral) Reinhard Scheer replaced Pohl as the fleet commander. The same month, KzS Walter von Keyserlink took command of Kaiser. was present during the fleet advance on 5–7 March, though this too ended without action. While in port in Kiel, the old pre-dreadnought accidentally collided with , though neither ship was seriously damaged. Scheer continued the series of fleet operations practiced by his predecessors; the fleet conducted sweeps of the North Sea on 26 March, 2–3 April, and 21–22 April. The battlecruisers conducted another raid on the English coast on 24–25 April, during which and the rest of the fleet provided distant support. Scheer planned another raid for mid-May, but the battlecruiser had struck a mine during the previous raid and the repair work forced the operation to be pushed back until the end of the month.
Battle of Jutland