SMS Lützow was the second Derfflinger-class battlecruiser built by the German Kaiserliche Marine before World War I. The ship was commissioned on 8 August 1915, but did not join I Scouting Group until 20 March due to engine damage during trials. She took part in only one bombardment operation: the Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft on 24–25 April 1916, after which she became Admiral Franz von Hipper’s flagship. One month later, the ship was heavily engaged during the Battle of Jutland, on 31 May–1 June. She is sometimes given credit for sinking the armored cruiser HMS Defence, but she was heavily damaged by an estimated 24 heavy-caliber shell
About SMS Lützow in brief
SMS Lützow was the second Derfflinger-class battlecruiser built by the German Kaiserliche Marine before World War I. She was ordered as a replacement for the old protected cruiser Kaiserin Augusta. The ship was commissioned on 8 August 1915, but did not join I Scouting Group until 20 March due to engine damage during trials. She took part in only one bombardment operation: the Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft on 24–25 April 1916, after which she became Admiral Franz von Hipper’s flagship. One month later, the ship was heavily engaged during the Battle of Jutland, on 31 May–1 June. She is sometimes given credit for sinking the armored cruiser HMS Defence, but she was heavily damaged by an estimated 24 heavy-caliber shell hits. With her bow thoroughly flooded, she was unable to make the return voyage to Germany; her crew was evacuated and she was sunk by torpedoes fired by one of her escorts, the torpedo boat G38. Her armament consisted of a main battery of eight 30. 5 cm SK L50 guns in four gun turrets, mounted in superfiring pairs fore and aft of the central superstructure. She also carried eight 8. 8cm SK L45 quick-firing guns in anti-aircraft mounts. The armament suite was rounded out with four 60 cm torpedo tubes, all placed in the hull, below the waterline.
Her deck was protected by an armor belt that was 300 mm thick in the central part of the ship where it protected the ammunition magazines and propulsion spaces. Her main turrets had 270mm of armor sloping down the edge of the battery faces. Her secondary casemates received 150 mm of protection, where the ship’s commander controlled the vessel’s conning tower. Built by Schichau-Werke Danzig in Danzig, her keel was laid down in May 1912 and she was launched on 29 November 1913. She was commissioned on 23 August 1915 and was sent to Kiel for trials and sent to Schielau Kiel in August 1915 for trials. Lüztow, the second member of the class, was allocated to the 1912 construction program, and was completed on 8 November 1916. She had a crew that consisted of 44 officers and 1,068 to 1,138 enlisted men. Her powerplant was rated at 63,000 metric horsepower, which generated a top speed of 26. 4 knots. She was designed to displace 26,600 t normally and she reached 26,741 t at full load. Her armor belt was 30 to thick, with the thicker armor sloped down the sides to connect the battery battery down the lower edge to the lower side of the hull. The vessel was named in honor of the Prussian general Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lzitzow who fought in the Napoleonic Wars.
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This page is based on the article SMS Lützow published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
