SMS was the third vessel of the of dreadnought battleships of the German (Imperial Navy). s keel was laid in November 1908 at the AG Weser dockyard in Bremen. She was launched on 27 November 1909 and commissioned into the fleet on 1 July 1911. The ship was equipped with twelve guns in six twin turrets, and had a top speed of . was assigned to I Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of her career, including World War I.
Along with her three sister ships, , , and , participated in all of the major fleet operations of World War I in the North Sea against the British Grand Fleet. This included the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916, the largest naval battle of the war. was involved in the heavy night fighting at Jutland, including the destruction of the armored cruiser . The ship also saw action against the Imperial Russian Navy in the Baltic Sea, where she participated in the unsuccessful first incursion into the Gulf of Riga in August 1915.
After the German collapse in November 1918, most of the High Seas Fleet was interned in Scapa Flow during the peace negotiations. The four -class ships were allowed to remain in Germany and were therefore spared the destruction of the fleet in Scapa Flow. and her sisters were eventually ceded to the victorious Allied powers as war reparations; was transferred to France in April 1920 and used as a target ship for the French Navy. She was sunk off Gâvres and broken up in situ in 1923–1933, though some sections of the ship remain.
Design
Many senior officers in the German (Imperial Navy) acknowledged that the s, armed with guns, were inferior to their British counterparts that carried guns. They sought to incorporate guns of the latter caliber in the next battleship design, though the significant increase in cost from the pre-dreadnought s to the dreadnought Nassau class precluded another major qualitative increase until the 1908 budget year, two years after the first Nassaus were ordered. The design staff experimented with a variety of gun turret arrangements, including superfiring layouts like the American , but they ultimately settled on the same hexagonal arrangement of the Nassaus.
Characteristics
The ship was long, had a beam of and a draft of , and displaced at full load. Thüringen had a flush deck and minimal superstructure that consisted primarily of a large, armored conning tower forward and a smaller, secondary conning position further aft. The ship was fitted with a pair of pole masts, which held spotting tops and positions for searchlights. She had a crew of 42 officers and 1,071 enlisted men.
She was powered by three triple-expansion steam engines, which produced a top speed of . Steam was provided by fifteen water-tube boilers, which were vented through three closely spaced funnels placed amidships. stored up to of coal, which allowed her to steam for at a speed of . After 1915, the boilers were modified to spray oil on the coal to increase its burn rate; the ship could carry up to of fuel oil.
was armed with a main battery of twelve SK L/50 guns in six twin gun turrets, with one turret fore, one aft, and two on each flank of the ship. The ship's secondary battery consisted of fourteen SK L/45 guns, all of which were mounted in casemates in the side of the upper deck. For defense against torpedo boats, she carried fourteen SK L/45 guns. After 1914, two of the 8.8 cm guns were removed and replaced by 8.8 cm anti-aircraft guns. was also armed with six submerged torpedo tubes; one was in the bow, one in the stern, and two on each 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 the same thickness of KCA on the sides and faces, as well as the barbettes that supported the turrets. s deck was thick.
Service history
was ordered by the German Imperial Navy () under the provisional name , as a replacement for the old coastal defense ship . The contract for the ship was awarded to the AG Weser dockyard in Bremen under construction number 166. Work began on 2 November 1908 with the laying of her keel, and the ship was launched a year later on 27 November 1909. The ship, named for the Duchy of Thuringia, was christened by Duchess Adelheid von Sachsen-Altenburg, and Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst gave the speech. Fitting out, including completion of the superstructure and the installation of armament, lasted until June 1911. Following her completion, six pontoon barges were attached to the new battleship to reduce her draft to allow her to be towed down the Weser River to the North Sea. , named for Thuringia, a state in central Germany, was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 1 June 1911, less than three years after work commenced. The ship's first commander was (KzS—Captain at Sea) Hermann Nordmann.
After her commissioning on 1 July 1911, conducted sea trials, which were completed by 10 September. On 19 September, she was assigned to I Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet, alongside her sisters. She then went on to conduct individual ship training exercises, which were followed by I Squadron exercises and then fleet maneuvers in November. The annual summer cruise in July and August, which typically went to Norway, was interrupted by the Agadir Crisis. As a result, the cruise only went into the Baltic. and the rest of the fleet then fell into a pattern of individual ship, squadron, and full fleet exercises over the next two years. In October 1913, KzS William Michaelis became the ship's commanding officer; he held the post until February 1915.
On 14 July 1914, the annual summer cruise to Norway began. During the last peacetime cruise of the Imperial Navy, the fleet conducted drills off Skagen before proceeding to the Norwegian fjords on 25 July. The following day the fleet began to steam back to Germany, as a result of Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia. On 27 July, the entire fleet assembled off Cape Skudenes before returning to port, where they remained at a heightened state of readiness. War between Austria-Hungary and Serbia broke out the following day, and within a week all the major European powers had joined the conflict. By 29 July and the rest of I Squadron were back in Wilhelmshaven. During the first year of the war, the future anti-Nazi Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller served aboard the ship as an officer.
World War I
was present during the first sortie by the German fleet into the North Sea, which took place on 2–3 November 1914. No British forces were encountered during the operation. A second operation followed on 15–16 December. This sortie was the initiation of a strategy adopted by Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, the commander of the High Seas Fleet. Ingenohl intended to use the battlecruisers of (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Franz von Hipper's I Scouting Group to raid British coastal towns to lure out portions of the Grand Fleet where they could be destroyed by the High Seas Fleet. Early on 15 December the fleet left port to raid the towns of Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby on the English coast. That evening, the German battle fleet of some twelve dreadnoughts—including and her three sisters—and eight pre-dreadnoughts came to within of an isolated squadron of six British battleships. 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 battle fleet back toward Germany.
The Battle of Dogger Bank, in which Vice Admiral David Beatty's 1st and 2nd Battlecruiser Squadrons ambushed the I Scouting Group battlecruisers, occurred on 24 January 1915. and the rest of I Squadron were sortied to reinforce the outnumbered German battlecruisers; I Squadron left port at 12:33 CET, along with the pre-dreadnoughts of II Squadron. The High Seas Fleet was too late, so it failed to locate any British forces. By 19:05, the fleet had returned to the Schillig Roads outside Wilhelmshaven. In the meantime, the armored cruiser had been overwhelmed by concentrated British fire and sunk, while the battlecruiser was severely damaged by an ammunition fire. As a result, Wilhelm II removed Ingenohl from his post and replaced him with Admiral Hugo von Pohl on 2 February. The same month, KzS Hugo Langemak arrived to relieve Michaelis as Thüringens captain.
The eight I Squadron ships went into the Baltic on 22 February 1915 for unit training, which lasted until 13 March. Following their return to the North Sea, the ships participated in a series of uneventful fleet sorties on 29–30 March, 17–18 April, 21–22 April, 17–18 May, and 29–30 May. and the rest of the fleet then remained in port until 4 August, when I Squadron returned to the Baltic for another round of training maneuvers. From there, the squadron was attached to the naval force that attempted to sweep the Gulf of Riga of Russian naval forces in August 1915. The assault force included the eight I Squadron battleships, the battlecruisers , , and , several light cruisers, 32 destroyers and 13 minesweepers. The plan called for channels to be swept in Russian minefields so that the Russian naval presence, which included the pre-dreadnought , could be eliminated. The Germans would then lay minefields of their own to prevent Russian ships from returning to the Gulf. and the majority of the other big ships of the High Seas Fleet remained outside the Gulf for the entirety of the operation. The dreadnoughts and were detached on 16 August to escort the minesweepers and to destroy , though they failed to sink the old battleship. After three days, the Russian minefields had been cleared, and the flotilla entered the Gulf on 19 August; reports of Allied submarines in the area prompted a German withdrawal from the Gulf the following day. By 26 August, I Squadron had returned to Wilhelmshaven. In September, KzS Hans Küsel replaced Langemak as the ship's captain.
On 23–24 October, the High Seas Fleet undertook its last major offensive operation under the command of Pohl, though it ended without contact with British forces. By January 1916 hepatic cancer had weakened Pohl to the point where he was no longer able to carry out his duties, and he was replaced by Reinhard Scheer in January. Scheer proposed a more aggressive policy designed to force a confrontation with the British Grand Fleet; he received approval from the Kaiser in February. Scheer's first operation was a sweep into the North Sea on 5–7 March, followed by two more on 21–22 March and 25–26 March. During Scheer's next operation, supported a raid on the English coast on 24 April 1916 conducted by the German battlecruiser force. The battlecruisers left the Jade Estuary at 10:55 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 gun duel ensued before the Harwich Force withdrew. Reports of British submarines in the area prompted the retreat of I Scouting Group. At this point, 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