SMS Kronprinz
SMS Kronprinz was the last battleship of the four-ship König class of the German Imperial Navy. The battleship was armed with ten 30. 5-centimeter guns in five twin turrets and could steam at a top speed of 21 knots. She took part in most of the fleet actions during the war, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916. She was torpedoed by the British submarine HMS J1 on 5 November 1916 during an operation off the Danish coast. The ship was never raised for scrapping; the wreck is still on the bottom of the harbor.
About SMS Kronprinz in brief
SMS Kronprinz was the last battleship of the four-ship König class of the German Imperial Navy. The battleship was armed with ten 30. 5-centimeter guns in five twin turrets and could steam at a top speed of 21 knots. She took part in most of the fleet actions during the war, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916. She was torpedoed by the British submarine HMS J1 on 5 November 1916 during an operation off the Danish coast. After Germany’s defeat in the war and the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, she and her three sister ships were interned in Scapa Flow. On 21 June 1919, days before the treaty was signed, the commander of the interned fleet ordered the fleet to be scuttled to ensure that the British would not be able to seize the ships. The ship was never raised for scrapping; the wreck is still on the bottom of the harbor. The four Königs were ordered as part of the Anglo-German naval arms race; they were the fourth generation of German dreadnought battleships, and they were built in response to the British Orion class that had been ordered in 1909. The ships had also been intended to use a diesel engine on the center propeller shaft to increase their cruising range, but development of the diesels proved to be more complicated than expected, so an all-steam turbine powerplant was retained.
She displaced 25,796 t as built and 28,600 t fully loaded, with a length of 175. 4 m, a beam of 29. 5 m and a draft of 9. 19 m. She was powered by three Parsons steam turbines, with steam provided by three oil-fired and twelve coal-fired Schulz-Thornycroft water-tube boilers, which developed a total of 45,570 shaft horsepower and yielded a maximum speed of21 knots. The ship had a range of 8,000 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 12 knots. Her crew numbered 41 officers and 1,095 enlisted men. As was customary for capital ships of the period, she was also armed with five 50 cm underwater torpedo tubes, one in the bow and two on each beam. Her secondary armament consisted of fourteen 15-cm SK L45 quick-firing guns and six 8. 8 cm SK L 45 quick- firing guns, all mounted singly in casemates. Her armored belt consisted of Krupp cemented steel that was 35 cm thick in the central portion of the central deck and was reduced to 18 cm forward and 12 cm aft of the ammunition magazines. In May 1912, the ship was laid down under the provisional name Ersatz Brandatz and built at the Germania Brandenburg and she was launched on 21 February 1914. The name KronPrinz refers to Crown Prince Wilhelm, and in June 1918, the vessel was renamed Kronpr inz Wilhelm in his honor.
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This page is based on the article SMS Kronprinz published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
