German Pre-Dreadnought Battleship Wittelsbach
The lead ship of her class of five pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial German Navy, SMS Wittelsbach was laid down in 1899 and completed in October 1902. Along with her sister ships Wettin, Zähringen, and Mecklenburg, she served in I Squadron for the duration of her peacetime career. Her other sister, Schwaben was used as a training ship to modernize the training unit of the German fleet.
Decommissioned in 1910, but reactivated a year later, she served as a training ship until 1914. Brought back to active duty by the start of World War One, Wittelsbach served with IV Battle Squadron. The ship served in the Baltic Sea, including during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915, but saw no combat with Russian forces. By late 1915, crew shortages and the threat from British submarines forced the Kaiserliche Marine to withdraw older battleships like Wittelsbach. The ship then saw service in auxiliary roles, first as a training ship and then as a ship’s tender. After the war, she was converted into a tender for minesweepers in 1919. In July 1921, the ship was sold and broken up for scrap metal.
| Displacement | Normal: 11,774 t (11,588 long tons) Full load: 12,798 t (12,596 long tons) |
| Length | 126.8 m (416 ft) (loa) |
| Beam | 22.8 m (74 ft 10 in) |
| Draft | 7.95 m (26 ft 1 in) |
| Installed power | 14,000 PS (13,810 ihp; 10,300 kW) 6 × water-tube boilers 6 × cylindrical boilers |
| Propulsion | 3 × triple-expansion steam engines 3 × screw propellers |
| Speed | 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) |
| Range | 5,000 nautical miles (9,300 km; 5,800 mi); 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement | 30 officers 650 enlisted men |
| Armament | 4 × 24 cm (9.4 in) guns (40 cal.) 18 × 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/40 guns 12 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/30 guns 6 × 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes |
| Armor | Belt: 100 to 225 mm (3.9 to 8.9 in) Turrets: 250 mm (9.8 in) Deck: 50 mm (2 in) |
