Kaiser Friedrich III-class battleship
SMS Kaiser Wilhelm II
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Class overview | |
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Builders |
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Operators | Imperial German Navy |
Preceded by | Brandenburg class |
Succeeded by | Wittelsbach class |
Built | 1895–1901 |
In commission | 1898–1920 |
Completed | 5 |
Scrapped | 5 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Pre-dreadnought battleship |
Displacement |
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Length | 125.3 m (411 ft 1 in) o/a |
Beam | 20.4 m (66 ft 11 in) |
Draft | 7.89 m (25 ft 11 in) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion |
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Speed | 17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 mph) |
Range | 3,420 nmi (6,330 km; 3,940 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
Complement |
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Armament |
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Armor |
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The Kaiser Friedrich III class consisted of five
On entering service, the ships were assigned to I Squadron, of which Kaiser Friedrich III served as the flagship, while Kaiser Wilhelm II served as the flagship for the overall fleet commander. The ships conducted routine training exercises and cruises in the early 1900s and Kaiser Friedrich III was badly damaged in a grounding accident while steaming in the Baltic Sea in 1901. As newer battleships entered service later in the decade, the ships of the class were moved to II Squadron in 1905 and all of the ships except Kaiser Karl der Grosse were rebuilt between 1907 and 1910. Thereafter they were reduced to reserve status beginning in 1908, since more powerful dreadnought battleships had begun to be commissioned; the rest of their peacetime careers consisted of periodic reactivations to participate in annual fleet training maneuvers.
At the start of World War I in July 1914, the ships were recommissioned and assigned to V Squadron; they were tasked with coastal defense in the North Sea but were quickly transferred to the Baltic to support German operations against the Russian Empire. They saw limited activity during this period, and they returned to the North Sea for guard duties in early 1915. The increasing threat of modern weapons, particularly the British submarines that had begun to operate in the area, combined with shortages of crews for more valuable vessels, led the navy to decommission all five members of the class in March 1915. They were used in a variety of secondary roles. They were all discarded in the early 1920s as Germany disarmed under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
Design
In the early 1890s, the
Work continued on the ships' design while the navy pushed for funding in the Reichstag, which was finally approved in March 1894, placing pressure on the design staff to complete their work so construction could begin. By May, the design staff had produced sketch XVI, which discarded the traditional two-
During the design process, the commander of the Maneuver Squadron, Hans von Koester, suggested that the 28 cm guns be discarded in favor of 24 cm (9.4 in) guns, since they could be fired 2.5 times as fast as the larger guns and they were large enough that they could still be used to penetrate heavy armor at the close battle ranges envisioned at the time. Koester convinced Wilhelm II to overrule the naval high command, who wished to retain the heavier guns. This decision set a pattern of German naval construction for the next two decades that favored lighter, faster-firing guns instead of larger, more powerful ones. Though the decision was criticized at the time on the basis that the 24 cm gun was smaller and thus weaker than the 28 cm, the larger gun offered little substantive advantage at close range, and the much greater rate of fire allowed it to produce a heavier broadside over time.[1]
In August 1894, the navy settled on an 11,000-
After the first vessel was begun, the next member of the class was authorized for the 1896/1897 program; during the intervening two years, consideration was given to re-designing the second ship to match foreign developments, most significantly the adoption of 30.5 cm (12 in) guns like those on the British Majestic-class battleship. The change would have necessitated halving the main battery and the removal of four of the 15 cm guns to offset the weight of the larger guns. Additionally, it would have left Kaiser Friedrich III with no counterparts, which would have complicated tactical control. The sacrifices were deemed to be too severe, and so the decision was made to go ahead with the 24 cm gun, as successful proof-firing of the new gun had by then been completed.[5]
General characteristics and machinery
The Kaiser Friedrich III-class ships were 120.9 meters (396 ft 8 in)
The German navy regarded them as having excellent seakeeping. They had a tight turning circle and were very responsive. The ships rolled up to 15° and had a roll period of 12 seconds. They suffered only minor speed loss in heavy seas, but up to 40 percent with the rudder hard over. Their metacentric heights were between 0.917 to 1.18 m (3 ft 0 in to 3 ft 10 in). The ships carried a number of smaller boats, including two picket boats, two launches, one pinnace, two cutters, two yawls, and two dinghies. The crew numbered 39 officers and 612 enlisted men. When serving as a squadron flagship, a ship had its crew augmented by another 12 officers and between 51 and 63 enlisted men.[6]
The Kaiser Friedrich III-class battleships were powered by three 3-cylinder vertical
The powerplants were rated at 13,000
Armament
The primary armament consisted of a battery of four 24 cm (9.4 in) SK L/40 guns in twin-gun turrets,[a] one fore and one aft of the central superstructure. The guns were mounted in hydraulically-operated Drh.L. C/98 turrets, which allowed elevation to +30 degrees and depression to −5 degrees. At maximum elevation, the guns could hit targets out to 16,900 meters (18,500 yd). The guns fired 140-kilogram (310 lb) shells at a muzzle velocity of 835 meters per second (2,740 ft/s). Each gun was supplied with 75 shells, for a total of 300.[10][11]
Secondary armament included eighteen 15 cm (5.9 inch) SK L/40 guns. Six were mounted in single turrets amidships and the rest were mounted in MPL casemates; all were manually operated and elevated.[b] Most of these guns were mounted at upper-deck level, with only four of the casemates at main deck level, which kept them high enough in the ship to avoid a common problem with battleships of the period where heavy seas could make the guns unworkable. According to the historian Aidan Dodson, the arrangement was "perhaps the best of the period."[12] These guns fired armor-piercing shells at a rate of 4 to 5 per minute. The ships carried 120 shells per gun, for a total of 2,160 rounds total. The guns could depress to −7 degrees and elevate to +20 degrees, for a maximum range of 13,700 m (14,990 yd). The shells weighed 51 kg (112 lb) and were fired at a muzzle velocity of 735 m/s (2,410 ft/s).[11][13]
The ships also carried twelve
The ships were also armed with six 45 cm (17.7 in)
Armor
The Kaiser Friedrich III-class ships were armored with steel produced by
They had an armor belt that was 300 millimeters (11.8 in) thick in the central portion of the hull at the waterline. It tapered to 150 mm (5.9 in) in the forward section and 200 mm (7.9 in) in the rear, although the belt did not extend fully aft. The lower portion of the belt ranged in thickness from 100 to 180 mm (3.9 to 7.1 in). The entire belt was backed with 250 mm (9.8 in) of teak. The main armored deck was 65 mm (2.6 in) thick,[6] but the thickness was increased to 75 mm (3 in) aft of the rear main battery barbette, where the stern was not protected by the belt. This portion of the deck curved down at the sides to offer a measure of protection against shell hits.[16]
The conning tower was protected by armored sides that were 250 mm thick and a roof that was 30 mm (1.2 in) thick. Each main-battery turret had a 50 mm (2 in) thick roof and 250 mm thick sides. The 15 cm guns mounted in turrets were protected by 150 mm thick sides and 70 mm (2.8 in) thick gun shields. Those in the casemates also had 150 mm worth of armor protection.[6]
Construction
The five ships of the Kaiser Friedrich class were built by a combination of government and private shipyards. Three of the ships—Kaiser Friedrich III, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, and Kaiser Karl der Grosse—were delayed during construction; Kaiser Friedrich III had to wait for her main guns to be completed before entering service. Kaiser Karl der Grosse was damaged by an accidental grounding by the shipyard crew when they were moving the ship from Hamburg to Wilhelmshaven, and a fire at the shipyard slowed work on Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse.[6][17]
Ship | Builder[18] | Namesake[18] | Laid down[18] | Launched[18] | Commissioned[18] |
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Kaiser Friedrich III | Kaiserliche Werft, Wilhelmshaven
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Kaiser Friedrich III | 5 March 1895 | 1 July 1896 | 7 October 1898 |
Kaiser Wilhelm II | Kaiser Wilhelm II
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26 October 1896 | 14 September 1897 | 13 February 1900 | |
Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse | Germaniawerft, Kiel | Kaiser Wilhelm I | 22 January 1898 | 1 June 1899 | 5 May 1901 |
Kaiser Karl der Grosse | Blohm & Voss, Hamburg
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Emperor Charlemagne | 17 September 1898 | 18 October 1899 | 4 February 1902 |
Kaiser Barbarossa | Schichau-Werke, Danzig | Frederick I
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3 August 1898 | 21 April 1900 | 10 June 1901 |
Service history
Prewar careers
On entering service, Kaiser Friedrich III became the flagship of
By 1905, as several new classes of battleships—the Wittelsbach, Braunschweig, and Deutschland classes—had either entered service or were approaching completion, the members of the Kaiser Friedrich III class began to be transferred to II Squadron. In 1906, Kaiser Wilhelm II was replaced as the fleet flagship by the new battleship Deutschland. The normal peacetime training routine continued for the next several years, interrupted by a reconstruction program in the mid to late-1900s. Kaiser Barbarossa was the first to be rebuilt in 1905, a result of having been decommissioned for repairs to her rudder for damage incurred on a cruise to Spain in 1903. Kaiser Friedrich III was rebuilt in 1907, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse were reconstructed in 1909–1910.[20] The work involved cutting down their superstructure to reduce topweight, removing four of the 15 cm guns and one of the torpedo tubes, and moving the 8.8 cm guns to the upper deck.[21] Kaiser Karl der Grosse was not modernized, however.[6]
Beginning in 1908, the members of the class transitioned out of front-line service, their place having been taken by the Deutschland class and the first
World War I
Following the outbreak of
On 5 March, the ships were dispersed to various ports, had their crews reduced, and were eventually disarmed. Kaiser Wilhelm II was stationed in Wilhelmshaven as a
Footnotes
Notes
- ^ In Imperial German Navy gun nomenclature, "SK" (Schnelladekanone) denotes that the gun is quick firing, while the L/40 denotes the length of the gun. In this case, the L/40 gun is 40 caliber, meaning that the gun is 40 times as long as it is in diameter.[9]
- ^ MPL stands for Mittel-Pivot-Lafette (Central pivot mounting).[9]
Citations
- ^ a b c d Dodson, p. 45.
- ^ Ropp, p. 297.
- ^ Dodson, pp. 45–47.
- ^ Herwig, p. 26.
- ^ Dodson, pp. 47–48.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Gröner, p. 15.
- ^ Dodson, pp. 49–50.
- ^ Dodson, pp. 48–49.
- ^ a b Grießmer, p. 177.
- ^ a b Friedman, p. 141.
- ^ a b c Campbell & Sieche, p. 140.
- ^ Dodson, p. 47.
- ^ Friedman, p. 143.
- ^ Friedman, p. 146.
- ^ Friedman, p. 336.
- ^ Dodson, p. 75.
- ^ Dodson, p. 48.
- ^ a b c d e Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 23, 28, 39, 41, 66.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 28–34, 41–58.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 23, 35, 60–61, 66.
- ^ Lyon, p. 247.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 23, 36, 39, 62, 66.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 63.
- ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 37, 39, 63–64, 67.
- ^ a b Gröner, p. 16.
References
- Campbell, N. J. M. & Sieche, Erwin (1986). "Germany". In Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. London: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 134–189. ISBN 978-0-85177-245-5.
- ISBN 978-1-84832-229-5.
- ISBN 978-1-84832-100-7.
- Grießmer, Axel (1999). Die Linienschiffe der Kaiserlichen Marine: 1906–1918; Konstruktionen zwischen Rüstungskonkurrenz und Flottengesetz [The Battleships of the Imperial Navy: 1906–1918; Constructions between Arms Competition and Fleet Laws] (in German). Bonn: Bernard & Graefe Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7637-5985-9.
- ISBN 978-0-87021-790-6.
- Herwig, Holger (1998) [1980]. "Luxury" Fleet: The Imperial German Navy 1888–1918. Amherst: Humanity Books. ISBN 978-1-57392-286-9.
- Hildebrand, Hans H.; Röhr, Albert & Steinmetz, Hans-Otto (1993). Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe: Biographien: ein Spiegel der Marinegeschichte von 1815 bis zur Gegenwart (Band 5) [The German Warships: Biographies: A Reflection of Naval History from 1815 to the Present (Vol. 5)] (in German). Ratingen: Mundus Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7822-0456-9.
- Lyon, Hugh (1979). "Germany". In Gardiner, Robert; Chesneau, Roger; Kolesnik, Eugene M. (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-133-5.
- ISBN 978-0-87021-141-6.
Further reading
- Koop, Gerhard & Schmolke, Klaus-Peter (2001). Die Panzer- und Linienschiffe der Brandenburg-, Kaiser Friedrich III-, Wittlesbach-, Braunschweig- und Deutschland-Klasse [The Armored and Battleships of the Brandenburg, Kaiser Friedrich III, Wittelsbach, Braunschweig, and Deutschland Classes] (in German). Bonn: Bernard & Graefe Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7637-6211-8.
- Weir, Gary E. (1992). Building the Kaiser's Navy: The Imperial Navy Office and German Industry in the Tirpitz Era, 1890–1919. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-929-1.