SMS Prinzregent Luitpold

SMS Prinzregent Luitpold

SMS Prinzregent Luitpold was the fifth and final vessel of the Kaiser class of battleships of the Imperial German Navy. She is the namesake of Prince Regent Ludwig of Bavaria, the last king of the last German dynasty. Along with her four sister ships, Kaiser, Friedrich der Grosse, Kaiserin, and König Albert, she participated in all of the major fleet operations of World War I. She was raised in July 1931 and subsequently broken up for scrap in 1933.

About SMS Prinzregent Luitpold in brief

Summary SMS Prinzregent LuitpoldSMS Prinzregent Luitpold was the fifth and final vessel of the Kaiser class of battleships of the Imperial German Navy. The ship was equipped with ten 30. 5-centimeter guns in five twin turrets, and had a top speed of 21. 7 knots. Along with her four sister ships, Kaiser, Friedrich der Grosse, Kaiserin, and König Albert, she participated in all of the major fleet operations of World War I. She was raised in July 1931 and subsequently broken up for scrap in 1933. She is the namesake of Prince Regent Ludwig of Bavaria, the last king of the last German dynasty and the last son of the king of Württemberg, who was born in 1881. She has been named after the Prince of Bavarian, Prince of Regent, and Prince of Hesse-Kassel, who were born in the same year as the ship’s builder, the Germaniawerft Company, in Kiel. She had a crew of 41 officers and 1,043 enlisted men, and was armed with a main battery of 10 30.5 cm SK L50 guns in 5 twin turrets. Her main armored belt was 350 mm thick in the central portion, and 300 mm on the sides and the conning tower was 400 mm on the sides. She carried 3,600 metric tons of coal, which enabled a maximum range of 7,900 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 12 knots. The ship’s armament was rounded out by five 50 cm torpedo tubes, all mounted in the hull; one was in the bow, and the other four were on the broadside.

In December 1916, she was assigned to III Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of her career, and she was transferred to IV Battle Squadron in December 1916. She participated in Operation Albion, an amphibious assault on the Russian-held islands in the Gulf of Riga, in late 1917. After Germany’s defeat in the war and the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, the ships were interned by the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow. The ships were disarmed and reduced to skeleton crews while the Allied powers negotiated the final version of the Treaty of Versailles. On 21 June 1919, days before the treaty was signed, the commander of the interned fleet, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, ordered the fleet to be scuttled to ensure that the British would not be able to seize the ships. In July 1931, the ship was raised by the German Navy and later broken up in a German shipyard in Düsseldorf. It was named Ersatz Odin under the contract for the replacement for the obsolete coastal defense coastal defense ship Ersat Odin, which had been scrapped in the early 1930s. It is the only ship of its type to survive the Second World War.