Kaiser-class battleship

Kaiser-class battleship

The Kaiser class was a class of five battleships that were built in Germany prior to World War I. They were the third class of German dreadnoughts, and the first to feature turbine engines and superfiring turrets. Four were present during the Battle of Jutland; König Albert was in dock at the time. At the end of the war, all five ships were interned at the British naval base in Scapa Flow. On 21 June 1919, they were scuttled to prevent their seizure by the Royal Navy, and were subsequently raised and broken up for scrap between 1929 and 1937.

About Kaiser-class battleship in brief

Summary Kaiser-class battleshipThe Kaiser class was a class of five battleships that were built in Germany prior to World War I and served in the Imperial German Navy during the war. They were the third class of German dreadnoughts, and the first to feature turbine engines and superfiring turrets. The ships were ordered under the same Second Naval Law as the preceding Helgoland-class battleships. Four were present during the Battle of Jutland; König Albert was in dock at the time. At the end of the war, all five ships were interned at the British naval base in Scapa Flow. On 21 June 1919, they were scuttled to prevent their seizure by the Royal Navy, and were subsequently raised and broken up for scrap between 1929 and 1937. The Kaiser-class ships were excellent sea boats, but were very stiff, suffering a slight loss of speed in heavy swells. They turned quickly initially, but suffered from severe torque at a hard rudder. With the rudder hard over, the ships would lose up to 66 percent of their speed and heel over as much as 8 degrees. They had a transverse metacentric height of 2. 59 m. The ships had a beam of 29 m, a draft of 9. 1 m forward and 8. 8 m  aft. They displaced 24,724 metric tons as designed and up to 27,000 t at full load. The vessels had a crew of 41 officers and 1,043 seamen.

While serving as squadron flagship, they had an additional 14 officers and 80 men, and as the second command flagship the ships were manned by another 2 officers and 23 men. They used turbines from several different manufacturers as the Reichsmarineamt and German shipyards attempted to find an alternative to a Parsons turbine monopoly. While Kaiser and Kaiserin were both equipped with three sets of Parsons turbines, Kaiserin had two sets of AEG-Curtis turbines. It was intended that a single 12,000 bhp diesel engine was intended to drive the center shaft of Prinzregent Luitpold. However, the diesel power plant was not ready in time to be installed in the center of the ship so the ship sailed with only two boilers between 1916 and 1917. The three sisters carried three-shafts, 3,600 meters to the boilers, which were fitted to the grates between 1916 and 1917. They also had two rudders, 3. 75 m in diameter, providing a design speed of 21 knots. Steam was provided by 16 Schulz-Thornycroft water-tube boilers except in PrinzRegent Luitspold, which was fitted with only one half a half knot. The five Kaisers were to replace the remaining three Siegfried-class. ships: Hildebrand, Heimdall, and Hagen, as well as the two Odin-class vessels: Odin and Ägir.