Victoria Louise class
.jpg&filetimestamp=20070810235155&) The Hansa around 1901
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The Victoria Louise class , referred to in some sources as the Hertha class or Freya type, was a class of five cruisers II class ( armored deck cruiser ) of the German Imperial Navy . The ships built from 1895 to 1900 were mainly used in overseas service and as training ships and also served in the First World War .
development
At the beginning of the 1890s, the Imperial Navy was faced with the question of how the fleet should be aligned in the future. The previous concept was specially designed for coastal defense, which the construction of the Siegfried class makes clear. At the same time, the four ships of the Brandenburg class, the most modern armored ships of the time, were under construction. Furthermore, on January 15, 1892, Empress Augusta, the first protected cruiser of the Imperial Navy was launched. Both for the Reichsmarineamt and the high command of the navy as well as for the naval enthusiast Kaiser Wilhelm II it was clear that the navy had to abandon the pure coastal defense. The high command, represented from 1892 by Alfred Tirpitz as chief of staff, preferred the construction of a battle fleet, while the Reichsmarineamt and the emperor preferred the idea of a cruiser fleet, which in the event of war on the oceans had to wage a trade war and thus cut off the enemy from his supplies.
According to the differing views regarding the naval building strategy, opinions about the types of cruisers to be built also differed. While the high command wanted a 3000 t heavy type (cruiser III class) developed as a reconnaissance aircraft for the battle fleet, the Reichsmarineamt favored an armored deck cruiser based on the design of the Empress Augusta (cruiser II class) as well as a further development of the unprotected one Kreuzer (cruiser IV class) Schwalbe . These thoughts were also expressed in the Büchsel plan drawn up and named after him by Rear Admiral Wilhelm Büchsel , who temporarily headed the Reichsmarineamt from March 31 to June 15, 1897 , in which special emphasis was placed on the cruiser fleet and 30 ships the Victoria Louise class. After Tirpitz had become State Secretary of the Reichsmarinamt in June 1897 , the revision of the Büchsel Plan was one of his first tasks, which was solved by the First Naval Law in March 1898. At this point in time, however, the Victoria-Louise class ships had all been launched and subsequently put a strain on Tirpitz's plans.
The planning for the armored deck cruisers to be built following Empress Augusta began at the beginning of the last decade of the 19th century. The first installment for the new buildings K (later Hertha ) and L ( Victoria Louise ) was requested by the Reichstag in the 1890/91 budget and, in the case of K, also approved. When the second installment was applied for in the following year, it turned out that construction had not even started due to the problems and considerations mentioned above. The Reichstag thereupon not only rejected the second installment, but also withdrew the approved first installment. The renewed submission of the first installment for K in the budgets 1892/93 and 1893/94 was also rejected, in the following year the Reichsmarineamt even waived a new application. In the budget 1895/96 the claim was made again and extended by the first installment for L and replacement Freya (later Freya ). Since the official draft for the cruisers was now available, the Reichstag approved the construction of all three ships, which were followed by the other two newbuildings M ( Vineta ) and N ( Hansa ) in the next budget year . Funds were requested for another two units, O and P , in the 1897/98 budget, but were rejected by the Reichstag. There was no further submission because, among other things, due to this rejection, the previous head of the Reichsmarinamt, Admiral Friedrich von Hollmann , resigned from his office and was replaced by Alfred Tirpitz.
technology
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The design for the Victoria-Louise class was a further development of the previous Empress Augusta . The size of the ships was slightly reduced. The first series of three ships ( K , L and Ersatz Freya ) were 110.6 m long and 17.4 m wide. With a maximum weight of 6491 t, they had a maximum draft of 6.93 m. The second series ( M and N ) was designed somewhat larger. While the total length shrank slightly to 110.5 m, the width increased to 17.6 m and the displacement to 6,705 t, which resulted in a draft of 7.34 m. All ships were divided into twelve watertight compartments and had a double bottom over 60 percent of the hull length.
Propulsion system
All ships were propelled by three standing four-cylinder triple expansion steam engines, each acting on a shaft. Each steam engine had its own machine room, with the one for the middle machine in front of the side-by-side rooms. The machines generated between 10,312 ( Hertha ) and 10,646 ( Vineta ) PSi , which gave the ships a speed of around 19 knots.
The ships' boiler systems came from different manufacturers and were housed in six boiler rooms arranged in pairs. While the Hansa received 18 transverse Belleville boilers , each with one furnace and 18 atm operating pressure, the other ships had 12 boilers, each with two furnaces and 13 to 15 atmospheric pressure. The boiler systems suffered repeatedly from damage and failures, especially on the Hansa and Freya , which was not least due to the technical differences in the boiler systems used. This ultimately led to the development of a standardized boiler system on the part of the Reich Naval Office, which was simply called a marine boiler .
Armament
The main armament of the Victoria Louise class consisted of two 21 cm rapid loading cannons with 40 caliber lengths , which were housed in a separate turret fore and aft . A total of 116 rounds of ammunition were carried for the heavy artillery. The middle artillery consisted of eight 15-cm-Sk, which were set up on the side, two each in their own towers and two in casemates . 960 rounds of ammunition were available for them. Furthermore, the cruiser were ten 8.8cm Sk to arm and ten 3.7-cm - machine guns . In addition, the ships had three torpedo tubes with a diameter of 45 cm, two of which were on the side and one in the bow, but all were arranged under water.
Armor
The armor made of Krupp steel was relatively weak. The main protection of the ships was the armored deck , which was 40 mm thick. The embankments of the armored deck reached a thickness of 100 mm. In addition, only the towers and casemates were armored with a maximum of 100 mm and the command tower with a maximum of 150 mm.
modification
Between 1905 and 1911, all five units of the class were fundamentally modernized and rebuilt in order to subsequently be used as training ships. Above all, the vulnerable boiler systems were exchanged for eight transverse marine boilers each, which generated 14.5 atmospheres operating pressure ( only 13 atmospheres on the Victoria Louise ) and each had two firing systems. The reduction in the number of boilers also resulted in the rearrangement of the chimneys, the number of which was reduced to two. Only the Freya kept its three chimneys until a second renovation between 1911 and 1913. Since the heavy front battle mast was exchanged for a light pole mast, the silhouette of the ships changed significantly. In addition, the armament of the ships was changed. The aft casemate guns of the middle artillery were omitted, an eleventh 8.8 cm L / 30 Sk and three 8.8 cm L / 35 Sk were added. The automatic cannons were completely dismantled.
commitment
The ships of the Victoria Louise class were mainly used in foreign service. The Hertha and the Hansa belonged to the East Asia Squadron and took part in combat operations during the Boxer Uprising . The Vineta was a station ship on the East American station . The Victoria Louise and the Freya were assigned to the North Sea naval units and took part in maneuvers with them, but the Freya was used as a test ship for the artillery test command at an early stage.
The ships were good ocean-going ships that lurched weakly and were very dry due to their high freeboard . They were easy to maneuver and turn, but only with the center screw running. The ships lost little speed in headwinds and hard rudders . However, the high superstructures also resulted in severe drift in crosswinds. Particularly disadvantageous for foreign missions was the fact that it could get very hot inside the cruiser. This could only be reduced somewhat with several changes to the ventilation.
After just a few years of operation, it became apparent that the units of the Victoria Louise class could only be used to a limited extent. They were too weakly protected for the fleet service and had too little excess speed compared to the ships of the line to serve as reconnaissance aircraft. But they could only be used to a limited extent for use abroad, as their coal reserves and thus their steam route were very small and were just sufficient in peacetime. A new field of activity resulted from the obsolescence of the cruiser frigates of the Bismarck class used as training ships , which had to be replaced. Since the Imperial Navy did not have the financial means to procure special vehicles, the ships of the Victoria Louise class were used and, after appropriate modifications, were used as training ships until the outbreak of the First World War.
During the First World War, the cruisers were initially used for security and outpost service in the Baltic Sea. The Freya had to end this again in August 1914 due to an engine failure and, after being repaired, was used again as a training ship from September 1914 until the end of the war. The other four units were decommissioned in November 1914 due to their inadequate armor protection, subsequently disarmed and used as barges . In the early 1920s, all five ships were scrapped.
Victoria Louise class ships
- Victoria Louise : launched on March 29, 1897. Removed from the list of warships on October 1, 1919, scrapped in Danzig in 1923.
- Hertha : Launched on April 14th, 1897. Removed from the list of warships on December 6th, 1919, broken up in Rendsburg in 1920.
- Freya : launched on April 27, 1897. Removed from the list of warships on January 25, 1920, broken up in Hamburg-Harburg in 1921.
- Vineta : launched on December 9, 1897. Removed from the list of warships on December 6, 1919, scrapped in Hamburg in 1920.
- Hansa : launched on March 12, 1898. Removed from the list of warships on December 6, 1919, broken up in Rendsburg in 1920.
literature
- Erich Gröner , 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. 73-75 .
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . 10 volumes. Mundus Verlag, Ratingen.
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ So Wilhelm II. Against Tirpitz , see. Hans Hallmann: The way to the German battle fleet construction. Stuttgart 1933, p. 249.