The ships were originally planned as casemate ships and were therefore designated as armored frigates, but before construction began it was decided to build them as tower ships and the designation was therefore changed to armored ships. The ships were the first armored ships with rotating gun turrets built in Germany, built at a time when the Imperial Navy was beginning to break away from its dependence on foreign shipyards. They were 96 meters long and, with a construction displacement of 6,821 tons, displaced 7,718 tons when fully equipped. They had wrought iron armor that was mounted on teak planks (so-called backing ). The iron plates of the citadel and the towers were 203 mm thick, those of the belt armor, which protected the sides of the ship in the waterline, measured 102 mm fore and aft, and 228 mm in the middle of the ship. The ships had 1,834 square meters of sail area in full ship rigging as well as steam engines and reached a top speed (under steam) of 14 knots. The crew consisted of 46 officers and 454 men.
Downfall
The sinking of the "Great Elector" at Folkestone , illustration in the magazine Über Land und Meer , 1878
The Great Elector was only in service for a short time. As early as May 31, 1878, she collided with the ironclad King Wilhelm during unit exercises off Folkestone in the English Channel and sank. The German flagship King Wilhelm as well as the Prussians and the Großer Kurfürst sailed as part of the "Panzerübungsgeschwader" in two parallel lines off Folkestone towards Plymouth , with the Großer Kurfürst alone in the port line. The sister ship Friedrich the Great was originally supposed to also take part in the exercise, but had already run aground and damaged in the Bay of Kiel. When two small boats suddenly appeared in front of the two ships in the canal, King Wilhelm and Great Elector were forced to evade. While the König Wilhelm turned to port, the Großer Kurfürst turned to starboard because the officer on watch had misunderstood the order. The larger King Wilhelm rammed the Great Elector and tore her side open. Since the bulkheads were not closed, the ship sank within a very short time. This was also due to the fact that the gun ports were also not closed for better ventilation. Although the two other ships of the association as well as boats rushed from Sandgate and Folkestone tried to rescue the crew, 5 officers and 264 men were killed. The crew members who were killed were buried in Cheriton Road Cemetery in Folkestone, where a memorial to the victims of the disaster, which still exists today, was erected some time later. In the opinion of many experts, a major cause of the accident was the inexperience of the crew, who had not yet had enough opportunity to get to know the ship and gain experience. One consequence of the accident was therefore to straighten out the tight schedule between commissioning and departure of a ship to participate in exercises so that the team could become more familiar with the functions and characteristics of the vehicle.
literature
Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p.28-30 .
↑ a b Conrad Matschoss : Werner Siemens. A brief picture of his life together with a selection of his letters. Springer Verlag, Berlin 1916, p. 566 u. Note 1 ( online preview ).
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}