SMS Weissenburg was one of the first ocean-going battleships of the Imperial German Navy. She was the third of four Brandenburg-class battleships, the first pre-dreadnought battleship of the Kaiserliche Marine. Weissenburg served with I Division during the first decade of her service with the fleet. In 1910, she was sold to the Ottoman Empire and renamed Turgut Reis, after the famous 16th century Turkish admiral. The ship saw heavy service during the Balkan Wars, primarily providing artillery support to Ottoman ground forces.
About SMS Weissenburg in brief
SMS Weissenburg was one of the first ocean-going battleships of the Imperial German Navy. She was the third of four Brandenburg-class battleships, the first pre-dreadnought battleship of the Kaiserliche Marine. Weissenburg served with I Division during the first decade of her service with the fleet. In 1910, she was sold to the Ottoman Empire and renamed Turgut Reis, after the famous 16th century Turkish admiral. The ship saw heavy service during the Balkan Wars, primarily providing artillery support to Ottoman ground forces. She served as a training ship from 1924 to 1933, and a barracks ship until 1950, when she was broken up. Her armament system was rounded out with six secondary guns mounted in swivel mounts above the main battery. Although they were the first modern battleships built in Germany, the authorization for the ships came as part of a construction program that reflected the strategic and tactical confusion of the 1880s caused by the Jeune École. Weissenburg, named for the Battle of Weissenburg of 1870, was 115. 7 m long overall, had a beam of 19. 5 m, which was increased to 19. 74 m with the addition of torpedo nets. She displaced 10,013 t as designed and up to 10,670 t at full combat load. She had a maximum range of 4,300 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 10 knots.
Her crew numbered 38 officers and 530 enlisted men. The forward and aft turrets carried 28 cm K40, while the amidships after turrets carried a pair of 28cm L35, L40, L35 quick-firing guns with shorter barrels. Although the heavier capital battery was heavier than the other ships of the period, the secondary battery was also heavier than those of the other German battleships during this period. She also had eight 10 cm L30 quick- firing guns in casemates and eight 8 cm SK30, L30, 8 cm L30quick-f firing guns. The ships were equipped with two sets of 3-cylinder vertical triple expansion steam engines that each drove a screw propeller. Steam was provided by twelve transverse cylindrical Scotch marine boilers. The ship’s propulsion system was rated at 10,000 metric horsepower and a top speed of 16. 5 knots. The ship was decommissioned from August 1915 to the end of the war. She was also the first German battleship to be named after a woman, who died in a shipwreck in the North Sea during the Second World War, in 1894. She is now listed as a museum ship in Stettin, Germany, along with her sister ships Brandenburg, Wörth, and Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm. She has been sold for scrap and is now owned by the German Navy and the German Maritime Museum.
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This page is based on the article SMS Weissenburg published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
