SMS Hansa (1898)

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For other ships with the same name, see SMS Hansa.

SMS Hansa
History
German Empire
NameSMS Hansa
NamesakeHanseatic League
Builder
Stettiner Maschinenbau AG Vulcan
Laid down1896
Launched12 March 1898
Commissioned20 April 1899
Stricken6 December 1919
FateScrapped, 1920
General characteristics
Class and typeVictoria Louise-class protected cruiser
Displacement
Length110.5 m (363 ft)
Beam17.6 m (58 ft)
Draft7.08 m (23.2 ft)
Installed power
  • 18 ×
    Belleville boilers
  • 10,000 
    PS (9,900 ihp
    )
Propulsion
  • 3 ×
    triple-expansion steam engines
  • 3 × screw propellers
Speed19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Range3,412 nmi (6,319 km; 3,926 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement
  • 31 officers
  • 446 enlisted men
Armament
Armor

SMS Hansa was a

Stettin in 1896, launched in March 1898, and commissioned into the Navy in April 1899. The ship was armed with a battery of two 21 cm guns and eight 15 cm guns and had a top speed of 19 knots
(35 km/h; 22 mph).

Hansa served abroad in the

Boxer Uprising in 1900. In August 1904, she participated in the internment of the Russian battleship Tsesarevich after the Battle of the Yellow Sea during the Russo-Japanese War. After returning to Germany in 1906, she was modernized and used as a training ship in 1909, following the completion of the refit. At the outbreak of World War I, Hansa was mobilized into V Scouting Group, but served in front-line duty only briefly. She was used as a barracks ship
after 1915, and ultimately sold for scrapping in 1920.

Design

Main article:
Victoria Louise class cruiser

In the early 1890s, elements in the German naval command structure grappled with what type of cruiser ought to be built to fulfill the various needs of the fleet. The

Reichsmarineamt (RMA—Imperial Navy Office) preferred to build a combination of large cruisers of around 6,000 t (5,900 long tons) along the lines of SMS Kaiserin Augusta and significantly smaller vessels of about 1,500 t (1,476 long tons) to support them, while the Oberkommando der Marine (Naval High Command) argued that a uniform force of 3,000 t (2,953 long tons) cruisers was preferable. In the event, the RMA carried the day and three 6,000-ton cruisers were authorized in 1895. They resembled the larger Kaiser Friedrich III-class battleships, designed at the same time, albeit at reduced scale.[1]

Plan and profile drawing of the Victoria Louise class

Hansa was 110.5 meters (362 ft 6 in)

metric horsepower (9,900 ihp), and provided a top speed of 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph). The ship had a range of approximately 3,412 nautical miles (6,319 km; 3,926 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph). She had a crew of 31 officers and 446 enlisted men.[2]

The ship was armed with a

3.7 cm (1.5 in) Maxim machine cannon. She was also equipped with three 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes with eight torpedoes, two launchers were mounted on the broadside and the third was in the bow, all below the waterline.[3][4]

The ship was protected with

Krupp armor; their deck was 4 cm (1.6 in) on the horizontal with sloped sides that were 10 cm (3.9 in) thick. Her main and secondary battery turrets had 10 cm thick sides and the secondary casemates had the same level of protection. The conning tower had 15 cm thick sides.[2]

Service history

AG Vulcan

Hansa was ordered under the contract name "N" and was

coastal defense ships Odin and Ägir, but her hull was damaged in the incident. In July, Lyncker was relieved by Fregattenkapitän (FK—Frigate Captain) Hugo von Pohl. Hansa completed her acceptance trials on 11 August, though her propulsion machinery had not yet been fully evaluated.[2][5]

East Asia Squadron

1899–1900

Hansa was immediately assigned to the

Kaiser Wilhelm II to holy sites in Jerusalem and Haifa. The ship then passed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and into the Indian Ocean, before stopping in the Maldives to conduct a hydrographic survey of the islands. Hansa stopped in Colombo, British Ceylon, on 29 September for a rest period for the engine room personnel, who had become overworked dealing with repeated breakdowns on the way. At one point in the Indian Ocean, all three engines and the electric generators had failed, forcing the crew to deploy sea anchors for several hours while repairs were carried out. Hansa left Colombo on 7 October and arrived in Singapore on 13 October, remaining there for four days.[6]

Hansa early in her career

After getting underway again on the 17th, the ship suffered a boiler explosion that killed two men, forcing Hansa to return to Singapore. She then left for

Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China on 15 March. Fritze left for Germany as well on 8 April, and his replacement, KAdm Hermann Kirchhoff arrived aboard Hansa in mid-July.[6]

Hansa then embarked on a cruise through the region but this was interrupted by the outbreak of the

Shanhaiguan. The ship thereafter saw no further action during the conflict. In the course of operations, Hansa's crew had suffered thirteen dead and twenty-four wounded, the heaviest casualties of any German warship involved in the conflict.[8]

1901–1906

Hansa thereafter withdrew from Chinese waters to visit

Matupi Harbor, New Britain, and Manila in the Philippines. She arrived in Tsingtao on 19 June. For the rest of the year, Hansa cruised around the station area, visiting numerous ports in East Asia.[9]

Lithograph of Hansa in 1902

On 26 August 1902, Ahlefeld left the ship and his replacement, KAdm

Port Arthur and Dalian on the Liaodong Peninsula. FK Eugen Weber took command of the ship in June.[10][13]

In early March, she was again in Hong Kong, and was joined there by the flagship of the East Asia Squadron, the armored cruiser

Danzig by 26 October, where she was decommissioned at the Kaiserliche Werft Imperial Shipyard) there.[16]

Later career

Hansa went into dry dock at the Kaiserliche Werft in April 1907 for a refit, during which she was re-boilered. Hertha originally had three stacks, and during the modernization they were trunked into two funnels. The refit was finished by 1 April 1909, at which point Hansa was recommissioned for service as a training ship for naval cadets and apprentice seamen. KzS Otto Back took command of the vessel at that time. For the next few months, Hansa cruised in German waters and the western Baltic Sea with a contingent of trainees, before making a visit to Norway. On 23 August, she embarked on a major training cruise to the Mediterranean Sea that lasted until 15 March 1910, when she arrived back in Kiel. There, she went into dry dock for periodic maintenance; in April, FK Constanz Feldt replaced Back. Training activities for the rest of 1910 followed those of the preceding year. On 23 August, she got underway for another major overseas voyage. This trip went to the Caribbean Sea and the East Coast of the United States, and concluded on 14 March 1911.[2][17] From 1911 to 1912, Günther Lütjens served aboard Hansa as commander of the naval cadets that trained on the ship.[18]

Hansa went on a short training cruise on 8 June before beginning another voyage to the United States on 26 August.

St. Petersburg, Russia, from 3 to 15 July. The ship got underway for another major training cruise on 30 August, which again went to the United States and the Caribbean, and concluded on 11 May 1913. After making short training voyages in home waters in mid-1913, Hansa began what would be her final overseas cruise on 11 August, this time to the Mediterranean. She arrived back in Germany on 17 March 1914. FK Karl von Hornhardt, the ship's last captain, took command in April.[17]

World War I

Map of the North and Baltic Seas in 1911

The outbreak of

Swinemünde.[19]

Hansa was then taken back to Kiel, where preparations to decommission the ships of V Scouting Group had begun. The naval command had determined that their weak armor protection, particularly their vulnerability to underwater attacks, precluded front-line use. Also, the navy struggled with crew shortages, and decommissioning the ships would free men for other, more useful vessels. On 16 November, Hansa and the other four cruisers were decommissioned and thereafter employed in secondary roles. Hansa became a

ship breakers in Audorf-Rendsburg. She was scrapped the following year.[19][21]

Notes

  1. ^ Dodson, p. 44.
  2. ^ a b c d Gröner, pp. 47–48.
  3. ^ Lyon, p. 254.
  4. ^ Gröner, p. 47.
  5. ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 92–93.
  6. ^ a b c Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 93.
  7. ^ Perry, p. 29.
  8. ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 93–94.
  9. ^ a b Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 92, 94.
  10. ^ a b Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 94.
  11. ^ May, pp. 109–110.
  12. ^ May, p. 137.
  13. ^ "Germans Leave Port Arthur" (PDF). New York Times. 13 February 1904. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  14. ^ May, p. 172.
  15. ^ "Togo Bound for the South?" (PDF). New York Times. 14 August 1904. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  16. ^ Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 92, 94–95.
  17. ^ a b Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, pp. 92, 95.
  18. ^ von Müllenheim-Rechberg, p. 63.
  19. ^ a b c Hildebrand, Röhr, & Steinmetz, p. 95.
  20. ^ "German Cruiser at Bermuda" (PDF). New York Times. 14 January 1912. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  21. ^ Gröner, p. 48.

References

Further reading
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