Roon class
 The Roon
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The Roon- class was a two-unit class of armored cruisers in the Imperial Navy . Officially known as Great cruiser ships listed were built from 1902 to 1906 and were in peacetime as well as in the First World War in the service. The Yorck sank on the Inner Jade in November 1914 , while the Roon survived the war and was scrapped in 1921.
history
Development and construction
In 1901, the design department of the Reichsmarineamte developed a new class of armored cruisers , which should replace the two ships of the Kaiser class . The design itself was based on the previously built Prinz Adalbert class and largely adopted its features. The most noticeable external difference between the two classes was the increase in the number of chimneys from three to four , although the first plans also only included three chimneys.
With the construction of the two cruisers were Kaiserliche Werft Kiel ( substitute Emperor , later Roon ) and Blohm & Voss in Hamburg ( spare Germany , later Yorck ) commissioned. The imperial shipyard began construction on August 1, 1902. This was about eleven months before its sister ship , on June 27, 1903, ready for launching . The Yorck , built in Hamburg, was completed much faster and came into service on November 21, 1905, while the Roon was not taken over by the Navy until a little more than four months later.
During the test drives, the cruisers, like their predecessors, proved to be good seagoing vessels. They were not very greedy and were easy to maneuver. While they lost little speed against the sea, the loss of speed with hard rudder positions could be up to 60%.
Ships of the class
| Surname | Shipyard | Keel laying | Launch | Commissioning | Decommissioning | Whereabouts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roon | Imperial shipyard , Kiel | August 1, 1902 | June 27, 1903 | April 5, 1906 | December 18, 1918 | Wrecked in Kiel in 1921 |
| Yorck | Blohm & Voss , Hamburg | Spring 1903 | May 14, 1904 | November 21, 1905 | - | On November 4, 1914 ran into German mines and sank. |
commitment
After the two ships entered the fleet service in November 1905 ( Yorck ) and April 1906 ( Roon ), they both belonged to the Association of Reconnaissance Forces. In peacetime, both cruisers took part in the regular exercises and maneuvers of the association and the deep-sea fleet . The Roon served several times as the flagship of the Second Admiral of the Association . She also visited the United States in 1907 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the settlement of Virginia and the founding of Jamestown . Together with the Bremen , the cruiser took part in one on April 26, 1907 on the James River off Hampton Roads and then returned to Kiel . In the following years she continued to drive in the association of the reconnaissance forces and was transferred to the reserve in 1911 .
The Yorck served in the fleet until May 1913 and acted again and again as the flagship of the commander of the reconnaissance forces and the second admiral of the association. On March 31, 1911, a benzene explosion occurred in the aft boiler room , in which a crew member died. On March 4, 1913, the Yorck was involved in a serious accident during a maneuver. The torpedo boat S 178 failed to break through the keel line of the heavy units. The Yorck rammed the boat, which then sank and took 69 men with it. The cruiser, however, was almost undamaged. He was decommissioned on May 21, 1913 and assigned to the reserve.
After the outbreak of the First World War, both ships were used again. They belonged to the III. Reconnaissance group, whose flagship was the Roon from the beginning of September 1914. The association was initially active in the Baltic Sea , but then also sailed in the North Sea . On November 2, 1914, the III. Reconnaissance group ready for a first offensive operation of the deep sea fleet, in which they had to secure the majority . When returning from this enterprise, in which the battle cruisers of the I. Reconnaissance Group fired at Great Yarmouth , the Yorck got into a German minefield on November 4th in fog on the Inner Jade and sank after two mine hits , whereby 336 men of the crew drowned.
The Roon was like the rest of the III. Reconnaissance group, from April 15, 1915 back in the Baltic Sea and was used to several companies against the Imperial Russian Navy . During the advance into the Riga Bay , the cruiser fired at Cape Zerel on the Sworbe peninsula on August 10 . After further missions in the Baltic Sea area, the Roon was decommissioned on February 4, 1916 in Kiel, as its underwater protection was considered inadequate and the Navy also suffered from a lack of personnel. In the course of the year the armament of the ship was also removed. From November 1, 1916 until shortly after the end of the war, the cruiser was back in service for the training of cabin boys and was also used by the torpedo inspection department for experiments. In 1918 plans arose to convert the Roon into an aircraft mother ship.
Whereabouts
The Roon was removed from the list of warships in 1920 and was scrapped the following year at its shipyard in Kiel, which was now part of the German works . The wreck of the Yorck remained in the inner jade. In 1926, 1936 and 1969 parts of the ship were blown up and the hull was washed away in 1983 to ensure the safety of the fairway .
technology
The cruiser Roon class were steel ships with an in transverse and longitudinal frame started construction method hull , by Scots was divided into twelve watertight compartments. The ships had a double bottom over 60% of their length . They were 127.8 m long and up to 20.2 m wide. With a construction displacement of 9,533 t, the waterline measured 127.3 m. The maximum displacement was 10,266 t, resulting in a draft of 7.76 m. This made the Roon- class cruisers only slightly larger than their two predecessors.
The electrical equipment on board the armored cruiser was operated with a voltage of 110 V. The power supply was provided by four turbine- driven generators with a total output of 260 kW.
drive
As in the two ships of the Prinz Adalbert class, the propulsion system consisted of three vertically arranged 3-cylinder composite steam engines with triple steam expansion . These were housed in three separate engine rooms. The rooms for the two machines acting on the outer shafts were next to each other, while that for the middle machine was aft of these. The central shaft drove a three-bladed propeller with a diameter of 4.5 m, while the outer shafts had four -bladed propellers with a diameter of 4.8 m. The machines were designed for a total output of 19,000 PSi . In the test drives, however, they achieved somewhat higher values with 20,625 PSi ( Roon ) and 20,031 PSi ( Yorck ). Accordingly, the maximum speed achieved was also slightly above the calculated 21 knots .
16 water-tube boilers with a total heating surface of 4900 m² were built by the Düsseldorf-Ratinger Röhrenkesselfabrik to generate steam . The boilers each had three furnaces and generated a steam pressure of 15.5 atmospheres . The boilers were arranged in four boiler rooms one behind the other, which in turn were subdivided again by a longitudinal bulkhead running through the middle. This division is seen as one of the reasons for the Yorck's rapid demise .
The Roon class ships could carry up to 1570 t of coal as fuel. This enabled them to cover a distance of 4200 nm at a speed of 12 kn. In the years 1908 and 1909 tests were carried out with tar oil as fuel, for which a supply of 207 t was on board.
Armament
The armament of the Roon class was also largely similar to its predecessors. The main armament was represented by four rapid-loading cannons (Sk) with a caliber of 21.0 cm L / 40 , which were combined in pairs in two turrets on the fore and aft. The cannons could be raised to 30 ° and lowered 5 ° below the horizontal and had a maximum range of 16.3 km. The middle artillery consisted of ten Sk 15.0 cm L / 40 with a range of 13.7 km. Five cannons each were arranged amidships on port and starboard , three of them in casemates and two in separate turrets. As light guns, the cruisers had 14 Sk 8.8 cm L / 35, for which a total of 2100 rounds of ammunition were carried. There were 380 rounds for the heavy artillery and 1,600 rounds for the medium artillery.
In addition to the guns, the cruisers also had four torpedo tubes with a diameter of 45 cm. These were installed under water, one each in the bow and stern and one on both sides at about the same height as the forward twin tower. The ships had eleven torpedoes on board.
Armor
The Roon- class cruisers were equipped with armor material manufactured by Krupp . The towers of the heavy artillery were laterally protected with 150 mm, the tower ceilings with 30 mm. Casemates and citadels, like the towers of the central artillery, were made of 100 mm armor steel, while the shields of the 15 cm guns in the casemates were armored with 80 mm. The belt armor was 100 mm thick in the middle, but decreased to 80 mm forwards and aft. It was backed with a 55 mm thick layer of teak . The armored deck was between 40 and 60 mm thick, its side slopes 40 to 50 mm thick. The front command tower received the same armor as the towers of the heavy artillery, while the rear was only protected with 80 mm on the side and only 20 mm horizontally.
Dinghies
Several dinghies were also part of the equipment of the ships . There were two large steam dinghies, a launch , a pinasse , two cutters , two dinghies and a dinghy on board.
crew
The nominal strength of the crew was 35 officers and 598 men . In addition, there were temporarily the staff departments with a nominal strength of 13 officers and 62 teams for the staff of the head of the association as well as nine officers and 44 teams for the staff of the second admiral of the association.
literature
- Gardiner, Robert (Ed.): Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905 . Conway Maritime Press, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 , pp. 255 .
- 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. 78 .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . 10 volumes. Mundus Verlag, Ratingen (licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Gröner / Jung / Maass: The German warships. Volume 1, p. 78.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 7: Ship biographies from Prussian eagle to Ulan, p. 80f.
- ^ A b Gardiner: Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships, p. 255.
- ↑ a b c Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 7, p. 81.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 7, pp. 80-83.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 8: Ship biographies from Undine to Zieten, pp. 121–124.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 8, pp. 122f.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 8, pp. 123f.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 7, pp. 81f.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 7, pp. 82f.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 7, p. 80.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 8, p. 121.
- ↑ a b c Gröner / Jung / Maass: The German warships. Volume 1, p. 77.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 8, p. 124.
- ↑ Gröner / Jung / Maass: The German warships. Volume 1, p. 76.