SMS Braunschweig was the first of five pre-dreadnought battleships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine. She saw action during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915, when she engaged the Russian battleship Slava. She was decommissioned in 1913, but reactivated a year later following the outbreak of World War I. She spent the rest of the war first as a headquarters ship, then as a training ship, and finally as a barracks ship.
About SMS Braunschweig in brief
SMS Braunschweig was the first of five pre-dreadnought battleships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine. She was laid down in October 1901, launched in December 1902, and commissioned in October 1904. The ship was armed with a battery of four 28 cm guns and had a top speed of 18 knots. She saw action during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915, when she engaged the Russian battleship Slava. Surpassed by new dreadnoughts, she was decommissioned in 1913, but reactivated a year later following the outbreak of World War I. She spent the rest of the war first as a headquarters ship, then as a training ship, and finally as a barracks ship. In 1931, the ship was stricken from the naval register and hulked, and subsequently broken up for scrap. She is the only German battleship to have been sunk by a Soviet submarine during the Second World War, and the only one to have ever been named after a German state or territory. She has been preserved at the German Maritime Museum in Düsseldorf, along with her sister ship, the SS Brunswick. She also served as a flagship for most of her pre-war career, operating as the flagship of naval forces assigned to the North Sea. She served in II Squadron of the German fleet after entering service, and was retained after the Treaty of Versailles, modernized in 1921–22, and retired in 1926.
She had a total length of 127.70m, a beam of 22. 20m, and a draft of 8. 10 m forward. She displaced 13,208 t as designed and 14,394 t at Full load. Her crew consisted of 35 officers and 708 enlisted men. She could steam at 5,200 nautical knots at a cruising speed of 10 knots. She’s powered by three 3-cylinder vertical triple-expansion engines that drove three screws, all of which burned coal. She’s rated at 16,000 indicated horsepower, which generated a topSpeed of 18 knots. BraunsChweig’s main battery consisted of a main gun in twin turrets, one fore and one aft of the central superstructure. Her secondary armament consisted of fourteen 17cm SK L40 quick-firing guns and eighteen 8cm L40 torpedo tubes. The armament suite was rounded out with six 45cm torpedo tubes, all mounted submerged in the hull, on each broadside with the final tube in the stern. She can be seen at the bottom of the page with a photo of the ship, with the caption: “The Braun’sweig, the first battleship of the Reichsmarineamt, was built in 1901 and launched in 1902 and commissioned in 1904 with a crew of 35 officers and 708 enlisted men.
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This page is based on the article SMS Braunschweig published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
