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_ SMS Schwaben _
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Introduction
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SMS ("His Majesty's Ship 'Swabia'") was the fourth ship of the of
pre-dreadnought battleships of the German Imperial Navy. was built
at the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven. She was laid down in
1900, and completed in April 1904. Her sister ships were , , and ;
they were the first capital ships built under the Navy Law of 1898,
championed by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. was armed with a main
battery of four 24 cm guns and had a top speed of 18 kn.
Rendered obsolete by the appearance of HMS 'Dreadnought' in 1906,
spent most of her career as a gunnery training ship from 1904 to
1914, though she frequently participated in the large scale fleet
exercises during this period. After the start of World War I in
August 1914, the ship was mobilized with her sisters as part of IV
Battle Squadron. She saw limited duty in the North Sea as a guard
ship and in the Baltic Sea against Russian forces. The threat from
British submarines forced the ship to withdraw from the Baltic in
1916. For the remainder of the war, served as an engineering
training ship for navy cadets. She was retained by the after the
war and reactivated from 1919 until June 1920, serving as a depot
ship for F-type minesweepers in the Baltic. The ship was stricken
from the navy list in March 1921 and sold for scrapping in that
year.
Design
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After the German (Imperial Navy) ordered the four s in 1889, a
combination of budgetary constraints, opposition in the (Imperial
Diet), and a lack of a coherent fleet plan delayed the acquisition
of further battleships. The Secretary of the (Imperial Navy
Office), ('VAdm'--Vice Admiral) Friedrich von Hollmann struggled
throughout the early and mid-1890s to secure parliamentary approval
for the first three s. In June 1897, Hollmann was replaced by
('KAdm'--Rear Admiral) Alfred von Tirpitz, who quickly proposed and
secured approval for the first Naval Law in early 1898. The law
authorized the last two ships of the class, as well as the five
ships of the , the first class of battleship built under Tirpitz's
tenure. The s were broadly similar to the s, carrying the same
armament but with a more comprehensive armor layout.
Characteristics
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was 126.8 m long overall and had a beam of 22.8 m and a draft of
7.95 m forward. She displaced as designed and up to 12798 MT at
full load. The ship had a large superstructure that included an
armored conning tower forward, along with a flush deck. Her hull
featured a pronounced ram bow. She had a crew of 30 officers and
650 enlisted men.
The ship was powered by three 3-cylinder vertical triple expansion
engines that drove three screws. Steam was provided by six
water-tube and six cylindrical coal-fired boilers, which were
vented through a pair of large funnels located amidships. 's
powerplant was rated at 14000 PS, which generated a top speed of 18
kn. The ship had a cruising radius of 5000 nmi at a speed of 10 kn.
's armament consisted of a main battery of four 24 cm (9.4 in) SK
L/40 guns in twin gun turrets, one fore and one aft of the central
superstructure. Her secondary armament consisted of eighteen 15 cm
(5.9 inch) SK L/40 guns that were mounted in casemates. Six of
these were placed in the hull and the other six were in the
superstructure, two of which were forward-firing under the forward
turret. Close-range defense against torpedo boats was provided by a
tertiary battery of twelve 8.8 cm (3.45 in) SK L/30 quick-firing
guns and twelve machine cannon in the upper superstructure. The
armament system was rounded out with six 45 cm torpedo tubes, all
submerged in the hull; one was in the bow, one in the stern, and
the other four were on the broadside.
Her armor belt was 100 to thick in the central citadel that
protected her magazines and machinery spaces and reduced to on
either end of the hull. Horizontal protection was provided by an
armor deck that was thick; it sloped down at the sides and
connected to the bottom edge of the belt. The sloped sides
increased in thickness to . The main battery turrets had 250 mm of
armor plating on their faces and the secondary casemates received
of armor plate. Her conning tower was protected with 250 mm of
armor.
Construction – 1905
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's keel was laid 15 September 1900, at the Imperial Dockyard in
Wilhelmshaven, under construction number 27. She was ordered under
the contract name "G", as a new unit for the fleet. was launched
on 19 August 1901; during the launching ceremony, King Wilhelm II
of Württemberg gave a speech and his wife Queen Charlotte of
Württemberg christened the ship. She was commissioned on 13 April
1904, the last ship of her class to enter active service. The
ship's cost totaled 21,678,000 marks.
There was a dispute over where should be assigned after her
commissioning in April 1904. Admiral Hans von Koester, the fleet
commander, wanted the ship to be assigned to the active duty
squadron, but Tirpitz wanted to use the new battleship as a
training vessel, since the Training Squadron only possessed
cruisers and obsolescent ships. Tirpitz won the debate, and so was
to replace the ancient ironclad frigate in the Training Squadron.
There, she was to serve as a torpedo training ship. On 18 May,
departed Wilhelmshaven and passed through the Skagerrak to the
Baltic Sea, arriving in Kiel on 22 May.
While on sea trials, she struck an uncharted shoal off the northern
tip of the island of Fehmarn. The impact damaged a 30 m length of
the ship's hull and holed it in several places. After repairs were
completed, she resumed her trials, which lasted until the end of
1904. The trials were interrupted by the annual autumn maneuvers,
during which joined the active fleet in the North Sea. On 11
January 1905, she was formally assigned to the Training Squadron,
but as an artillery training ship to replace the old vessel . The
ship was based in Sonderburg in the Baltic, along with the armored
cruisers and , and several other training ships. She began an
annual routine of gunnery training in the western Baltic that was
interrupted only by yearly gunnery drills with the entire High Seas
Fleet in October. During these fleet exercises, was supported by
the tender . also went into drydock from the end of October to the
middle of December every year for periodic maintenance.
1906–1914
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participated in exercises in the Swinemünde Bay in April and May
1906, and the annual fleet gunnery drills took place off Helgoland
in August. Her annual overhaul was completed early, in November. In
March 1907, participated in gunnery training with the fleet. She
joined the flagship of the Reserve Squadron, the coastal defense
ship , for maneuvers off the coast of Farther Pomerania in July.
The following month, served as the flagship of 'VAdm' Hugo Zeye
for a training squadron during the fleet maneuvers in the North
Sea. Directly after the conclusion of the fleet maneuvers in
mid-September, participated in fleet gunnery drills off Helgoland.
The year was concluded with an overhaul in the Imperial Dockyard in
Wilhelmshaven.
In 1908, the training ships based in the Baltic were placed under
the command of Rear Admiral Hugo von Pohl, who would go on to
command the High Seas Fleet in 1915 during World War I. That year
followed the same pattern as the previous year, but did not
participate in the autumn fleet maneuvers. She instead remained at
Sonderburg and Alsen during the exercises. In 1909, after the
autumn maneuvers, was assigned as the flagship of the Reserve
Fleet, again under the command of Admiral Zeye. During her yearly
overhaul at the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven, her guns were
fitted with new motors produced in Germany to test their
reliability over foreign-manufactured motors. The tests proved to
be successful. While steaming in the Flensburg Firth on 10-12
December, she had to assist the training ship in heavy fog.
In 1910, after the normal training routine in the first half of the
year, was assigned to III Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet
for the autumn maneuvers, which lasted from 19 August to 11
September. She served in this role to replace the battleships and
, which had been sold to the Ottoman Empire just before the start
of the maneuvers. On 14 October, she joined up with the battleship
and steamed through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal to Kiel for her yearly
overhaul at the Imperial Dockyard there. These repairs lasted until
4 January 1911. served in III Battle Squadron during the autumn
maneuvers again in 1911. By 1911, the eight and es of dreadnought
battleships had entered service; these ships were assigned to I
Battle Squadron, which displaced the newer pre-dreadnoughts of the
and es to II and III Battle Squadrons. As a result, was
decommissioned in Wilhelmshaven on 30 December 1911 and assigned to
the Reserve Division in the North Sea. She was placed back in
service briefly from 9 to 12 May 1912 to move to Kiel. returned to
service again to participate in the autumn maneuvers from 14 August
to 28 September, as the flagship of then-'KAdm' Maximilian von
Spee.
World War I
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After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, and the rest of
her class were mobilized to serve in IV Battle Squadron, under the
command of Vice Admiral Ehrhard Schmidt. After it reached full
combat readiness, the Squadron was employed both as a defense force
in the German Bight--usually stationed in the mouth of the
Elbe--and for operations in the Baltic. Starting on 3 September, IV
Squadron, assisted by the armored cruiser , conducted a sweep into
the Baltic. The operation lasted until 9 September and failed to
bring Russian naval units to battle. In May 1915, IV Squadron,
including , was transferred to support the German Army in the
Baltic Sea area. and her sisters were then based in Kiel. During
this period, she served as the flagship of the second command
admiral of the Squadron, 'KAdm' Alberts.
On 6 May, the IV Squadron ships were tasked with providing support
to the assault on Libau. and the other ships stood off Gotland to
intercept any Russian cruisers that might try to intervene in the
landings, which the Russians did not attempt. On 10 May, after the
invasion force had entered Libau, the British submarines and
spotted IV Squadron, but were too far away to make an attack. The
increasingly active British submarines forced the Germans to employ
more destroyers to protect the capital ships. As a result, and her
sisters were not included in the German fleet that assaulted the
Gulf of Riga in August 1915, due to the scarcity of escorts. On 29
August, (Captain at Sea) Walter Engelhardt replaced Alberts aboard
.. She was then used as a guard ship in Libau, starting on 24
September. On 10-11 November, , her sisters and , and left Libau,
bound for Kiel.
By late 1915, the increasing threat from British submarines in the
Baltic convinced the German navy to withdraw the elderly -class
ships from active service. On 20 November steamed to
Wilhelmshaven, where she replaced as a training ship for
engineers, a role she held for the remainder of the war. After the
Battle of Jutland on 31 May - 1 June, in which did not take part,
Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper, the commander of the German
battlecruiser squadron, sent his four surviving battlecruisers to
dock for repairs. Hipper made , which was stationed in
Wilhelmshaven, his temporary command ship while his force was being
repaired. In 1916, was partially disarmed; the four 24 cm guns
were removed, her battery of 15 cm guns was reduced to six weapons,
and only four 8.8 cm guns were left aboard.
Postwar service
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'Schwaben' was briefly retained by the after the war, and was
reactivated for service on 1 August 1919. According to Articles 182
and 193 of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was obliged to keep
sufficient vessels in commission to sweep mines from large areas in
the North and Baltic Seas. was therefore converted into a depot
ship for F-type minesweepers to assist in meeting Germany's treaty
obligations, which entailed removal of her remaining weaponry and
construction of platforms to hold the minesweepers. She was
assigned to the 6th Baltic Minesweeping Half-Flotilla, though this
service did not last long, as the minesweeping work was completed
by 19 June 1920. The old battleship was stricken from the naval
register on 8 March 1921. She was sold for 3,090,000 marks and
broken up for scrap that year in Kiel-Nordmole.
License
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