Braunschweig class (1902)
.jpg) The Lorraine
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
The first Braunschweig class of a German navy was a class of five unit ships of the line of the German Imperial Navy , named after German states. The class included Braunschweig , Alsace , Hesse , Prussia and Lorraine .
All five ships were after the end of World War I the German navy available because the obsolete ships were not to extradite.
technology
Compared to the previous Wittelsbach class, they were significantly heavier. This was due to the weight of the heavy main artillery of 28 cm rapid-loading guns.
Armament
The Braunschweig class used 28 cm SK L / 40 guns developed by Krupp for the first time in twin turrets at the bow and stern, as did the following Deutschland class . The "Drh.L. C / 01 "designated tower was a further development of previously related towers. The guns in them could be lowered 4 ° and raised 30 °. They could be pivoted 150 ° to either side of the ship's center line. The shells available were 240 kg "L / 2.6" armor-piercing projectiles, which could be fired up to 18.83 km at a maximum elevation. The ships had 85 shells per gun. The towers were able to fire two salvos per minute.
The medium artillery received 17 cm SK L / 40 guns for the first time. The guns were set up in two towers on each side as well as casemates, in which they could be lowered 5 ° and raised 22 ° and swiveled 80 ° to each side. Up to five rounds per minute could be fired at a maximum increase of 14.5 km.
drive
The boiler system was identical on all ships of the class and had a mixed composition of six cylinder boilers, which occupied the front boiler room, and four marine boilers each (a unit type of water tube boiler developed according to the specifications of the Navy) in the middle and rear boiler rooms. All boilers were originally coal-fired; It was not until the winter of 1915 that an additional furnace for heavy fuel oil was installed.
commitment
After their completion, the ships of the Braunschweig class all came to the Second Squadron with home port Kiel, with the Prussians taking over the role of the squadron's flagship. In October 1911, the Alsace switched to the First Squadron in Wilhelmshaven in exchange with the Schlesien , which was converted to large-line ships. She was also the first ship of the class to retire from active service, in which she retired from her new squadron at the end of April 1912, was temporarily available for the third squadron, which was being formed, and was then decommissioned on May 13, 1913. The same thing happened to Braunschweig, which left the association of the Second Squadron in July 1912 and was decommissioned on July 30, 1913. Both ships came to the reserve division of the Baltic Sea.
War use
At the beginning of the war, the Prussia was the flagship of the Second Squadron under Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer , to which, in addition to the five ships of the Germany class, also the sister ship Hessen as the oldest ship of the line in an active squadron and the sister ship Lorraine belonged. The latter should be replaced in August. For the 17th, Lorraine was to be decommissioned and replaced by the large liner, Großer Kurfürst . The same was to happen to the Hessians and the König on August 26th . Because of the outbreak of war, the new ships came to the Third Squadron, so that the deep sea fleet had two squadrons with capital ships. The second squadron did service mainly in the Elbe estuary. The Hessen took part with him as the only ship of the class in the Skagerrak Battle .
The Braunschweig and Alsace were immediately put into service for the Fourth Squadron. They temporarily supported the outpost service in the Elbe estuary and were in Libau in the winter of 1915/1916 . The use of the old ships was also very risky in the Baltic Sea because of the danger of torpedoes and mines, as the ships' underwater protection was inadequate.
During the war, the Lorraine was the first ship of the class to decommission on March 18, 1916, to come back into service in July 1916 after a reconstruction for the "Sound Guard" and after another break on December 16, 1918 as an exercise and Machine training ship as the penultimate ship of the class to leave service in the Imperial Navy. The Hessen decommissioned on January 18, 1917 to serve only as a barge. It was followed on May 8 by the Prussians with the same fate. And on August 20, the Braunschweig followed suit .
The Alsace , which was the first to leave the navy, remained in service the longest during the war. It was not taken out of service as a midshipman training ship until December 20, 1918.
In the time of transition between the Imperial Navy and the Provisional Imperial Navy, two of the old ships of the line were used after conversion. First, at the beginning of 1919, the Prussia was converted into a mother ship for shallow mine clearing boats (so-called F-boats ) and served as mother ship for the 8th and 9th minesweeping semi-flotilla off the Dutch coast from August 26 to December 18, 1919. The conversion did not work. The Lorraine was rebuilt in a similar way and was used for the 10th minesweeping semi-flotilla until March 2, 1920. Both ships were later part of the Reichsmarine fleet without being dismantled.
Imperial Navy
After the war, all five ships of the class were still there, plus four ships of the newer Germany class. The Imperial Navy brought three ships of each class into service, but never had more than four ships of the line in service, although the Treaty of Versailles would have allowed the operation of six ships.
As the second ship, the Braunschweig was put back into service on December 1, 1921. The third and fourth ship followed Alsace on 15 February 1924 Hessen on January 6, 1925.
The Braunschweig was made on January 31, 1926 50 months back from service, the Alsace was followed on 25 February 1930 after 72 months and Hesse on November 12, 1934 after 118 months of service in the Reichsmarine.
The Hessen was converted into a remote-controlled target ship and thus still served the Navy . She had to be extradited to the Soviet Union in 1946.
The Prussia , which had not been dismantled , was the first ship of the class to be canceled in 1929 and scrapped in 1931. However, the midship section was bought back and served, jokingly referred to as "SMS Vierkant", for blasting attempts until 1945. In 1931 Braunschweig , Lorraine and Alsace were deleted and broken up until 1936.
photos
- Ships of the line of the Braunschweig class
Starboard side of a liner of the Braunschweig class (German Federal Archives)
The launched Prussia , converted to the mother ship
literature
- Breyer, Siegfried: The Navy of the Weimar Republic . Marine-Arsenal special issue, Vol. 5, Podzun-Pallas Verlag, Friedberg 1992. ISBN 3-7909-0464-3
- Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford,
- Erwin Strohbusch : German Navy. Warship building since 1848. 2nd improved edition. German Maritime Museum, Bremerhaven 1984 ( Guide of the German Maritime Museum 8, ZDB -ID 551539-7 ).
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 41 f .
