SMS Preußen was the first of three armored ships of its class, which were built between 1870 and 1875 for the Imperial Navy . The ships of this class were originally planned as casemate ships , but before construction began, it was decided to build them as tower ships . The ships were officially designated as armored frigates, from 1884 the remaining ships were reclassified to armored ships (from 1893 armored ships III. Class).
After the keel was laid in 1870 which ran Prussia on 22 November 1873 at the shipyard AG Vulcan in Stettin from the stack . Her sister ships were SMS Friedrich der Große (launched in 1874 in Kiel ) and SMS Großer Kurfürst (launched in 1875 in Wilhelmshaven ). These were the first armored ships with rotating gun turrets built in Germany, built at a time when the Imperial Navy was beginning to give up its dependence on foreign shipyards.
The ships were 96 meters long, displaced 6,820 tons and had a crew of 46 officers and 454 men. The armor was made of wrought iron on teak planks . The iron plates of the citadel and the towers were 203 mm thick, those of the belt armor, which protected the ship's sides 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 as well as steam engines and a maximum steam speed of 14 knots.
career
The Prussia was put into service on July 4, 1876 and was in fleet service until 1891, followed by port service in Wilhelmshaven until 1906. On November 12, 1903, she was renamed Saturn , as a new ship of the line was named SMS Prussia . The ship was converted into a coal hulk in 1906 and scrapped in Wilhelmshaven in 1919.
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 .
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