SMS Von der Tann
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SMS Von der Tann was a large cruiser of the German Imperial Navy laid on Kiel in 1908 and the first to be referred to as a battle cruiser . She was in action in several skirmishes during World War I. In particular, she sank the British battle cruiser HMS Indefatigable in the Battle of the Skagerrak , but was badly damaged in the course of this battle. After the First World War she sank in Scapa Flow as part of the self- sinking of the Imperial High Seas Fleet .
Surname
The ship was named after the Bavarian General Ludwig von der Tann-Rathsamhausen , the commanding general of the Bavarian Army Corps in the Franco-German War , who, as a young officer in the First War of Schleswig-Holstein in 1848 , had decisively shaped the German militias in the duchies. A gunboat of the Schleswig-Holstein Navy Von der Tann was named after him in 1849 .
draft
The Von der Tann was the first German battle cruiser and the first German capital ship with turbine drive . The Von der Tann placed much more emphasis on armor protection and less on firepower than the British battlecruisers of their time. The underwater protection against torpedoes and mines was also much better thought out. In terms of design, the type was linked to the previously built Great Cruiser Blücher in that it also had torpedo bulkheads and was also designed for only a slight increase in speed. The design for the new cruiser F , later Von der Tann , took place from August 1906, after Germany had learned of the new British battle cruiser (the Dreadnought was launched on February 10, 1906).
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The role of the planned new ship was initially disputed. Admiral Tirpitz favored a type of ship similar to the British Invincible -class with heavy artillery, light armor and high speed as a naval reconnaissance aircraft for the fight against reconnaissance cruisers. Like many employees of the Reichsmarinamt , the Kaiser preferred a ship that could fit into the battle line after contact with the enemy. This required considerable armor. The insistence on this ability was justified with the given numerical inferiority of the deep sea fleet compared to the Royal Navy .
With regard to the main armament, various proposals up to 34.3 cm guns were examined. Budget restrictions only allowed inexpensive weapons, so the decision was made in favor of the hydraulically driven 28 cm twin towers Drh LC / 1907 of the last two ships of the Nassau class . The abandonment of a stronger main armament should be compensated for by a strong central artillery. The head of the construction department of the Navy, Rudolf von Eickstedt , even suggested limiting the main armament to 21 cm or 24 cm guns, as these were sufficient to penetrate the armor of the British battlecruisers. Admiral August von Heeringen , the head of the General Naval Department in the Reichsmarineamt, finally decided that the new ship must be able to fight ships of the line, and that the 28 cm guns were necessary for this.
The energy for the drive came from eighteen steam boilers, in which coal, and from 1916 also oil, was burned to evaporate water. 1,000 tons of coal were planned to be carried as fuel, and a maximum of 2,600 tons could be accommodated. The ship was the first German capital ship to be powered by steam turbines, which acted on four three-bladed propellers , each 3.6 meters in diameter. One Parsons high-pressure turbine each drove one of the outer propellers, and two low-pressure turbines drove the inner propellers. During the test run in 1910, these machines reached a top speed of 27.39 knots and an average of 26.8 knots after six hours of full speed. The best speed for saving fuel was 13 knots, and at the maximum coal load it should be possible to travel 5,400 nautical miles.
On June 22, 1907, the Kaiser approved the construction of the Great Cruiser F , which was to be named Von der Tann . The building contract went to Blohm & Voss . The ship finally cost 36.523 million marks .
history
Pre-war missions
On September 26, 1907, the Blohm & Voss shipyard received the building contract for the first German battle cruiser, which was to be followed by four more. Up to this point the shipyard had built only a few warships. The Imperial Navy first received the small cruiser Condor from the Hamburg shipyard . In the following 15 years this was followed by only one ship of the line , two armored cruisers, the Kaiser Karl der Große , and another small cruiser, the Dresden .
On March 20, 1909 was Von der Tann after baptism by a nephew of its namesake, General of Infantry Luitpold von und zu der Tann-Rathsamhausen, from the stack . In May 1910 the ship moved with a shipyard crew around Skagen to Kiel in order to receive its final equipment in the local Imperial Shipyard. On September 1, 1910, the Von der Tann was put into service under Captain Robert Mischke , for which the new Rhineland liner had to reduce its crew. During the six-hour continuous power ride, which was part of the test drives, the cruiser exceeded the required 24.8 knots with 27 knots by a considerable amount. The ship achieved a maximum output of 28,124 knots and was long considered the fastest capital ship in the world. At the end of the tests, the ship began a voyage to South America on February 20, 1911.
Sometimes in bad weather the Von der Tann ran to Rio de Janeiro , where it met the station cruiser Bremen on March 14, 1911 . It remained in Rio until March 23, where it was visited by the Brazilian President, Marshal Hermes Rodrigues da Fonseca , who was interested in working more closely with the Imperial Navy. The Von der Tann then ran from 25 to 27 March Itajahy from where large parts of the occupation, the settlement of Germans in Brazil at, Blumenau visited. Then the call was made to Mar del Plata in Argentina , from where the commandant and some officers paid a visit to Buenos Aires . On May 6, the ship returned to Wilhelmshaven without having had any technical problems on the voyage. Two days later it was assigned to the Association of Reconnaissance Forces of the High Seas Fleet .
In June 1911, Von der Tann performed a special task and ran to Vlissingen to take the German Crown Prince couple on board and bring them to the coronation celebrations of the new British King George V. The Von der Tann took from 20 to 29 June 1911 an international fleet review on the Spithead part. Regular fleet service followed until 1914.
War missions
On November 3, 1914, the Von der Tann , Franz Hippers flagship Seydlitz and the Moltke shelled Yarmouth without success; to do this, the Stralsund put a mine barrier near the coast before they started their march back. In the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on December 16, 1914, the battlecruisers split, and at 8 o'clock the Von der Tann and the Derfflinger began to bombard the resort of Scarborough , while the Kolberg laid a mine lock at Flamborough Head . Scarborough Castle, the Grand Hotel, three churches and several houses were hit. After 90 minutes, the battlecruisers stopped bombardment and ran to nearby Whitby to bombard the coast guard station there, but also hit Whitby Abbey and other buildings in the city.
During the battle on the Dogger Bank on January 24, 1915, the Von der Tann was missing due to a layover time. In August 1915 she was then in action in the Baltic Sea with other ships of the deep-sea fleet during the advance into the Riga Bay , fired at coastal targets and received an insignificant hit from a coastal battery in the chimney off Utö . With the Russian cruiser Gromoboi she fought a short long-range battle.
On 24./25. In April 1916 Von der Tann took part in the bombardment of Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth with the Derfflinger , the Lützow and the Moltke under Rear Admiral Friedrich Boedicker . The four battle cruisers shot at Lowestoft for about half an hour from just before 5 a.m., destroying two 6-inch coastal batteries and about 200 houses. When they arrived off Yarmouth about 15 minutes to 6 a.m., fog prevailed and targets could not be seen, which is why most ships only released one salvo. The skirmishes of the security forces with British units and the poor visibility led to the abandonment of the company, especially since the Seydlitz had already failed due to a mine hit on the approach.
Finally, the Von der Tann fought in the Battle of the Skagerrak on May 31, 1916. They sank the Indefatigable after 15 minutes. Two grenades hit the front gun turret of the Indefatigable . The resulting jet flame penetrated the ammunition chamber and caused it to explode . The Von der Tann fired 170 28 cm salvos at the enemy and was itself hit by two hits from the 34.3 cm guns of the Tiger and hits from the 38.1 cm guns of the Barham , which was also hit in return , and most recently the Revenge badly hit four times. These hits killed 11 men and injured 35. All of Von der Tann's main turrets were temporarily out of order in this battle. Shortly after the Indefatigable was sunk, the Tiger's first heavy hit put the C-tower and a rowing machine out of action. Another hit by the tigers switched off bow tower A, which jammed and stopped at 120 ° after an hour. In the following half an hour, the B and D towers also failed. From 6:20 pm to 7:30 pm the Von der Tann was without any heavy artillery. Three towers could be made operational again in the evening. First the rear tower that failed last, after another hour the B tower and at 9 p.m. the C tower were ready for use again. Only the jammed bow tower remained out of action. During the night march, she got into a night attack by British destroyers with the old ships of the line Schleswig-Holstein and Silesia and was just able to avoid a torpedo.
From June 2 to July 29, 1916, the Von der Tann was repaired in Wilhelmshaven at the Imperial Shipyard .
In November and December 1916, the ship had to be repaired due to a turbine damage, and another turbine damage forced another stay in the shipyard from May to June 1917.
Whereabouts
The Von der Tann was after the war with 73 other ships of the High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow interned. On June 21, 1919, the crew sank their ship themselves when it was clear that the Entente wanted to confiscate the interned ships and divide them up among themselves.
In 1934 there was a meeting of former crew members of the battle cruiser.
Commanders
| September 1, 1910 to September 21, 1912 | Sea captain Robert Mischke |
| September 21, 1912 to February 5, 1916 | Sea captain Max Hahn |
| February 5, 1916 to April 27, 1917 | Sea captain Hans Zenker |
| April 27, 1917 to July 13, 1918 | Sea captain Konrad Mommsen |
| July 13 to December 15, 1918 | Sea captain Carl Feldmann |
| December 15, 1918 to June 21, 1919 | Captain Karl-Friedrich Wollanke |
The Von der Tann as a motif a contemporary postcard
Von der Tann , 1911
Drawing under construction from summer 1916
Elevated ship's bell in the Marian Memorial Laboe , 2004
See also
literature
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and Battlecruisers of the World. McDonald & Jane's, London 1973, ISBN 0-356-04191-3 .
- Robert Gardiner, Randal Gray (ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906-1922. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1984, ISBN 0-87021-907-3 .
- 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.
- Tobias R. Philbin: Admiral Hipper: The Inconvenient Hero. John Benjamin Publishing Company, 1982, ISBN 90-6032-200-2 .
- Gary Staff: German Battlecruisers: 1914-1918. Osprey Books, Oxford 2006, ISBN 1-84603-009-9 .
- Gary E. Weir: Building the Kaiser's Navy. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1992, ISBN 1-55750-929-8 .
Web links
- Chronological lists of the commanders of German capital ships (English)
- Pictures of the large cruiser SMS Von der Tann from 1914–1916
- Film recording of Von der Tann lying at anchor , location and time unknown, published by British Pathe 1930
- Newsreel recording of the British Pathe of the salvage of the wreck of the Von der Tann in Scapa Flow , performed on July 13, 1933
Footnotes
- ^ Gary Staff: German Battlecruisers: 1914-1918. Osprey Books, Oxford 2006, ISBN 1-84603-009-9 , p. 3 ff.
- ^ Gary E. Weir: Building the Kaiser's Navy. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1992, ISBN 1-55750-929-8 , p. 82.
- ^ Robert Gardiner, Randal Gray (ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906-1922. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1984, ISBN 0-87021-907-3 , p. 145.
- ^ Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and Battlecruisers of the World. McDonald & Jane's, London 1973, ISBN 0-356-04191-3 , p. 270.
- ↑ Tobias R. Philbin: Admiral Hipper: The Inconvenient Hero. John Benjamin Publishing Company, 1982, ISBN 90-6032-200-2 , p. 66.
- ↑ Philbin (1982), p. 66 f.
- ↑ Gary Staff: German Battlecruisers of World War One , Pen & Sword Books, 2014, ISBN 978-1848322134 , pp. 18,19
- ^ Gary Staff: German Battlecruisers of World War One , Pen & Sword Books, 2014, ISBN 978-1848322134 , pp. 24,26
- ↑ Staff (2006), p. 5.