SMS was the third of five pre-dreadnought battleships of the . She was laid down in 1902, was launched in September 1903, and was commissioned into the German (Imperial Navy) in September 1905. Named after the state of Hesse, 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, she saw only limited service with the German fleet.
s peacetime career centered on squadron and fleet exercises and training cruises. She was involved in two accidental collisions, with a Danish steamship in 1911 and a German torpedo boat in 1913. was slated to be withdrawn from service in August 1914, but the start of World War I in July interrupted that plan and she remained in service with the High Seas Fleet. She performed a variety of roles in the first two years, serving as a guard ship at the mouth of the Elbe, patrolling the Danish Straits, and supporting attacks on the British coast, including the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in December 1914 and the Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft in April 1916. The following month, was present at the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the war. In the last daytime action between capital ships on 31 May, and the other pre-dreadnoughts of II Battle Squadron covered the retreat of the battered German battlecruisers away from the British battlecruiser squadron.
Jutland revealed how inadequate pre-dreadnoughts like were in the face of more modern weapons, so she and the rest of II Squadron ships were withdrawn from service with the fleet. She was decommissioned in December 1916, disarmed and used as a depot ship for the rest of the war. was one of the few obsolete battleships Germany was permitted to retain under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Rearmed, she served with the fleet in the 1920s and early 1930s, though she was withdrawn from front-line service in 1934. The following year, was converted into a radio-controlled target ship. She served in this capacity through World War II, also working as an icebreaker in the Baltic and North Seas. The ship was ceded to the Soviet Union in 1946 after the war, renamed , and served until she was scrapped in 1960.
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 30.5 cm (12 in) guns—was commissioned in December 1906, just over a year after entered service. Dreadnoughts revolutionary design rendered every capital ship of the German navy obsolete, including and her sister ships.
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 Scotch marine 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 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 SK L/35 quick-firing guns. The armament suite was rounded out with six torpedo tubes, all mounted in the hull below the waterline. 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; the heavier armor in the central citadel protected her magazines and propulsion machinery, with thinner plating at either end of the hull. Her deck was thick. The main battery turrets had 250 mm of armor plating.
Service history Pre-war career
s keel was laid down on 15 January 1902, at the Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel under yard number 100. The third unit of her class, she was ordered under the contract name "L" as a new unit for the fleet. was launched on 18 September 1903; the vessel was christened by Princess Irene of Hesse, and her brother, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, gave a speech. The ship began shipyard sea trials on 16 May 1905, and was commissioned on 19 September. The then began its own sea trials on the ship, which was assigned to II Squadron of the Active Battle Fleet. Trials lasted until 4 March 1906, at which point joined her unit, bringing the squadron to its prescribed strength of eight battleships. The year was spent conducting squadron and fleet training exercises, including a summer cruise in July and August to Norwegian waters. During the fleet maneuvers held every autumn in late August and September, the fleet conducted landing operations at Eckernförde. Further exercises took place in the North Sea in November.
On 16 February 1907, the fleet was renamed the High Seas Fleet. Maneuvers in the North Sea followed in early 1907, which included a cruise to Skagen and mock attacks on the main naval base at Kiel. Further exercises followed in May and June, after which the fleet went on a cruise to Norway. After returning, went to Swinemünde in early August, where Czar Nicholas II of Russia met the German fleet in his yacht . Afterward, the fleet assembled for the maneuvers that were held every August and September. This year, the maneuvers were delayed to allow for a large fleet review, including 112 warships, for Kaiser Wilhelm II in the Schillig roadstead. In the autumn maneuvers that followed, the fleet conducted exercises in the North Sea and then joint maneuvers with the IX Army Corps around Apenrade. was the II Squadron winner of the Kaiser's (Shooting Prize) for excellent shooting; at the time, her gunnery officer was then- (Captain Lieutenant) Adolf von Trotha. In November, the ship took part in unit training in the Kattegat.
participated in fleet maneuvers in February 1908 in the Baltic Sea and more fleet training off Helgoland in May and June. In July, and the rest of the fleet sailed into the Atlantic Ocean to conduct a major training cruise. Prince Heinrich, the commander of the High Seas Fleet, had pressed for such a cruise the previous year, arguing that it would prepare the fleet for overseas operations and break up the monotony of training in German waters, though tensions with Britain over the developing Anglo-German naval arms race were high. The fleet departed Kiel on 17 July, passed through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal to the North Sea, and continued on to the Atlantic. During the cruise, stopped at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The fleet returned to Germany on 13 August. The autumn maneuvers followed from 27 August to 12 September. Later that year, the fleet toured coastal German cities as part of an effort to increase public support for naval expenditures. The next year—1909—followed much the same pattern as in 1908. Another cruise into the Atlantic was conducted from 7 July to 1 August, during which stopped in Ferrol, Spain. While on the way back to Germany, the High Seas Fleet was received by the British Royal Navy at Spithead. Late in the year, Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff became the commander of the High Seas Fleet. His tenure as fleet commander was marked with strategic experimentation, owing to the increased threat posed by the latest underwater weapons like submarines and naval mines, and to the fact that the new s were too wide to pass through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. Accordingly, the fleet was transferred from Kiel to Wilhelmshaven on 1 April 1910.
In May 1910, the fleet conducted training maneuvers in the Kattegat, between Norway and Denmark. These were in accordance with Holtzendorff's strategy, which envisioned drawing the Royal Navy into the narrow waters in the Kattegat. The annual summer cruise went to Norway, and was followed by fleet training, during which another fleet review was held at Danzig on 29 August. A training cruise into the Baltic followed at the end of the year. In March 1911, the fleet conducted exercises in the Skagerrak and Kattegat. and the rest of the fleet received British and American naval squadrons in Kiel in June and July. The year's autumn maneuvers were confined to the Baltic and the Kattegat. During fleet exercises on 23 August 1911, accidentally rammed and sank the Danish steamer . The crew of the steamer was rescued and there were no reported injuries; herself was undamaged in the collision. Another fleet review was held during the exercises for a visiting Austro-Hungarian delegation that included Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Admiral Rudolf Montecuccoli.
In February, during the very cold winter of 1911–1912, was employed as an emergency icebreaker in the Little Belt to rescue ships that were threatened by the heavy ice. In mid-1912, due to the Agadir Crisis, the summer cruise only went into the Baltic to avoid exposing the fleet during the period of heightened tension with Britain and France. In July 1913, collided with the torpedo boat . The torpedo boat suffered significant damage and three of its crew were killed, though it did not sink. The boat, along with the rest of her crew, was towed back to Kiel. was not significantly damaged in the accident. The annual summer cruise for 1913 returned to Norwegian waters, as did the cruise the following year. The year 1914 began quietly, with the only event of note being s visit to Sonderburg on 2 May to participate in the 50th anniversary celebrations commemorating the Battle of Dybbøl of the Second Schleswig War.
World War I
Beginning in late 1909, the navy had begun to replace the oldest pre-dreadnought battleships with the more modern dreadnought battleships, starting with the class. As part of this process, was scheduled to be withdrawn into the reserve on 26 August 1914, with her place in II Squadron taken by the new dreadnought , but the rising tensions in Europe during the July Crisis, which led to the outbreak of World War I, interrupted that plan. therefore remained in service with the squadron, the oldest battleship in service with the main fleet. Following Germany's entry into the war in early August, and the rest of the squadron were sent to the Altenbruch roadstead to support the defense of the German Bight at the mouth of the Elbe. In October, the squadron went to the Baltic for maneuvers, and while transiting the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal on 26 October, she ran aground and had to be pulled free by tugboats. The squadron returned to the North Sea on 17 November, having completed the training exercises.