Wittelsbach class

SMS Mecklenburg , the last ship of the class
Class details
Ship type	Standard ship of the line
predecessor	Kaiser Friedrich III class
successor	Braunschweig class
units	5
period of service	1902-1944
Sister ships
SMS Wittelsbach SMS Wettin SMS Zähringen SMS Schwaben SMS Mecklenburg
Technical specifications
Displacement	Construction: 11,774 t
length	KWL : 125.2 m over all: 126.8 m
width	20.8 m
Draft	8 m
Armament	4 × 24 cm SK L / 40 in 2 double towers 18 × 15 cm SK L / 40 in casemates 12 × 8.8 cm SK L / 30 12 × 3.7 cm Rev 6 × torpedo tubes 45 cm (under water: 1 bow, 1 stern, 4 side) ${\displaystyle \varnothing }$
Armor	Belt: 300 mm Citadel: 140 mm Deck: 50 mm Towers: 50 - 250 mm Casemates : 150 mm
Propulsion system	6 coal-fired steam boilers and 6 transverse cylinder boilers 3 standing 3-cylinder triple expansion steam engines 1 four- bladed propeller 4.5 m and 2 three-bladed propellers 4.8 m ${\displaystyle \varnothing }$ ${\displaystyle \varnothing }$
Machine performance	Continuous load: approx. 14,000 PSi
Fuel supply	1800 tons of coal
speed	17-18 kn
Driving range	5500 nm at 10 kn
crew	683 men

The Wittelsbach class was a class of five ships of the line, the third of modern battleships of the German Imperial Navy .

draft

In terms of construction, there were no significant changes with almost the same displacement as in the previous Kaiser Friedrich III class .

technology

The planned engine output should be 14,000 PSi in continuous operation and achieve a speed of 18 knots. The additional power reserves available were different due to manufacturing tolerances on all ships of the class and in some cases could not achieve the specified values. The test drive performance of the five ships was between 13,900 PSi for the Wittelsbach and 15,530 PSi for the Wettin . The maximum shaft speed varied accordingly between 102 / min for the Swabian and 114 / min for the Wettin . This resulted in top speeds between 16.9 knots on the Swabian and 18.1 knots on Wettin and Mecklenburg .

The crew normally consisted of 33 officers and 650 NCOs and men. The Schwaben could be used as a division flagship, for which an additional staff of nine officers and 44 non-commissioned officers were embarked. The Wittelsbach also served as a squadron flagship. Here the staff consisted of 13 officers and 66 NCOs.

Fate and whereabouts

The type ship SMS Wittelsbach was launched on July 3, 1900 at the Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven . In 1901, the sister ships SMS Wettin ran on June 6 at Schichau in Danzig, SMS Zähringen on June 12 at the Germania shipyard in Kiel, SMS Schwaben on August 19 at the Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven and finally SMS Mecklenburg on November 9 at the AG Vulcan launched in Szczecin .
On October 1, 1902, the Wettin was put into service as the first ship of the class, followed in the same month by Wittelsbach and Zähringen . Mecklenburg came into service in June 1903. These four ships came to the 1st Squadron after testing. Wittelsbach and Zähringen left there
on September 20, 1910 , the other two then in the summer of 1911. They were replaced by large ships.

The Swabian came into service as a training ship in 1904 and was an artillery training ship from 1905 to 1911 before it was replaced by the sister ship Wettin . Wittelsbach became the parent ship of the reserve division in 1911, the other three sister ships were unmanned auxiliary ships.

All five ships came from the mobilization in 1914 in the IV. Squadron and remained in fleet service or in the Baltic Sea until 1916 and afterwards living or exercise ships. With the exception of the Zähringen , they were scrapped in 1921/22.

The Zähringen was a drill ship in Kiel from 1916–1918 and a Hulk after the war , until it was converted into a remote-controlled target ship in 1927 and put back into service. The ship was sunk by aerial bombs in Gdynia in 1944 .

Longitudinal section

Longitudinal section drawing of a Wittelsbach- class ship , published in Our Navy by Vizeadmiral a. D. Hermann Kirchhoff, Verlag von Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1914

literature

• Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945. Volume 1. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982. ISBN 3-7637-4800-8
• Hildebrand, Hans / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present. 7 volumes, Hamburg 1985.
• Roberts, John / HC Timewell / Roger Chesneau (Ed.) / Eugene M. Kolesnik (Ed.): Warships of the World 1860 to 1905 - Volume 1: Great Britain / Germany . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1983. ISBN 3-7637-5402-4
• Erwin Strohbusch: Warship building since 1848 , German Maritime Museum, Bremerhaven 1984