Kaiser Friedrich III-class battleship
The Kaiser Friedrich III class were five pre-dreadnought battleships of the German Kaiserliche Marine. All ships of the class were named for German emperors. The ships were decommissioned in the early 1920s as Germany disarmed under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. They were used in a variety of secondary roles during the First World War, including coastal defense and guard duties in the North Sea.
About Kaiser Friedrich III-class battleship in brief
The Kaiser Friedrich III class were five pre-dreadnought battleships of the German Kaiserliche Marine. All ships of the class were named for German emperors. The class saw the introduction of the traditional armament layout for German battleships prior to the advent of the dreadnought type of battleship. The ships were decommissioned in the early 1920s as Germany disarmed under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. They were used in a variety of secondary roles during the First World War, including coastal defense and guard duties in the North Sea. The German Navy attempted to secure funding from the Reichstag to replace the elderly ironclad Preussen, but parliamentary resistance delayed the appropriation until the 18941895 budget year. Design studies for the new ship had begun in June 1891 at the request of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and it was quickly decided to make significant changes from the preceding Brandenburg-class design. Five different design sketches were prepared, the first four incorporating a secondary armament of ten 10.5 cm guns and eight 8. 8 cm guns and the fifth replacing the 10. 5 cm Guns with eight 15 cm guns. All five variants carried a main armaments of four 28-cm guns. If weight permitted, all four guns were to be 28cm guns, but the option to reduce the wing turrets to 21 cm was available if necessary. The secondary battery was at least some in twin turrets, but it was accepted at the time as it would do the most damage in a close-range fight. The smaller-firing guns were intended to inflict serious damage on the superstructures of enemy battleships and demoralize the crew.
This view, which advocated the so-called \”hail fire\” principle, was seemingly vindicated by the Japanese cruisers’ victory over a more heavily-armed Chinese fleet at the Battle of Yalu in 1894. The Kaiser Friedrich IIIs also standardized the use of three screws for battleship and introduced water-tube boilers and Krupp cemented armor. On entering service, the ships were assigned to I Squadron, of which Kaiser Friedrich. III served as the flagship, while Kaiser Wilhelm. II served as a flagship for the overall fleet commander. In the early 1900s the ships conducted routine training exercises and cruises in theEarly 1900s and Kaiser. Friedrich III was badly damaged in a grounding accident while steaming in the Baltic Sea in 1901. As newer battleships entered service later in the decade, they were moved to II Squadron in 1905 and all of the ships except Kaiser Karl der Grosse were rebuilt between 1907 and 1910. In 1908, the rest of their peacetime careers consisted of periodic reactivations to participate in annual fleet training maneuvers. At the start of World War I in July 1914 they were recommissioned and assigned to V Squadron; they were quickly transferred to the Baltic to support German operations against the Russian Empire. The increasing threat of modern weapons, particularly the British submarines that had begun to operate in the area, combined with shortages of crews for more valuable vessels, led the navy to decommission the class in March 1915.
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