SMS was the second dreadnought battleship of the four-ship . (or ) served in the Imperial German Navy during World War I. The battleship was laid down in October 1911 and launched on 5 May 1913. She was formally commissioned into the Imperial Navy on 30 July 1914, days before the outbreak of war between Germany and the United Kingdom. Her name means "Great Elector", and refers to Frederick William I, the Prince-elector of Brandenburg. was armed with ten guns in five twin turrets and could steam at a top speed of .
Along with her three sister ships, , , and , took part in most of the fleet actions during the war, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916. The ship was subjected to heavy fire at Jutland, but was not seriously damaged. She shelled Russian positions during Operation Albion in September and October 1917. was involved in a number of accidents during her service career; she collided with and , grounded several times, was torpedoed once, and hit a mine.
After Germany's defeat and the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, and most of the capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were interned by the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow. The ships were disarmed and limited to skeleton crews while the Allied powers negotiated the final version of the Treaty of Versailles. On 21 June 1919, days before the treaty was signed, 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. Unlike her sister ships, was raised in 1938 for scrapping and subsequently broken up in Rosyth.
Design
The four s were ordered as part of the Anglo-German naval arms race; they were the fourth generation of German dreadnought battleships, and they were built in response to the British that had been ordered in 1909. The s represented a refinement of the earlier , with the primary improvement being a more efficient arrangement of the main battery. The ships had also been intended to use a diesel engine on the center propeller shaft to increase their cruising range, but development of the diesels proved to be more complicated than expected, so an all-steam turbine powerplant was retained.
displaced as built and fully loaded, with a length of , a beam of and a draft of . She was powered by three AEG-Vulcan steam turbines, with steam provided by three oil-fired and twelve coal-fired Schulz-Thornycroft water-tube boilers, which developed a total of and yielded a maximum speed of . The ship had a range of at a cruising speed of . Her crew numbered 41 officers and 1,095 enlisted men.
She was armed with ten SK L/50 guns arranged in five twin gun turrets: two superfiring turrets each fore and aft and one turret amidships between the two funnels. Her secondary armament consisted of fourteen SK L/45 quick-firing guns and six SK L/45 quick-firing guns, all mounted singly in casemates. As was customary for capital ships of the period, she was also armed with five underwater torpedo tubes, one in the bow and two on each beam.
The ship's armored belt consisted of Krupp cemented steel that was thick in the central citadel that protected the propulsion machinery spaces and the ammunition magazines, and was reduced to forward and aft. In the central portion of the ship, horizontal protection consisted of a deck, which was reduced to on the bow and stern. The main battery turrets had of armor plate on the sides and on the roofs, while the casemate guns had of armor protection. The sides of the forward conning tower were also 30 cm thick.
Service history was ordered under the provisional name , and built at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Hamburg under construction number 4. Her keel was laid down in October 1911 and she was launched on 5 May 1913. At her launching ceremony, Prince Oskar of Prussia christened the ship, which was named for the earlier armored frigate . Due to the heightening political tensions in Europe in mid-1914, the final construction work was accelerated, so the first set of dockyard trials were conducted on 15 July, and fitting-out work was completed by the 30th, the day she was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet. After her commissioning, she underwent sea trials in the Baltic. The ship's first combat operation was the Raid on Yarmouth on 2–3 November 1914. The raid was conducted by the battlecruisers of Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's I Scouting Group. She and the other dreadnoughts sailed in distant support of Hipper's force. After a brief bombardment, the German fleet withdrew to port. On 7 December, she sustained no damage when she accidentally rammed her sister .
Her second operation, the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, followed on 15–16 December. On the evening of the 15th, the German battle fleet of some twelve dreadnoughts 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 Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, the fleet commander, 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.
On 22 January 1915, she and the rest of III Squadron were detached from the fleet to conduct maneuver, gunnery, and torpedo training in the Baltic. They returned to the North Sea on 11 February, too late to assist I Scouting Group at the Battle of Dogger Bank. Following the loss of at the Battle of Dogger Bank, the Kaiser removed Ingenohl from his post on 2 February. Admiral Hugo von Pohl replaced him as commander of the fleet. She then took part in several sorties into the North Sea. On 29 March, she sailed with the fleet out to Terschelling without any contact with the enemy. Another fleet advance occurred on 22 April, again without result. On 23 April, III Squadron returned to the Baltic for another round of exercises lasting until 10 May.
She participated in a fleet advance into the North Sea from 29 until 31 May which ended without combat. The ship covered a minelaying operation on 11–12 September off Texel. Another uneventful fleet advance followed on 23–24 October. She ended the year with a two-week training cruise in the Baltic, which lasted from 5 to 20 December. Another round of exercises in the Baltic followed on 18–23 January 1916. She went into drydock in Wilhelmshaven for periodic maintenance on 12 February. Work lasted until 3 March; two days later the ship sailed for a sweep into the Hoofden, though this again failed to encounter any British forces. The fleet conducted another sortie on 23 March to the Amrun Bank, followed by another a month later to Horns Reef on 21–22 April.
On 24–25 April, Hipper's battlecruisers conducted another bombardment of the English coast; and the rest of the High Seas Fleet sailed in support. The battlecruisers left the Jade Estuary at 10:55 CET, and the rest of the High Seas Fleet followed at 13:40. The battlecruiser struck a mine while en route to the target, and had to withdraw. The other battlecruisers bombarded the town of Lowestoft unopposed, but during the approach to Yarmouth, they encountered the British cruisers of the Harwich Force. A short artillery duel ensued before the Harwich Force withdrew. Reports of British submarines in the area prompted the retreat of I Scouting Group. At this point, Admiral Reinhard Scheer, who had been warned of the sortie of the Grand Fleet from its base in Scapa Flow, also withdrew to safer German waters.
Battle of Jutland
was present during the fleet operation on 31 May and 1 June 1916 that resulted in the Battle of Jutland. The German fleet again sought to draw out and isolate a portion of the Grand Fleet and destroy it before the main British fleet could retaliate. She was the second ship in the German line, behind her sister and followed by and . The four ships made up V Division of III Battle Squadron, and they were the vanguard of the fleet. III Battle Squadron was the first of three battleship units; directly astern were the -class battleships of VI Division, III Battle Squadron. III Squadron was followed by the and es of I Battle Squadron; in the rear guard were the obsolescent pre-dreadnoughts of II Battle Squadron.
Shortly before 16:00 the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group encountered the British 1st Battlecruiser Squadron under the command of David Beatty. The opposing ships began an artillery duel that resulted in the destruction of , shortly after 17:00, and less than half an hour later. By this time, the German battlecruisers were steaming south to draw the British ships toward the main body of the High Seas Fleet. At 17:30, s crew spotted both I Scouting Group and the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron approaching. The German battlecruisers were steaming to starboard, while the British ships steamed to port. At 17:45, Scheer ordered a two-point turn to port to bring his ships closer to the British battlecruisers, and a minute later, the order to open fire was given.
engaged the battlecruiser at a range of . Simultaneously, her secondary guns fired on British destroyers attempting to make torpedo attacks against the German fleet. The faster British ships began to pull away from their pursuers, and at 18:00 she was forced to shift fire from Princess Royal to the battleship , though by 18:16 Valiant too had moved out of range. Her shells straddled Valiant four times and her gunners incorrectly claimed a hit on the British ship. The ship did not escape unscathed herself though; at 18:09 she was hit by a shell from either the battleships or . The shell struck the water some from the ship and either ricocheted or exploded, impacting the hull approximately from the bow. The hit caused no significant damage. During this period, she claimed three hits from her 15 cm battery on a destroyer, which was most likely . At 18:22, the ship briefly fired her secondary guns at the destroyer at extreme range, without scoring a hit. At the same time, came back into range of the battleship Valiant, and engaged her with her two forward turrets. The ship fired for eight minutes, though her shots all fell short of their target.
Shortly after 19:00, the German cruiser had become disabled by a shell from the British battlecruiser ; Rear Admiral Paul Behncke in attempted to maneuver his four ships to cover the stricken cruiser. Simultaneously, the British 3rd and 4th Light Cruiser Squadrons began a torpedo attack on the German line; while advancing to torpedo range, they smothered with fire from their main guns. and her sisters fired heavily on the British cruisers, but even sustained fire from the battleships' main guns failed to drive off the British cruisers. She fired a pair of salvos at extremely close range from her main guns at the armored cruiser , which, under heavy fire from several German capital ships, exploded and sank at 19:19. Observers aboard the ship noted that both salvos hit Defence, though did not ascribe credit for the latter's destruction to the hits. She then shifted fire to the armored cruiser , which was heavily damaged and forced to withdraw. Warrior foundered on the trip back to port the following morning.