SMS ("His Majesty's Ship "), named after the Bavarian city of Nuremberg, was a light cruiser built for the German Imperial Navy (). Her sisters included , , and . She was built by the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel, laid down in early 1906 and launched in August of that year. She was completed in April 1908. was armed with ten guns, eight SK L/55 guns, and two submerged torpedo tubes. Her top speed was .
served with the fleet briefly, before being deployed overseas in 1910. She was assigned to the East Asia Squadron. At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, she was returning to the German naval base at Qingdao from Mexican waters. She rejoined the rest of the Squadron, commanded by Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee, which steamed across the Pacific Ocean and encountered a British squadron commanded by Rear Admiral Christopher Cradock. In the ensuing Battle of Coronel on 1 November, the British squadron was defeated; finished off the British cruiser . A month later, the Germans attempted to raid the British base in the Falkland Islands; a powerful British squadron that included a pair of battlecruisers was in port, commanded by Vice Admiral Doveton Sturdee. Sturdee's ships chased down and destroyed four of the five German cruisers; sank , with heavy loss of life.
Design
The -class ships were designed to serve both as fleet scouts in home waters and Germany's colonial empire. This was a result of budgetary constraints that prevented the (Imperial Navy) from building more specialized cruisers suitable for both roles. The class was an iterative development of the preceding . All four members of the class were intended to be identical, but after the initial vessel was begun, the design staff incorporated lessons from the Russo-Japanese War. These included internal rearrangements and a lengthening of the hull.
was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced normally and up to at full load. The ship had a minimal superstructure, which consisted of a small conning tower and bridge structure. Her hull had a raised forecastle and quarterdeck, along with a pronounced ram bow. She was fitted with two pole masts. had a crew of 14 officers and 308 enlisted men.
Her propulsion system consisted of two 3-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines that drove a pair of screw propellers. Steam was provided by eleven coal-fired Marine-type water-tube boilers that were vented through three funnels. The ship's propulsion system was rated to produce for a top speed of , though she exceeded these figures in service. Normal coal storage amounted to . At a more economical pace of , the ship had a range of approximately .
The ship was armed with a main battery of ten SK L/40 guns in single pedestal mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle; six were located on the broadside, three on either side; and two were side by side aft. The guns had a maximum elevation of 30 degrees, which allowed them to engage targets out to . They were supplied with 1,500 rounds of ammunition, for 150 shells per gun. The ship was also equipped with eight SK guns with 4,000 rounds of ammunition. She was also equipped with a pair of torpedo tubes with five torpedoes submerged in the hull on the broadside.
The ship was protected by a curved armor deck that was thick amidships. The deck sloped downward at the sides, with a thickness of , to provide protection against enemy fire. The conning tower sides were thick. Her main battery guns were fitted with thick gun shields.
Service history
was ordered under the contract name " ", and was laid down at the (Imperial Shipyard) in Kiel on 16 January 1906. Work proceeded very quickly, and her completed hull was ready for launching just six months later. At her launching ceremony on 28 August, the mayor of her namesake city, Dr. Georg von Schuh, christened , after which fitting-out work commenced. She was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 10 April 1908. She thereafter began sea trials on 30 April, which were interrupted from 4 to 5 June when the Bavarian crown prince Ludwig came aboard to visit the ship during training exercises with the High Seas Fleet. The trials were completed on 3 July, but there was a shortage of trained crews, so was decommissioned in Wilhelmshaven so that her crew could be used elsewhere.
remained out of service for the next two years before being recommissioned on 1 October 1910 for a deployment abroad. After completing her crew and making preparations for the voyage, she left Wilhelmshaven on 14 February, bound for East Asia. By 5 April, she had arrived in Singapore and thereafter entered the station area for the East Asia Squadron; she replaced the older cruiser in the unit. She spent May making visits to several ports in the region, and at the end of the month, she joined the armored cruiser , the squadron flagship, for a cruise to German Samoa. The ships arrived there on 16 July, where they met the light cruiser . The three cruisers then sailed south to Friedrich-Wilhelmshafen in German New Guinea to assist the survey ship , which had suffered severe boiler damage. also carried a small police detachment in response to murders of Germans in the area, but their presence proved to be unnecessary. took Planet under tow to Singapore for repairs on 9 September, arriving there on 24 September without incident. thereafter cruised through the region for the rest of the year.
was in Hong Kong in late December when her crew received word of the Sokehs Rebellion in German Samoa. The ship quickly departed, and joined her from Qingdao. The two cruisers reinforced German forces at Ponape, which included the old unprotected cruiser . The ships bombarded rebel positions and sent a landing force, which included men from the ships along with colonial police troops, ashore in mid-January 1911. By the end of February the revolt had been suppressed, and on 26 February the unprotected cruiser arrived to take over the German presence in the Carolines. and the other ships held a funeral the following day for those killed in the operation. thereafter departed to return to East Asian waters. She spent much of the rest of the year cruising in the area, individually and at times with the rest of the squadron. Following the outbreak of the Chinese Revolution in October 1911, the ship was stationed off Shanghai and Nanking from October to November 1911 to protect German nationals in the area, and again from January to April 1912.
In May and June 1912, embarked the squadron commander for a cruise into the Yangtze, as far inland as Hankou. In September, the ship sailed to Shanghai, where she remained through mid-October. She left for Qingdao on 13 October for a major overhaul. The rest of 1912 passed uneventfully, as did much of 1913, apart from a period from July to mid-September where sent a landing party ashore to protect the German consulate in Shanghai. On 16 October, while was in Yokohama, Japan, she received orders to sail for the western coast of Mexico in response to the Mexican Revolution. She arrived off La Paz, Mexico, on 8 November. Along with warships from the United States, Japan, and Britain, visited a series of ports in the region to protect German, Austro-Hungarian, and Swiss nationals in the area, but direct intervention ashore proved to be unnecessary. In June 1914, she sailed south to Panama, where she took on a new crew and supplies. thereafter steamed north to Mazatlán, Mexico, where she met her replacement, the light cruiser , on 7 July. s boilers were in poor condition, necessitating a stop in San Francisco, United States, for repairs that lasted from 14 to 18 July.
World War I
After completing repairs in the United States, was to sail via Hawaii to Apia, where she was to meet and the armored cruiser , but due to the deteriorating political situation in Europe that resulted from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and led to the July Crisis and ultimately the start of World War I, the German naval command ordered to sail directly to Qingdao. Her orders were changed again while still en route, and she met the two armored cruisers, by then commanded by Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee, in Ponape. On 6 August 1914, rendezvoused with the two cruisers. With the outbreak of war at the end of July, Spee planned a return of his squadron to Germany, sailing through the Pacific, rounding Cape Horn, and then forcing his way north through the Atlantic. Spee decided the best place to concentrate his forces was Pagan Island in the northern Marianas Islands, a German possession in the central Pacific. All available colliers, supply ships, and passenger liners were ordered to meet the East Asia Squadron there. On 11 August, Spee arrived in Pagan; he was joined by several supply ships, as well as and the auxiliary cruiser .
The four cruisers then departed the central Pacific, bound for Chile. On 13 August the captain of the , Commodore Karl von Müller, persuaded Spee to detach his ship for commerce raiding. The ships again coaled after their arrival at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands on 20 August. On 6 September Spee detached , along with the tender , to cut the British cable system at Fanning Island. The cruiser flew a French ensign to deceive the defenders, and succeeded in destroying the station on 7 September. then rejoined the fleet at Christmas Island later that day. In order to keep the German high command informed of his activities, Spee sent on 8 September to Honolulu to send word through neutral countries. Spee chose the ship because the British were aware she had left Mexican waters, and so her presence in Hawaii would not betray the movements of the entire East Asia Squadron. She was also ordered to contact German agents to instruct them to prepare coal stocks in South America for the squadron's use. brought back news of the Allied conquest of the German colony at Samoa.
On 14 September, Spee decided to use his two armored cruisers to raid the British base at Apia; he sent to escort the squadron's colliers to the rendezvous location. At the Battle of Papeete on 22 September, and the rest of the East Asia Squadron bombarded the colony. During the bombardment, the French gunboat was sunk by gunfire from the German ships. Fear of mines in the harbor prevented Spee from seizing the coal that lay in the harbor. By 12 October, the squadron had reached Easter Island. There they were joined by and , which had sailed from American waters. After a week in the area, the ships departed for Chile.
Battle of Coronel
To oppose the German squadron off the coast of South America, the British had scant resources; under the command of Rear Admiral Christopher Cradock were the armored cruisers and , the light cruiser , and the auxiliary cruiser . This flotilla was reinforced by the elderly pre-dreadnought battleship and the armored cruiser , the latter, however, did not arrive until after the Battle of Coronel. Canopus was left behind by Cradock, who likely felt that her slow speed would prevent him from bringing the German ships to battle. On the evening of 26 October, the East Asia Squadron steamed out of Mas a Fuera, Chile, and headed eastward. Spee learned that Glasgow had been spotted in Coronel on the 31st, and so turned towards the port.