SMS was a battlecruiser of the German (Imperial Navy) built in the early 1910s during the Anglo-German naval arms race. She was the lead ship of her class of three ships; her sister ships were and . The s were larger and featured significant improvements over the previous German battlecruisers, carrying larger guns in a more efficient superfiring arrangement. was armed with a main battery of eight guns, compared to the guns of earlier battlecruisers. She had a top speed of and carried heavy protection, including a thick armored belt.
was completed shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914; after entering service, she joined the other German battlecruisers in I Scouting Group of the High Seas Fleet, where she served for the duration of the conflict. As part of this force, she took part in numerous operations in the North Sea, including the Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in December 1914, the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, and the Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft in April 1916. These operations culminated in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, where helped to sink the British battlecruisers and . was seriously damaged in the action and was out of service for repairs for several months afterward.
The ship rejoined the fleet in late 1916, though by this time the Germans had abandoned their strategy of raids with the surface fleet in favor of the U-boat campaign. As a result, and the rest of the High Seas Fleet saw little activity for the last two years of the war apart from patrol duty in the German Bight. The fleet conducted one final operation in April 1918 in an unsuccessful attempt to intercept a British convoy to Norway. After the end of the war in November 1918, the fleet was interned in Scapa Flow. On the order of Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, the interned ships were scuttled on 21 June 1919 to prevent them from being seized by the Allied powers.
Design
The class was authorized for the 1911 fiscal year as part of the 1906 naval law; design work had begun in early 1910. After their British counterparts had begun installing guns in their battlecruisers, senior officers in the German naval command concluded that an increase in the caliber of the main battery guns from to would be necessary. To keep costs from growing too quickly, the number of guns was reduced from ten to eight, compared to the earlier , but a more efficient superfiring arrangement was adopted.
Characteristics
was long overall, with a beam of and a draft of . She displaced normally and up to at full load. The ship had a crew of 44 officers and 1,068 enlisted men. In early August 1915, a derrick was mounted amidships, and tests with Hansa-Brandenburg W seaplanes were conducted.
was propelled by two pairs of high- and low-pressure steam turbines that drove four screw propellers, with steam provided by fourteen coal-burning water-tube boilers ducted into two funnels. Her engines were rated to produce for a top speed of . She could steam for at a cruising speed of .
Mounting a main battery of eight 30.5 cm (12 in) guns, was the largest and most powerful German battlecruiser at the time. The ship's secondary battery consisted of twelve SK L/45 guns in single casemates in the superstructure, six per broadside. For defense against torpedo boats, she carried eight SK L/45 guns in individual pivot mounts on the superstructure, four of which were removed in 1916. An additional four 8.8 cm flak guns were installed amidships. Four submerged torpedo tubes were carried; one was located in the bow, two on the broadside, and one in the stern.
was protected by an armor belt that was thick in the central citadel of the ship where it protected the ammunition magazines and propulsion machinery spaces. Her deck was thick, with the thicker armor sloping down at the sides to connect to the lower edge of the belt. Her main battery turrets had thick faces. Her secondary casemates received of armor protection. The forward conning tower, where the ship's commander controlled the vessel, had 300 mm walls.
Service history
Built by Blohm & Voss at their yard in Hamburg, s keel was laid down on 30 March 1912 under the provisional designation "K". The ship was named for Georg von Derfflinger, a Prussian field marshal during the Thirty Years' War. She was to have been launched on 14 June 1913, and at the launching ceremony, the German General August von Mackensen gave a speech. The wooden sledges upon which the ship rested became jammed, because the yard had used three sledges instead of four; as a result, the central sledge had too much weight on it and the lubrication had been forced out. The ship moved only . The center sledge was removed entirely and a second attempt was successful on 12 July 1913. A crew composed of dockyard workers took the ship around the Skagen to Kiel in early 1914; there she would complete fitting out. While the ship was still under construction, plans were made to send to represent Germany at the opening of the Panama Canal in late 1914, followed by the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, United States. As Europe drifted toward war during the July Crisis, the German naval command issued orders on the 27th placing the fleet on a state of heightened alert, though was not yet complete. The Germans feared that the Russian Baltic Fleet would launch a surprise torpedo-boat attack at the start of the war, as the Japanese navy had done to the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, but the attack did not materialize when World War I broke out the next day.
The ship was placed in commission on 1September to begin sea trials. Most of the crew had recently returned from a tour in the East Asia Squadron aboard the armored cruisers and , and as such they were an experienced crew. Later that day, the ship left Hamburg and passed through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal on 2 September. Two days later, the ship suffered damage to some of its turbines, which necessitated docking in Kiel on 11 September. Reports that the British were planning to enter the Baltic Sea on 24 September led to be readied for action, but by 26 September, it had become clear that the rumored attack would not happen, and so work on the turbines resumed. She returned to trials in October, including shooting practice on 9 and 13 October. Further damage to the turbines occurred on 15 October, which led to a return to the shipyard that lasted until 9 November. In the meantime, in late October, the vessel was assigned to I Scouting Group. Trials concluded on 13 November and the ship passed back through the canal to the North Sea the next day. arrived in the Schillig roadstead outside Wilhelmshaven on 16 November; there, she joined the other ships of I Scouting Group. The ship's first wartime operation took place on 20 November; sortied with the light cruisers and and V Torpedoboat Flotilla for a sweep some northwest of the island of Helgoland. They failed to locate any British forces, but conducted some shooting practice and thereafter returned to port. next went to sea on 24 November for training exercises with the large armored cruiser that lasted into the following day. Another uneventful sweep out to the Helgoland Bight followed on 9 December.
Bombardment of Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby
s first combat operation was a raid on the English coastal towns of Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby. One raid had already been conducted by the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group, on the town of Yarmouth in late 1914. Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, the commander of the High Seas Fleet, decided to conduct another raid on the English coast. His goal was to lure a portion of the Grand Fleet into combat where it could be isolated and destroyed. At 03:20 on 15 December, (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Franz von Hipper, with his flag aboard , departed the Jade estuary. Following were , , , and , along with the light cruisers , , , and , and two squadrons of torpedo boats. The ships sailed north past the island of Heligoland, until they reached the Horns Reef lighthouse, at which point they turned west towards Scarborough. Twelve hours after Hipper left the Jade, the High Seas Fleet departed to provide distant cover. The main fleet consisted of fourteen dreadnoughts, eight pre-dreadnoughts and a screening force of two armored cruisers, seven light cruisers, and fifty-four torpedo boats.
On 26 August 1914, the German light cruiser had run aground in the Gulf of Finland; the wreck was captured by the Russian navy, which found code books used by the German navy, along with navigational charts for the North Sea. The Russians passed these documents to the Royal Navy, whose cryptographic unit—Room 40—began decrypting German signals. On 14 December, they intercepted messages relating to the planned bombardment of Scarborough. The exact details of the plan were unknown, and the British assumed the High Seas Fleet would remain safely in port, as in the previous bombardment. Vice Admiral David Beatty's four battlecruisers, supported by the 3rd Cruiser Squadron and the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron, along with the 2nd Battle Squadron's six dreadnoughts, were to ambush Hipper's battlecruisers.
During the night of 15 December, the main body of the High Seas Fleet encountered British destroyers. Fearing a nighttime torpedo attack, Ingenohl ordered the ships to retreat. Hipper was unaware of Ingenohl's reversal, and so he continued with the bombardment. Upon reaching the British coast, Hipper's battlecruisers split into two groups. and went south to shell Scarborough and Whitby while , , and went north to shell Hartlepool. By 09:45 on the 16th, the two groups had reassembled, and they began to retreat eastward.
By this time, Beatty's battlecruisers were positioned to block Hipper's chosen withdrawal route, while other forces were en route to complete the encirclement. At 12:25, the light cruisers of II Scouting Group began to pass through the British forces searching for Hipper. One of the cruisers in the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron spotted and signaled a report to Beatty. At 12:30, Beatty turned his battlecruisers towards the German ships. Beatty presumed the German cruisers were the advance screen for Hipper's ships; however, those were some 50 km (31 mi) ahead. The 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron, which had been screening for Beatty's ships, detached to pursue the German cruisers, but a misinterpreted signal from the British battlecruisers sent them back to their screening positions. This confusion allowed the German light cruisers to slip away and alerted Hipper to the location of the British battlecruisers. The German battlecruisers wheeled to the northeast of the British forces and escaped.
Both the British and the Germans were disappointed that they failed to effectively engage their opponents. Ingenohl's reputation suffered greatly as a result of his timidity. s captain was furious; he said Ingenohl had turned back "because he was afraid of 11 British destroyers which could have been eliminated... under the present leadership we will accomplish nothing." The official German history criticized Ingenohl for failing to use his light forces to determine the size of the British fleet, stating: "he decided on a measure which not only seriously jeopardized his advance forces off the English coast but also deprived the German Fleet of a signal and certain victory."
Battle of Dogger Bank