Kaiser class (1911)
 The emperors
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The Kaiser class was a class of five large-line ships of the Imperial Navy , named after German rulers. Typschiff is the Kaiser .
draft
The biggest changes compared to the previous Heligoland class were in the area of armament and ship propulsion. For the first time in the history of German battleship construction, a class of battleships was equipped with a turbine drive instead of a piston engine drive and with additional oil firing under the boilers .
The naval construction officer August Müller was responsible for the construction .
Technical successors were the ships of the König class .
Armament
The heavy artillery towers, which were reduced from six to five compared to the Helgoland class, were set up in such a way that they could all be deployed on both sides for the first time, with the wing towers on each side in Feuerlee having a limited field of fire due to the chimneys and superstructures. The turbine drive made it possible to arrange three out of five towers on the central nave line. The rear tower was placed one deck lower. After a few design changes, the lower turret no longer had any problems due to the high gas pressures when the guns fired from the upper turret firing overhead.
Armor
By reducing the number of heavy artillery it was possible to strengthen the armor, the belt armor grew to 350 mm. There was no longer a thicker belt armor in the following classes. A newly available nickel steel was used for the side torpedo bulkheads and the horizontal armored deck.
Units built
- SMS Kaiser was built at the Kaiserliche Werft in Kiel and launched on March 22, 1911. Commissioning followed on August 1, 1912. As part of the deep sea fleet , it took part in World War I, including the Battle of the Skagerrak in 1916 and the Albion company in 1917 in the Baltic Sea . After the armistice of Compiègne , the ship was interned in Scapa Flow and sunk by her crew on June 21, 1919 during the self- sinking of the Imperial Ocean Fleet in Scapa Flow .
- SMS Friedrich der Große was built at the Hamburg volcano shipyard, launched on June 10, 1911. Commissioning followed on October 15, 1912. As part of the ocean-going fleet, of which it was the flagship until 1917, it took part in the First World War, among others the Battle of the Skagerrak in 1916 and at Operation Albion in 1917. In the course of the naval unrest in the summer of 1917 , poor supplies and harassment by the officer corps led to refusals of obedience and mutiny. Like all ships of the class, she was interned in Scapa Flow after the armistice and sunk there by her crew on June 21, 1919.
- SMS Kaiserin was built by Howaldtswerke Kiel , launched on November 11, 1911 and commissioned on May 14, 1913. As part of the high seas, she took part in World War I, including the Skagerrak Battle in 1916 and the Albion operation in 1917. After the Compiègne armistice, she was interned and sunk by her crew on June 21, 1919 during the self-sinking of the Imperial High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow .
- SMS Prinzregent Luitpold was the last ship of the class put into service. It was built by the Germania shipyard in Kiel and was launched on February 17, 1912. Commissioning followed on August 19, 1913. As part of the deep-sea fleet, it took part in World War I, including the Skagerrak Battle of 1916 and the Albion company in 1917. In 1917, she and Frederick the Great suffered refusals of obedience and mutiny due to poor supplies and harassment by the officer corps. After the Armistice of Compiègne, she was interned in Scapa Flow and sunk by her crew on June 21, 1919.
- SMS König Albert was launched on April 27, 1912 at the Danzig shipyard of Schichau-Werke . It entered service on July 31, 1913. As part of the ocean-going fleet, she took part in the First World War. Due to a stay in the shipyard due to engine problems, she was the only ship of the class not to take part in the Battle of the Skagerrak. In 1917, like all of her sister ships, she was part of the special association for the Albion company in the Baltic Sea. After the Armistice of Compiègne, she was interned in Scapa Flow and sunk by her crew on June 21, 1919.
literature
- Breyer, Siegfried: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970. J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1970. ISBN 3-88199-474-2 .
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982. ( The German warships 1815-1945. Vol. 1). ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 .
- Strohbusch, Erwin: Warship building since 1848 . German Maritime Museum, Bremerhaven 1984.
- Grießmer, Axel: ships of the line of the Imperial Navy 1906–1918: Constructions between arms competition and naval law Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1999. ISBN 3-7637-5985-9 .
