SMS (German: Seiner Majestät Schiff ; English: His Majesty's Ship ) was the third pre-dreadnought battleship of the German Imperial Navy (). Laid down in 1899 at the Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel, she was launched on 12 June 1901 and commissioned on 25 October 1902. Her sisters were , , and ; they were the first capital ships built under the Navy Law of 1898, brought about by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. The ship, named for the former royal House of Zähringen, was armed with a main battery of four guns and had a top speed of .
saw active duty in I Squadron of the German fleet for the majority of her career. During this period, she was occupied with extensive annual training and making good-will visits to foreign countries. The training exercises conducted during this period provided the framework for the High Seas Fleet's operations during World War I. She was decommissioned in September 1910, but returned to service briefly for training in 1912, where she accidentally rammed and sank a torpedo boat. After the start of World War I in August 1914, was brought back to active duty in IV Battle Squadron. The ship saw limited duty in the Baltic Sea, including during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915, but saw no combat with Russian forces. By late 1915, crew shortages and the threat of British submarines forced the to withdraw older battleships like .
Instead, was relegated to a target ship for torpedo training in 1917. In the mid-1920s, she was heavily reconstructed and equipped for use as a radio-controlled target ship. She served in this capacity until 1944, when she was sunk in Gotenhafen by British bombers during World War II. The retreating Germans raised the ship and moved her to the harbor mouth, where they scuttled her to block the port. was broken up in situ in 1949–50.
Design
After the German (Imperial Navy) ordered the four s in 1889, a combination of budgetary constraints, opposition in the (Imperial Diet), and a lack of a coherent fleet plan delayed the acquisition of further battleships. The Secretary of the (Imperial Navy Office), (VAdm—Vice Admiral) Friedrich von Hollmann struggled throughout the early and mid-1890s to secure parliamentary approval for the first three s. In June 1897, Hollmann was replaced by (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Alfred von Tirpitz, who quickly proposed and secured approval for the first Naval Law in early 1898. The law authorized the last two ships of the class, as well as the five ships of the , the first class of battleship built under Tirpitz's tenure. The s were broadly similar to the s, carrying the same armament but with a more comprehensive armor layout.
Characteristics
was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced as designed and up to at full load. The ship had a large superstructure that included an armored conning tower forward, along with a flush deck. Her hull featured a pronounced ram bow. She had a crew of 30 officers and 650 enlisted men.
The ship was powered by three 3-cylinder vertical triple expansion engines that drove three screws. Steam was provided by six Marine-type and six cylindrical boilers, all of which burned coal and were vented through a pair of large funnels located amidships. s powerplant was rated at , which generated a top speed of . The ship had a cruising radius of at a speed of .
s armament consisted of a main battery of four 24 cm (9.4 in) SK L/40 guns in twin-gun turrets, one fore and one aft of the central superstructure. Her secondary armament consisted of eighteen 15 cm (5.9 inch) SK L/40 guns that were mounted in casemates. Six of these were placed in the hull and the other six were in the superstructure, two of which were forward-firing under the forward turret. Close-range defense against torpedo boats was provided by a tertiary battery of twelve 8.8 cm (3.45 in) SK L/30 quick-firing guns and twelve machine cannon in the upper superstructure. The armament suite was rounded out with six torpedo tubes, all submerged in the hull; one was in the bow, one in the stern, and the other four were on the broadside.
was protected with Krupp armor. Her armor belt was thick in the central citadel that protected her magazines and machinery spaces and reduced to on either end of the hull. Horizontal protection was provided by an armor deck that was thick; it sloped down at the sides and connected to the bottom edge of the belt. The sloped sides increased in thickness to . The main battery turrets had of armor plating on their faces and the secondary casemates received of armor plate. Her conning tower was protected with 250 mm of armor.
Service history Construction to 1904
was ordered under the contract name "E", as a new unit for the fleet. Her keel was laid down on 21 November 1899, at Friedrich Krupp's Germaniawerft dockyard in Kiel. was launched on 12 June 1901, with her launching speech given by Frederick I, Grand Duke of Baden and head of the House of Zähringen; his wife, Grand Duchess Louise, christened the ship. was commissioned on 25 October 1902, and began her sea trials, which lasted until 10 February 1903. She thereafter replaced the battleship in I Squadron of the Active Fleet. On 2 April 1903, the squadron went to sea and began gunnery training two days later. These exercises continued for the rest of the month, interrupted only by heavy storms.
A major training cruise followed the next month; on 10 May the ships departed the Elbe river and made their way into the Atlantic. They cruised south to Spain, passing Ushant on 14 May and reaching the Iberian Peninsula five days later. There, they conducted a reconnaissance exercise off Pontevedra before anchoring in Vigo on 20 May. The squadron departed Spain on 30 May. The ships passed through the Strait of Dover on 3 June and continued into the Kattegat. There, they rendezvoused with the torpedo boats of I (Torpedo Boat Flotilla)—commanded by (Lieutenant Commander) Franz von Hipper—for a mock attack on the fortifications at Kiel. Later in June, the ships took part in additional gunnery training and were present at the Kiel Week sailing regatta. During Kiel Week, an American squadron that included the battleship and four cruisers visited. Following the end of Kiel Week, I Squadron, which had been strengthened with the new cruiser , and I went to sea for more tactical and gunnery exercises in the North Sea, which lasted from 6 to 28 July. The annual fleet maneuvers began on 15 August; they consisted of a blockade exercise in the North Sea, a cruise of the entire fleet first to Norwegian waters and then to Kiel in early September, and finally a mock attack on Kiel. The exercises concluded on 12 September. The year's training schedule concluded with a cruise into the eastern Baltic that started on 23 November and a cruise into the Skagerrak that began on 1 December.
and the rest of I Squadron participated in an exercise in the Skagerrak from 11 to 21 January 1904. Further squadron exercises followed from 8 to 17 March, and a major fleet exercise took place in the North Sea in May. In July, I Squadron and I Scouting Group visited Britain, including a stop at Plymouth on 10 July. The German fleet departed on 13 July, bound for the Netherlands; I Squadron anchored in Vlissingen the following day. There, the ships were visited by Queen Wilhelmina. I Squadron remained in Vlissingen until 20 July, when they departed for a cruise in the northern North Sea with the rest of the fleet. The squadron stopped in Molde, Norway, on 29 July, while the other units went to other ports. The fleet reassembled on 6 August and steamed back to Kiel, where it conducted a mock attack on the harbor on 12 August. During its cruise in the North Sea, the fleet experimented with wireless telegraphy on a large scale and searchlights at night for communication and recognition signals. Immediately after returning to Kiel, the fleet began preparations for the autumn maneuvers, which began on 29 August in the Baltic. The fleet moved to the North Sea on 3 September, where it took part in a major landing operation, after which the ships took the ground troops from IX Corps that participated in the exercises to Altona for a parade for Wilhelm II. The ships then conducted their own parade for the Kaiser off the island of Helgoland on 6 September. Three days later, the fleet returned to the Baltic via the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, where it participated in further landing operations with IX Corps and the Guards Corps. On 15 September, the maneuvers came to an end.
1905–1914
took part in a pair of training cruises with I Squadron during 9–19 January and 27 February – 16 March 1905. Individual and squadron training followed, with an emphasis on gunnery drills. On 12 July, the fleet began a major training exercise in the North Sea. The fleet then cruised through the Kattegat and stopped in Copenhagen and Stockholm. The summer cruise ended on 9 August, though the autumn maneuvers that would normally have begun shortly thereafter were delayed by a visit from the British Channel Fleet that month. The British fleet stopped in Danzig, Swinemünde, and Flensburg, where it was greeted by units of the German Navy; and the main German fleet was anchored at Swinemünde for the occasion. The visit was strained by the Anglo-German naval arms race. As a result of the British visit, the 1905 autumn maneuvers were shortened considerably, from 6 to 13 September, and consisted only of exercises in the North Sea. The first exercise presumed a naval blockade in the German Bight, and the second envisioned a hostile fleet attempting to force the defenses of the Elbe. In October, I Squadron went on a cruise in the Baltic. In early December, I and II Squadrons went on their regular winter cruise, this time to Danzig, where they arrived on 12 December. While on the return trip to Kiel, the fleet conducted tactical exercises.
The fleet undertook a heavier training schedule in 1906 than in previous years. The ships were occupied with individual, division and squadron exercises throughout April. Starting on 13 May, major fleet exercises took place in the North Sea and lasted until 8 June with a cruise around the Skagen into the Baltic. The fleet began its usual summer cruise to Norway in mid-July. The fleet was present for the birthday of Norwegian King Haakon VII on 3 August. The German ships departed the following day for Helgoland, to join exercises being conducted there. The fleet was back in Kiel by 15 August, where preparations for the autumn maneuvers began. On 22–24 August, the fleet took part in landing exercises in Eckernförde Bay outside Kiel. The maneuvers were paused from 31 August to 3 September when the fleet hosted vessels from Denmark and Sweden, along with a Russian squadron from 3 to 9 September in Kiel. The maneuvers resumed on 8 September and lasted five more days. The ship participated in the uneventful winter cruise into the Kattegat and Skagerrak from 8 to 16 December.