The Moltke class was a class of two battlecruisers of the German Imperial Navy built between 1909–1911. Named SMS Moltke and SMS Goeben, they were similar to the previous battlecruiser Von der Tann, but the newer design featured several incremental improvements. The Moltkes were slightly larger, faster, and better armored, and had an additional pair of 28 cm guns. Both ships served during World War I. The ships were scuttled on 21 June 1919 to prevent their seizure by the Allies. Goeben was retained by the new Turkish government after the war. She remained on active service with the Turkish Navy until being decommissioned on 20 December 1950. The ship
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The Moltke class was a class of two battlecruisers of the German Imperial Navy built between 1909–1911. Named SMS Moltke and SMS Goeben, they were similar to the previous battlecruiser Von der Tann, but the newer design featured several incremental improvements. The Moltkes were slightly larger, faster, and better armored, and had an additional pair of 28 cm guns. Both ships served during World War I. The ships were scuttled on 21 June 1919 to prevent their seizure by the Allies. Goeben was retained by the new Turkish government after the war. She remained on active service with the Turkish Navy until being decommissioned on 20 December 1950. The ship was sold to M. K. E. Seyman in 1971 for scrapping. She was towed to the breakers on 7 June 1973, and the work was completed in February 1976. In 1952, when Turkey joined NATO in 1952, the ship was assigned the hull number B70. It was unsuccessfully offered for sale to the West German government in 1963. The former was assigned to the 1908–09 building year, while the latter was assigned for 1909–10 building year. The keel was laid on 7 December 1908, and launched on 7 April 1910 as SMS Moltk. The Ship’s namesake was Field Marshal Helmuth von moltke, the Chief of Staff of the Prussian Army in the mid-19th century. After fitting out, the hull was launched on 28 March 1911, and she was commissioned on 28-out-out of 1911.
She served with the Ottoman Empire as a member of the Central Powers until being stricken from the Navy register on 14 November 1954. She is now a museum ship in Istanbul, Turkey, with the name “Moltk” or “Geben” in honor of the former Chief of the Army’s Field Staff, Field Marshal von Moltkel, who was killed in action during the Second World War. She also served as a training ship with the German Navy. She has been preserved at the Museum of Naval History and Science in Düsseldorf, Germany, where she is on display as part of a permanent collection of naval memorabilia. She had a top speed of 24.5 knots and a top armor protection equal or superior to Von derTann’s and a armor thickness of 1.5 meters. The vessel was scrapped in February 1973, after being sold to a German company. She remains in the museum’s collection today, but has been dismembered and is being used to house a museum museum in the city of Duesseldorfer, Germany. The hull number of the ship is B70, and it is currently being used as a museum vessel by the German Museum of Military History and Culture. The name of the Ship’s hull is “Gibraltar”, after the Battle of the Gulf of Riga, which took place in the Baltic Sea in 1914.
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