SMS was the third of four dreadnought-type s built, but never finished, for the German (Imperial Navy) in the 1910s. This ship is sometimes considered to be part of a sub-class with her sister . Like the other members of the class, she was to be armed with the same main battery of eight guns in four gun turrets, but she differed from the other members of her class in her propulsion system. She exchanged the steam turbine on her center propeller shaft in favor of a diesel engine. She was laid down in April 1914 at the Germaniawerft shipyard, but the start of World War I in July slowed work on the ship; she was launched in November 1916, but as resources were diverted to more pressing projects, including U-boat construction, work stopped completely when the ship was about nine months from completion. Some components of her propulsion system were reused in several of the Type U 151 submarines. The Treaty of Versailles that ended the war in June 1919 specified that all warships under construction in Germany were to be destroyed, and was accordingly sold for scrap in 1920 and dismantled the following year.
Development
Design work on the began in 1910 in the context of the Anglo-German naval arms race, with initial discussions focused on the caliber of the main battery; previous German battleships had carried guns, but as foreign navies adopted and weapons, the German naval command felt the need to respond with larger guns of their own. They considered , , and guns. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the State Secretary of the (RMA—Imperial Naval Office), was able to use public outcry over the Agadir Crisis to pressure the (Imperial Diet) into appropriating additional funds for the (Imperial Navy) to offset the additional cost of the larger weapons. The design staff settled on the 38 cm caliber since the 40 cm was significantly more expensive and the 38 cm gun marked a significant improvement over existing German guns.
As the German Navy began preparations to begin construction for the battleship of fiscal year 1914, designated "" in 1912 as a replacement for the elderly pre-dreadnought battleship , the design staff became aware that the latest British battleships—the —would have a high top speed. The Germans opted to make another attempt to incorporate a diesel engine to power the new ship's center propeller shaft (they had previously sought to install them on the earlier but they were not ready in time). The diesel engine was larger than a comparable turbine installation, increasing displacement by about , which required a lengthening of the hull by to keep her draft from increasing. This had the benefit of refining the hull lines and thereby improving its hydrodynamic shape, increasing her speed. Because of these changes, some historians, including the German naval historian Dirk Nottellmann, consider and the fourth -class battleship, , to constitute a sub-class of the basic design.
Description
was long at the waterline, and long overall. She had a beam of and a draft of between . would have displaced at her designed displacement, which did not include a full load of supplies, fuel, and other operational necessities; at full load, she would have displaced up to . Unlike her three sister ships, which were powered by three sets of Schichau steam turbines, received only two sets of turbines on the outboard shafts, with steam provided by six coal-fired water-tube boilers and three oil-fired models. Her third shaft was powered by a MAN, six-cylinder, two-stroke diesel engine which was rated at ; combined with the turbines, her propulsion system produced . Designed speed was . Her engines would have provided a cruising range of at a speed of . Upon commissioning, she would have carried a crew of 42 officers and 1,129 enlisted men.
Had she been completed, she would have been armed with eight SK L/45 guns.. These would have been arranged in four twin-gun turrets: two superfiring turret pairs fore and aft of the superstructure. Her secondary armament was to have consisted of sixteen guns and four guns. She would also have been fitted with five torpedo tubes submerged in her hull, one in the bow and two on each broadside. The ship had an armored belt that was thick and an armored deck that was thick. Her forward conning tower had sides, and the main battery turrets had 350 mm thick sides and thick roofs.