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126-686: SMS Schleswig-Holstein ( pronounced [ˌʃleːsvɪç ˈhɔlʃtaɪn] ) was the last of the five pre-dreadnought Deutschland -class battleships built by the German Kaiserliche Marine . The ship, named for the province of Schleswig-Holstein , was laid down in the Germaniawerft dockyard in Kiel in August 1905 and commissioned into the fleet nearly three years later. The ships of her class were already outdated by

252-468: A main battery of very heavy guns upon the weather deck, in large rotating mounts either fully or partially armoured over, and supported by one or more secondary batteries of lighter weapons on broadside. The similarity in appearance of battleships in the 1890s was underlined by the increasing number of ships being built. New naval powers such as Germany , Japan , the United States , and to

378-588: A quarter meridian . So ⁠ 10,000,000 m / 90 × 60 ⁠ = 1,851.85 m ≈ 1,852 m became the metric length for a nautical mile. France made it legal for the French Navy in 1906, and many metric countries voted to sanction it for international use at the 1929 International Hydrographic Conference. Both the United States and the United Kingdom used an average arcminute—specifically,

504-634: A clash between Chinese battleships and a Japanese fleet consisting of mostly cruisers. The Spanish–American War of 1898 was also a mismatch, with the American pre-dreadnought fleet engaging Spanish shore batteries at San Juan and then a Spanish squadron of armoured cruisers and destroyers at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba . Not until the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 did pre-dreadnoughts engage on an equal footing. This happened in three battles:

630-489: A convoy escort ship with a greatly enhanced anti-aircraft armament, but after being hit three times by Royal Air Force bombers on 18 December 1944, she eventually foundered in shallow water. As the ship was permanently disabled, her crew was sent ashore to assist in the defense of Marienburg . Following the Soviet capture of that city, the remaining crew detonated scuttling charges in the wreck on 21 March to further destroy

756-406: A degree (5866 ⁠ 2 / 3 ⁠ feet per arcminute ). In 1633, William Oughtred suggested 349,800 feet to a degree (5830 feet per arcminute). Both Gunter and Oughtred put forward the notion of dividing a degree into 100 parts, but their proposal was generally ignored by navigators. The ratio of 60 miles, or 20 leagues, to a degree of latitude remained fixed while the length of the mile

882-474: A degree is a map by Nicolaus Germanus in a 1482 edition of Ptolemy 's Geography indicating one degree of longitude at the Equator contains " milaria 60 ". An earlier manuscript map by Nicolaus Germanus in a previous edition of Geography states " unul gradul log. et latitud sub equinortiali formet stadia 500 que fanut miliaria 62 ⁠ 1 / 2 ⁠ " ("one degree longitude and latitude under

1008-698: A follow-on design, which became the Deutschland class . The Deutschland -class ships were broadly similar to the Braunschweig s, featuring incremental improvements in armor protection. They also abandoned the gun turrets for the secondary battery guns, moving them back to traditional casemates to save weight. The British battleship HMS  Dreadnought —armed with ten 12-inch (30.5 cm) guns—was commissioned in December 1906. Dreadnought ' s revolutionary design rendered every capital ship of

1134-480: A harbour-defence vessel; she fired at extreme range (13,500 yards, 12,300 m) on the German cruiser SMS  Gneisenau , and while the only hit was from an inert practice shell which had been left loaded from the previous night (the "live" shells of the salvo broke up on contact with water; one inert shell ricocheted into one of Gneisenau ' s funnels), this certainly deterred Gneisenau . The subsequent battle

1260-590: A lesser extent Italy and Austria-Hungary , began to establish themselves with fleets of pre-dreadnoughts. Meanwhile, the battleship fleets of the United Kingdom, France , and Russia expanded to meet these new threats. The last decisive clash of pre-dreadnought fleets was between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Imperial Russian Navy at the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905. These battleships were abruptly made obsolete by

1386-586: A minelaying operation off the Swarte Bank with II Squadron in support. This was followed by another sweep by the fleet on 23–24 October that ended without result. II and III Battle Squadron dreadnoughts conducted an advance into the North Sea on 5–7 March 1916; Schleswig-Holstein and the rest of II Squadron remained in the German Bight , ready to sail in support. They then rejoined the fleet during

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1512-579: A minute of arc of a great circle of a sphere having the same surface area as the Clarke 1866 ellipsoid . The authalic (equal area) radius of the Clarke 1866 ellipsoid is 6,370,997.2 metres (20,902,222 ft). The resulting arcminute is 1,853.2480 metres (6,080.210 ft). The United States chose five significant digits for its nautical mile, 6,080.2 feet , whereas the United Kingdom chose four significant digits for its Admiralty mile, 6,080 feet. In 1929

1638-400: A number of innovations to increase the rate of fire. The propellant was provided in a brass cartridge, and both the breech mechanism and the mounting were suitable for rapid aiming and reloading. A principal role of the secondary battery was to damage the less armoured parts of an enemy battleship; while unable to penetrate the main armour belt, it might score hits on lightly armoured areas like

1764-515: A pre-dreadnought was not necessarily the equal of even a modern armoured cruiser, and was totally outclassed by a modern dreadnought battleship or battlecruiser. Nevertheless, the pre-dreadnought played a major role in the war. This was first illustrated in the skirmishes between British and German navies around South America in 1914. While two German cruisers menaced British shipping, the Admiralty insisted that no battlecruisers could be spared from

1890-548: A rated 16,767 indicated horsepower (12,503 kW) and a top speed of 19.1 knots (35.4 km/h; 22.0 mph). In addition to being the second-fastest ship of her class, Schleswig-Holstein was the second-most fuel efficient. At a cruising speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph), she could steam for 5,720 nautical miles (10,590 km; 6,580 mi). She had a standard crew of 35 officers and 708 enlisted men. The ship's primary armament consisted of four 28 cm SK L/40 guns in two twin turrets; one turret

2016-529: A series of Iberian ports, including Lisbon , Portugal, where Mommsen was greeted by Óscar Carmona , the president of Portugal. In December 1927 Schleswig-Holstein went back into dock, re-emerging in January 1928 with her forefunnel trunked back into the second and both remaining funnels heightened, as had previously been done with her sister Schlesien . With the delivery of the new Deutschland -class Panzerschiffe (armored ships) beginning in 1933,

2142-551: A similar armament before Dreadnought , but were unable to complete them before the British ship. It was felt that because of the longer distances at which battles could be fought, only the largest guns were effective in battle, and by mounting more 12-inch guns Dreadnought was two to three times more effective in combat than an existing battleship. The armament of the new breed of ships was not their only crucial advantage. Dreadnought used steam turbines for propulsion, giving her

2268-403: A target, and she did not fire her main guns. At 21:35 a heavy caliber shell struck the ship on the port-side, punching a hole approximately 40 cm (16 in) wide before exploding against the inner casemate armor. It tore apart 4.50 m (14.8 ft) of the superstructure deck and disabled one of the port side casemate guns. Three men were killed and nine were wounded. Admiral Mauve halted

2394-427: A top speed of 21 knots, against the 18 knots typical of the pre-dreadnought battleships. Able both to outgun and outmaneuver their opponents, the dreadnought battleships decisively outclassed earlier battleship designs. Nevertheless, pre-dreadnoughts continued in active service and saw significant combat use even when obsolete. Dreadnoughts and battlecruisers were believed vital for the decisive naval battles which at

2520-537: A total of more than 145,000 passengers. Nautical mile There is no single internationally agreed symbol, with several symbols in use. The word mile is from the Latin phrase for a thousand paces: mille passus . Navigation at sea was done by eye until around 1500 when navigational instruments were developed and cartographers began using a coordinate system with parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude . The earliest reference of 60 miles to

2646-472: A trajectory close to horizontal) was a much greater threat than had been thought. Gunboat diplomacy was typically conducted by cruisers or smaller warships. A British squadron of three protected cruisers and two gunboats brought about the capitulation of Zanzibar in 1896; and while battleships participated in the combined fleet Western powers deployed during the Boxer Rebellion , the naval part of

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2772-488: A variety of ways; sometimes carried in turrets, they were just as often positioned in fixed armoured casemates in the side of the hull, or in unarmoured positions on upper decks. Some of the pre-dreadnoughts carried an "intermediate" battery, typically of 8-to-10-inch (203 to 254 mm) calibre. The intermediate battery was a method of packing more heavy firepower into the same battleship, principally of use against battleships or at long ranges. The United States Navy pioneered

2898-581: The Lord Nelson class, carried ten 9.2-inch guns as secondary armament. Ships with a uniform, heavy secondary battery are often referred to as "semi-dreadnoughts". Pre-dreadnought battleships carried a considerable weight of steel armour, providing them with effective defence against the great majority of naval guns in service during the period. 'Medium' calibre guns up to 8-9.4 inch would generally prove incapable of piercing their thickest armour, while it still provided some measure of defence against even

3024-635: The Virginia class laid down in 1901–02. Nevertheless, it was these earlier ships that ensured American naval dominance against the antiquated Spanish fleet—which included no pre-dreadnoughts—in the Spanish–American War, most notably at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba. The final two classes of American pre-dreadnoughts (the Connecticut s and Mississippi s ) were completed after the completion of

3150-586: The 1898 and 1900 Navy Laws . This increase was due to the determination of the navy chief Alfred von Tirpitz and the growing sense of national rivalry with the UK. Besides the Brandenburg class, German pre-dreadnoughts include the ships of the Kaiser Friedrich III , Wittelsbach , and Braunschweig classes—culminating in the Deutschland class , which served in both world wars. On the whole,

3276-603: The Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904, the Russian and Japanese fleets fought at ranges of 3.5 miles (5.5 km). The increase in engagement range was due in part to the longer range of torpedoes, and in part to improved gunnery and fire control. In consequence, shipbuilders tended towards heavier secondary armament, of the same calibre that the "intermediate" battery had been; the Royal Navy's last pre-dreadnought class,

3402-537: The Borodino class. The weakness of Russian shipbuilding meant that many ships were built overseas for Russia; the best ship, the Retvizan , being largely constructed in the United States. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 was a disaster for the Russian pre-dreadnoughts; of the 15 battleships completed since Petropavlovsk , eleven were sunk or captured during the war. One of these, the famous Potemkin , mutinied and

3528-569: The Dreadnought and after the start of design work on the USN's own initial class of dreadnoughts. The US Great White Fleet of 16 pre-dreadnought battleships circumnavigated the world from 16 December 1907, to 22 February 1909. Japan was involved in two of the three major naval wars of the pre-dreadnought era. The first Japanese pre-dreadnought battleships, the Fuji class , were still being built at

3654-576: The Majestic class onwards carried 12-inch weapons, as did French battleships from the Charlemagne class, laid down in 1894. Japan, importing most of its guns from Britain, used this calibre also. The United States used both 12-inch and 13-inch (330 mm) guns for most of the 1890s until the Maine class , laid down in 1899 (not the earlier Maine of Spanish–American War notoriety), after which

3780-625: The Treaty of Versailles . The new navy was permitted to retain eight pre-dreadnought battleships under Article 181 —two of which would be in reserve—for coastal defense. Schleswig-Holstein was among the ships that were retained, along with her sisters Hannover and Schlesien and several of the Braunschweig -class battleships. Schleswig-Holstein was recommissioned as the new fleet flagship on 31 January 1926 following an extensive refit, with new fire controls and an enlarged aft superstructure for

3906-518: The "new naval powers" of Germany, Japan and the United States. The new ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy and to a lesser extent the U.S. Navy supported those powers' colonial expansion. While pre-dreadnoughts were adopted worldwide, there were no clashes between pre-dreadnought battleships until the very end of their period of dominance. The First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–95 influenced pre-dreadnought development, but this had been

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4032-405: The 'heavy' guns of the day which were considered capable of piercing these plates. Experience with the first generations of ironclads showed that rather than giving the ship's entire length uniform armour protection, it was best to concentrate armour in greater thickness over limited but critical areas. Therefore the central section of the hull, which housed the boilers and engines, was protected by

4158-524: The 12-inch gun was universal. The Russians used both 12 and 10-inch (254 mm) guns as their main armament; the Petropavlovsk class , Retvizan , Tsesarevich , and Borodino class had 12-inch (305 mm) main batteries while the Peresvet class mounted 10-inch guns. The first German pre-dreadnought class used an 11-inch (279 mm) gun but decreased to a 9.4-inch (239 mm) gun for

4284-553: The 1880s because of the influence of the Jeune École doctrine, which favoured torpedo boats to battleships. After the Jeune École's influence faded, the first French battleship laid down was Brennus , in 1889. Brennus and the ships which followed her were individual, as opposed to the large classes of British ships; they also carried an idiosyncratic arrangement of heavy guns, with Brennus carrying three 13.4-inch (340 mm) guns and

4410-694: The 1880s used compound engines , and by the end of the 1880s the even-more efficient triple expansion compound engine was in use. Some fleets, though not the British, adopted the quadruple-expansion steam engine. The main improvement in engine performance during the pre-dreadnought period came from the adoption of increasingly higher pressure steam from the boiler. Scotch marine boilers were superseded by more compact water-tube boilers , allowing higher-pressure steam to be produced with less fuel consumption. Water-tube boilers were also safer, with less risk of explosion, and more flexible than fire-tube types. The Belleville-type water-tube boiler had been introduced in

4536-584: The 1938–1939 cruise went back to South American and Caribbean waters. Gustav Kieseritzky served as the ship's commander from June 1938 until April 1939. In the mid-1930s, Hitler began pursuing an increasingly aggressive foreign policy; in 1936 he re-militarized the Rhineland , and in 1938 completed the Anschluss of Austria and the annexation of the Sudetenland . He then demanded German control over

4662-585: The Admirals continued the trend of ironclad warships mounting gigantic weapons. The guns were mounted in open barbettes to save weight. Some historians see these ships as a vital step towards pre-dreadnoughts; others view them as a confused and unsuccessful design. The subsequent Royal Sovereign class of 1889 retained barbettes but were uniformly armed with 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns ; they were also significantly larger (at 14,000 tons displacement ) and faster (because of triple-expansion steam engines) than

4788-579: The Admirals. Just as importantly, the Royal Sovereign s had a higher freeboard, making them unequivocally capable of the high-seas battleship role. The pre-dreadnought design reached maturity in 1895 with the Majestic class . These ships were built and armoured entirely of steel, and their guns were now mounted in fully-enclosed rotating turrets. They also adopted 12-inch (305 mm) main guns , which, because of advances in gun construction and

4914-522: The British 5th Battle Squadron at top speed. Schleswig-Holstein and her sisters were significantly slower than the dreadnoughts and quickly fell behind. During this period, Admiral Scheer directed Hannover to place herself behind Schleswig-Holstein so he would have a flagship on either end of the formation. By 19:30, the Grand Fleet had arrived on the scene and confronted Admiral Scheer with significant numerical superiority. The German fleet

5040-400: The British, the Royal Navy had 50 pre-dreadnought battleships ready or being built by 1904, from the 1889 Naval Defence Act's ten units onwards. Over a dozen older battleships remained in service. The last two British pre-dreadnoughts, the "semi-dreadnought" Lord Nelson s, appeared after Dreadnought herself. France, Britain's traditional naval rival, had paused its battleship building during

5166-573: The French fleet as early as 1879, but it took until 1894 for the Royal Navy to adopt it for armoured cruisers and pre-dreadnoughts; other water-tube boilers followed in navies worldwide. The engines drove either two or three screw propellers . France and Germany preferred the three-screw approach, which allowed the engines to be shorter and hence more easily protected; they were also more maneuverable and had better resistance to accidental damage. Triple screws were, however, generally larger and heavier than

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5292-524: The German invasion force for Denmark. Along with the torpedo boat Claus von Bevern and several auxiliary ships, her objective was to support the capture of Korsør and Nyborg . During the invasion, the ship was briefly grounded in the Great Belt , west of Agersø . Following the operation, she was transferred back to training duties, as the flagship of the Chief of Training Units. At the end of 1943,

5418-549: The German navy obsolete, including the Deutschland class. Schleswig-Holstein had a length of 127.60 m (418 ft 8 in), a beam of 22.20 m (72 ft 10 in), and a draft of 8.21 m (26 ft 11 in). She displaced 13,200 metric tons (13,000 long tons ) normally and up to 14,218 metric tons (13,993 long tons) at combat loading . She was equipped with three triple expansion engines and twelve coal-fired water-tube boilers that produced

5544-550: The German ships were less powerful than their British equivalents but equally robust. Russia equally entered into a programme of naval expansion in the 1890s; one of Russia's main objectives was to maintain its interests against Japanese expansion in the Far East. The Petropavlovsk class begun in 1892 took after the British Royal Sovereign s; later ships showed more French influence on their designs, such as

5670-594: The Mediterranean from 22 to 30 May. She stopped in Barcelona with Elsass from 1 to 7 June, and then proceeded to Vigo from 12 to 14 June, where she joined Hessen , Elsass , and Hannover . There, the chief of the fleet, Vice Admiral Konrad Mommsen, met with King Alfonso XIII . Schleswig-Holstein went on another training cruise between 30 March and 14 June 1927 into the Atlantic. She visited

5796-480: The North Sea, but the damage to Seydlitz delayed the operation until the end of May. As the last ship assigned to IV Division of II Battle Squadron, the rearmost German formation, Schleswig-Holstein was the last battleship in the line. II Battle Squadron was commanded by Rear Admiral Franz Mauve  [ de ] . During the "Run to the North", Scheer ordered the fleet to pursue the retreating battleships of

5922-529: The Polish positions on the Westerplatte, and in doing so fired the first shots of World War II. These shots were the signal for ground troops to begin their assault on the installation, though the first German ground attack in the Battle of Westerplatte was repelled shortly thereafter. A second assault began later that morning, again supported by Schleswig-Holstein , though it too had failed to break into

6048-512: The Russian tactical victory during the Battle of Port Arthur on 8–9 February 1904, the indecisive Battle of the Yellow Sea on 10 August 1904, and the decisive Japanese victory at the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905. These battles upended prevailing theories of how naval battles would be fought, as the fleets began firing at one another at much greater distances than before; naval architects realized that plunging fire (explosive shells falling on their targets largely from above, instead of from

6174-596: The Turkish battlecruiser lurking on the other side of the straits, the operation had failed. Pre-dreadnoughts were also used to support the Gallipoli landings, with the loss of three more: HMS  Goliath , HMS  Triumph and HMS  Majestic . In return, a pair of Ottoman pre-dreadnoughts, the ex-German Turgut Reis and Barbaros Hayreddin , bombarded Allied forces during the Gallipoli campaign until

6300-421: The action was performed by gunboats, destroyers and sloops. European navies remained dominant in the pre-dreadnought era. The Royal Navy remained the world's largest fleet, though both Britain's traditional naval rivals and the new European powers increasingly asserted themselves against its supremacy. In 1889, Britain formally adopted a "two-power standard" committing it to building enough battleships to exceed

6426-414: The admiral's staff. The secondary 17 cm guns were replaced with 15-centimeter (5.9 in) pieces and four 50 cm torpedo tubes were fitted in main deck casemates fore and aft, replacing the submerged tubes. Schleswig-Holstein and her sister Hannover went on a training cruise into the Atlantic that lasted from 14 May to 17 June 1926; while on the cruise, she visited Palma de Mallorca in

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6552-735: The annual summer cruise to Norway began, but the threat of war in Europe cut the excursion short; within two weeks Schleswig-Holstein and the rest of II Squadron had returned to Wilhelmshaven. At the outbreak of war in July 1914, Schleswig-Holstein was assigned to guard duty in the mouth of the Elbe River while the rest of the fleet mobilized. In late October, she and her sisters were sent to Kiel to have improvements made to their underwater protection system to make them more resistant to torpedoes and mines , after which II Battle Squadron rejoined

6678-466: The arrival of HMS Dreadnought in 1906. Dreadnought followed the trend in battleship design to heavier, longer-ranged guns by adopting an "all-big-gun" armament scheme of ten 12-inch guns . Her innovative steam turbine engines also made her faster. The existing battleships were decisively outclassed, with no more being designed to their format thereafter; the new, larger and more powerful, battleships built from then on were known as dreadnoughts . This

6804-570: The battle, the pre-dreadnoughts risked themselves by turning on the British battlefleet as dark set. Nevertheless, only one of the pre-dreadnoughts was sunk: SMS  Pommern went down in the confused night action as the battlefleets disengaged. Following the November 1918 Armistice, the U.S. Navy converted fifteen older battleships, eight armoured cruisers and two larger protected cruisers for temporary service as transports. These ships made one to six trans-Atlantic round-trips each, bringing home

6930-410: The bridge, or start fires. Equally important, the secondary armament was to be used against smaller enemy vessels such as cruisers , destroyers , and even torpedo boats . A medium-calibre gun could be expected to penetrate the light armour of smaller ships, while the rate of fire of the secondary battery was important in scoring a hit against a small, manoeuvrable target. Secondary guns were mounted in

7056-410: The city of Danzig , which had become a free city after World War I. Early on 1 September 1939, Germany launched an invasion of Poland . Schleswig-Holstein had been positioned in the port of Danzig, moored close to the Polish ammunition depot at Westerplatte under the guise of a ceremonial visit in August. Around 04:47 on 1 September, Schleswig-Holstein opened fire with her main battery at

7182-712: The concept of the battlecruiser . The Austro-Hungarian Empire also saw a naval renaissance during the 1890s, though of the nine pre-dreadnought battleships ordered only the three of the Habsburg class arrived before Dreadnought made them obsolete. The United States started building its first battleships in 1891. These ships were short-range coast-defence battleships that were similar to the British HMS ; Hood except for an innovative intermediate battery of 8-inch guns. The US Navy continued to build ships that were relatively short-range and poor in heavy seas, until

7308-497: The core of the fleet which twice engaged the numerically superior Russian fleets at the Battle of the Yellow Sea and the Battle of Tsushima. After capturing eight Russian battleships of various ages, Japan built several more classes of pre-dreadnoughts after the Russo-Japanese War. In 1906, the commissioning of HMS  Dreadnought brought about the obsolescence of all existing battleships. Dreadnought , by scrapping

7434-504: The distance along a great circle was 60 miles per degree. However, these referred to the old English mile of 5000 feet and league of 15,000 feet, relying upon Ptolemy's underestimate of the Earth's circumference . In the early seventeenth century, English geographers started to acknowledge the discrepancy between the angular measurement of a degree of latitude and the linear measurement of miles. In 1624 Edmund Gunter suggested 352,000 feet to

7560-480: The equator forms 500 stadia , which make 62 ⁠ 1 / 2 ⁠ miles"). Whether a correction or convenience, the reason for the change from 62 ⁠ 1 / 2 ⁠ to 60 miles to a degree is not explained. Eventually, the ratio of 60 miles to a degree appeared in English in a 1555 translation of Pietro Martire d'Anghiera 's Decades: "[Ptolemy] assigned likewise to every degree three score miles." By

7686-406: The extremities would greatly aid the ship's defensive qualities. Thus, the main belt armour would normally taper to a lesser thickness along the side of the hull towards bow and stern; it might also taper up from the central citadel towards the superstructure. The main armament and the magazines were protected by projections of thick armour from the main belt. The beginning of the pre-dreadnought era

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7812-720: The fall. This included another cruise into the Atlantic , from 7 July to 1 August 1909. Starting in September 1910, Friedrich Boedicker took command of the ship, a position he held for the next three years. On 3 October 1911, the ship was transferred back to II Squadron. Due to the Agadir Crisis in July, the summer cruise only went into the Baltic. In 1913, she won the Kaiser's Schiesspreis (Gunnery Award). On 14 July 1914,

7938-544: The ferocity of the night fighting, the High Seas Fleet punched through the British destroyer forces and reached Horns Reef by 4:00 on 1 June. The German fleet reached Wilhelmshaven a few hours later, where the undamaged dreadnoughts of the Nassau and Helgoland classes took up defensive positions. Over the course of the battle, Schleswig-Holstein had fired only twenty 17 cm rounds. Schleswig-Holstein

8064-404: The fight against the much more powerful battlecruisers and ordered an 8- point turn to starboard. Late on the 31st, the fleet re-formed for the night voyage back to Germany, with Schleswig-Holstein towards the rear of the line, ahead of Hessen , Hannover , and the battlecruisers Von der Tann and Derfflinger . Around 03:00, British destroyers conducted a series of attacks against

8190-526: The first cannon shots of World War II when she bombarded the Polish base at Danzig 's Westerplatte in the early morning hours of 1 September 1939. The ship was used as a training vessel for the majority of the war, and was sunk by British bombers in Gotenhafen in December 1944. Schleswig-Holstein was subsequently salvaged and then beached for use by the Soviet Navy as a target. As of 1990,

8316-429: The first day of the battle, Hipper's badly damaged battlecruisers were being engaged by their British rivals. Schleswig-Holstein and the other so-called "five-minute ships" came to their aid by steaming in between the opposing battlecruiser squadrons. These ships were very briefly engaged, owing in large part to the poor visibility. The visibility was so bad, the gunners aboard Schleswig-Holstein could not make out

8442-507: The fleet, some of which were directed towards Schleswig-Holstein . Shortly thereafter, Pommern was struck by at least one torpedo from the destroyer Onslaught ; the hit detonated an ammunition magazine, destroying the ship in a tremendous explosion. During the attack, Schleswig-Holstein was forced to turn away to avoid the destroyers' torpedoes. Shortly after 05:00, Hannover and several other ships fired repeatedly at what they falsely believed to be British submarines. Despite

8568-416: The fleet. The squadron covered Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper 's battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group while they bombarded Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby on 15–16 December 1914. During the operation, the German battle fleet of some 12 dreadnoughts and 8 pre-dreadnoughts came to within 10 nmi (19 km; 12 mi) of an isolated squadron of six British battleships. However, skirmishes between

8694-595: The forward boilers remained coal-fired. The ship's standard complement was also reduced from 35 officers and 708 enlisted men to 31 officers and 565 sailors. The crew was supplemented by 175 cadets, who were taken on long cruises in Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein , the latter sailing in October 1936 on a six-month voyage to South America and the Caribbean. The following year, her cruise took her around Africa, and

8820-413: The head of the line. But by the time II Squadron reached its position at the head of the line, Scheer had ordered another Gefechtskehrtwendung , which placed them at the rear of the German fleet. By 21:00, Scheer had turned the fleet around a third time, but the slow speed of Schleswig-Holstein and her squadron mates caused them to fall out of position, to the disengaged side of the fleet. Later on

8946-615: The installation by around noon. Schleswig-Holstein was joined on 4 September by the torpedo boats T196 and Von der Gröben . A force of German infantry and army engineers went ashore to take the depot, with heavy fire support from Schleswig-Holstein . The Poles managed to hold off the Germans until they were forced to surrender on 7 September at 10:30. Following the Polish surrender, Schleswig-Holstein began shelling Polish positions at Hel and Redłowo ; these operations lasted until 13 September. Between 25 and 27 September,

9072-544: The intermediate battery concept in the Indiana , Iowa , and Kearsarge classes, but not in the battleships laid down between 1897 and 1901. Shortly after the USN re-adopted the intermediate battery, the British, Italian, Russian, French, and Japanese navies laid down intermediate-battery ships. Almost all of this later generation of intermediate-battery ships finished building after Dreadnought , and hence were obsolescent before completion. The pre-dreadnought's armament

9198-572: The international nautical mile was defined by the First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco as exactly 1,852 metres (which is 6,076.12 ft). The United States did not adopt the international nautical mile until 1954. Britain adopted it in 1970, but legal references to the obsolete unit are now converted to 1,853 metres (which is 6,079.40 ft). The metre

9324-679: The late 16th century English geographers and navigators knew that the ratio of distances at sea to degrees was constant along any great circle (such as the equator , or any meridian), assuming that Earth was a sphere. In 1574, William Bourne stated in A Regiment for the Sea the "rule to raise a degree" practised by navigators: "But as I take it, we in England should allowe 60 myles to one degrée: that is, after 3 miles to one of our Englishe leagues, wherefore 20 of oure English leagues shoulde answere to one degrée." Likewise, Robert Hues wrote in 1594 that

9450-551: The late 1880s, for instance the Royal Sovereign class, were armoured with iron and steel compound armour. This was soon replaced with more effective case-hardened steel armour made using the Harvey process developed in the United States. First tested in 1891, Harvey armour was commonplace in ships laid down from 1893 to 1895. However, its reign was brief; in 1895, the German Kaiser Friedrich III pioneered

9576-405: The latter was torpedoed and sunk by a British submarine in 1915. A squadron of German pre-dreadnoughts was present at the Battle of Jutland in 1916; German sailors called them the "five-minute ships", which was the amount of time they were expected to survive in a pitched battle. In spite of their limitations, the pre-dreadnought squadron played a useful role. As the German fleet disengaged from

9702-399: The main belt, which ran from just below the waterline to some distance above it. This "central citadel" was intended to protect the engines from even the most powerful shells. Yet the emergence of the quick-firing gun and high explosives in the 1880s meant that the 1870s to early 1880s concept of the pure central citadel was also inadequate in the 1890s and that thinner armour extensions towards

9828-476: The main fleet and sent to the other side of the world to deal with them. Instead the British dispatched a pre-dreadnought of 1896 vintage, HMS  Canopus . Intended to stiffen the British cruisers in the area, in fact her slow speed meant that she was left behind at the disastrous Battle of Coronel . Canopus redeemed herself at the Battle of the Falkland Islands , but only when grounded to act as

9954-430: The measurement based on this ( ⁠ 40,075.017 km / 360 × 60 ⁠ = 1,855.3 metres) is known as the geographical mile . Using the definition ⁠ 1 / 60 ⁠ of a degree of latitude on Mars , a Martian nautical mile equals to 983 m (1,075 yd). This is potentially useful for celestial navigation on a human mission to the planet , both as a shorthand and a quick way to roughly determine

10080-563: The most from the dreadnought revolution, with four ships of the Liberté class still building when Dreadnought launched, and a further six of the Danton class begun afterwards. Germany's first pre-dreadnoughts, the Brandenburg class , were laid down in 1890. By 1905, a further 19 battleships were built or under construction, thanks to the sharp increase in naval expenditure justified by

10206-539: The old battleship returned to Hel with her sister Schlesien ; both vessels conducted further bombardments of Polish positions there. On 25 September the Schleswig-Holstein was lightly damaged by Polish coastal batteries at Hel. The German military then turned its attention westward, and in April 1940 invaded Denmark . Schleswig-Holstein was assigned to Gruppe 7 , a part of the naval component for

10332-715: The older battleships were gradually withdrawn from front-line service. In May 1935, the Reichsmarine was reorganized as the Kriegsmarine by the reforms instituted by Adolf Hitler that created the Wehrmacht . Schleswig-Holstein ceased to be fleet flagship on 22 September 1935, and was refitted as a cadet training ship during January–March and May–July 1936. The changes included removing her remaining upper deck 15 cm guns and her torpedo tubes, and her two aft boiler rooms were converted to oil-firing models, although

10458-586: The only class of turbine powered pre-dreadnought battleships, the Danton class of 1907. The pre-dreadnought battleship in its heyday was the core of a very diverse navy. Many older ironclads were still in service. Battleships served alongside cruisers of many descriptions: modern armoured cruisers which were essentially cut-down battleships, lighter protected cruisers , and even older unarmoured cruisers, sloops and frigates whether built out of steel, iron or wood. The battleships were threatened by torpedo boats; it

10584-453: The only guns heavy enough to penetrate the thick armour which protected the engines, magazines, and main guns of enemy battleships. The most common calibre for this main armament was 12-inch (305 mm), although earlier ships often had larger-calibre weapons of lower muzzle velocity (guns in the 13-inch to 14-inch range) and some designs used smaller guns because they could attain higher rates of fire. All British first-class battleships from

10710-399: The operation to bombard Yarmouth and Lowestoft on 24–25 April. During this operation, the battlecruiser Seydlitz was damaged by a British mine and had to return to port prematurely. Visibility was poor, so the operation was quickly called off before the British fleet could intervene. The commander of the High Seas Fleet, Admiral Reinhard Scheer , immediately planned another advance into

10836-694: The outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, which saw Japanese armoured cruisers and protected cruisers defeat the Chinese Beiyang Fleet , composed of a mixture of old ironclad battleships and cruisers, at the Battle of the Yalu River . Following their victory, and facing Russian pressure in the region, the Japanese placed orders for four more pre-dreadnoughts; along with the two Fuji s these battleships formed

10962-403: The poles and 1,843 metres at the Equator. France and other metric countries state that in principle a nautical mile is an arcminute of a meridian at a latitude of 45°, but that is a modern justification for a more mundane calculation that was developed a century earlier. By the mid-19th century, France had defined a nautical mile via the original 1791 definition of the metre , one ten-millionth of

11088-682: The pre-eminent warships of their time and replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. In contrast to the multifarious development of ironclads in preceding decades, the 1890s saw navies worldwide start to build battleships to a common design as dozens of ships essentially followed the design of the Royal Navy 's Majestic class . Built from steel, protected by compound , nickel steel or case-hardened steel armour, pre-dreadnought battleships were driven by coal -fired boilers powering compound reciprocating steam engines which turned underwater screws . These ships distinctively carried

11214-404: The reactivation of Schleswig-Holstein was once again contemplated. In her favor was the fact that she retained some coal-fired boilers, given the ever-worsening oil-supply situation. Thus, on 1 February 1944 she was once again recommissioned, at first taking up her old role as a cadet training ship, then later in the year docking at Gotenhafen (Gdynia) for a refit. She was to be converted into

11340-539: The rival destroyer screens convinced the German commander, Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl , that he was confronted with the entire Grand Fleet , and so he broke off the engagement and turned the fleet for home. In April 1916, the ship had two of her 8.8 cm guns removed and replaced with 8.8 cm Flak guns. Schleswig-Holstein then participated in a fleet advance to the Dogger Bank on 21–22 April 1915. On 11–12 September II Reconnaissance Group conducted

11466-505: The same calibre of shell. Between the Majestic class and Dreadnought , the length of the British 12-inch gun increased from 35 calibres to 45 and muzzle velocity increased from 706 metres (2,317 ft) per second to 770 metres (2,525 ft) per second. Pre-dreadnoughts also carried a secondary battery of smaller guns, typically 6-inch (152 mm), though calibres from 4 to 9.4 inches (102 to 240 mm) were used. Virtually all secondary guns were " quick firing ", employing

11592-433: The secondary battery, was able to carry ten 12-inch (305 mm) guns rather than four. She could fire eight heavy guns broadside, as opposed to four from a pre-dreadnought; and six guns ahead, as opposed to two. The move to an "all-big-gun" design was a logical conclusion of the increasingly long engagement ranges and heavier secondary batteries of the last pre-dreadnoughts; Japan and the United States had designed ships with

11718-535: The ship was assigned to II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet , alongside her sister ships. In November, fleet and unit exercises were conducted in the Baltic Sea . The training regimen in which Schleswig-Holstein participated followed a similar pattern over the next five years. Fleet maneuvers were conducted in the spring, followed by a summer cruise to Norway , and additional fleet training in

11844-666: The ship's bell was on display in the Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden . The passage of the Second Naval Law in 1900 under the direction of Vizeadmiral ( VAdm —Vice Admiral) Alfred von Tirpitz secured funding for the construction of twenty new battleships over the next seventeen years. The first group, the five Braunschweig -class battleships , were laid down in the early 1900s, and shortly thereafter design work began on

11970-541: The ship. After the war, the ship was raised during 1945–1946 by the Soviet Navy and transferred to Tallinn . Although reference books long stated that she was scrapped there or in Marienburg, in actuality she was towed out in 1948 and beached for long-term use as a target in shallow water off the island of Osmussaar in the Gulf of Finland . Last used for target practice around 1966, the remains are now submerged. Her bell

12096-412: The ships of II Battle Squadron could not conform to the new course following the turn, and fell to the disengaged side of the German line. Admiral Mauve considered moving his ships to the rear of the line, astern of III Battle Squadron dreadnoughts, but decided against it when he realized the movement would interfere with the maneuvering of Hipper's battlecruisers. Instead, he attempted to place his ships at

12222-413: The ships which followed carrying two 12-inch and two 10.8-inch guns in single turrets. The Charlemagne class, laid down 1894–1896, were the first to adopt the standard four 12-inch (305 mm) gun heavy armament. The Jeune École retained a strong influence on French naval strategy, and by the end of the 19th century France had abandoned competition with Britain in battleship numbers. The French suffered

12348-634: The superior Krupp armour . Europe adopted Krupp plate within five years, and only the United States persisted in using Harvey steel into the 20th century. The improving quality of armour plate meant that new ships could have better protection from a thinner and lighter armour belt; 12 inches (305 mm) of compound armour provided the same protection as just 7.5 inches (190 mm) of Harvey or 5.75 inches (133 mm) of Krupp. Almost all pre-dreadnoughts were powered by reciprocating steam engines . Most were capable of top speeds between 16 and 18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h). The ironclads of

12474-455: The time all nations expected, hence they were jealously guarded against the risk of damage by mines or submarine attack, and kept close to home as much as possible. The obsolescence and consequent expendability of the pre-dreadnoughts meant that they could be deployed into more dangerous situations and more far-flung areas. During World War I, a large number of pre-dreadnoughts remained in service. The advances in machinery and armament meant that

12600-484: The time they entered service, being inferior in size, armor, firepower and speed to the new generation of dreadnought battleships. Schleswig-Holstein fought in both World Wars. During World War I , she saw front-line service in II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet , culminating in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916. Schleswig-Holstein saw action during the engagement, and

12726-449: The twin-screw arrangements preferred by most other navies. Coal was the almost exclusive fuel for the pre-dreadnought period, though navies made the first experiments with oil propulsion in the late 1890s. An extra knot or two of speed could be gained for short bursts by applying a 'forced draught' to the furnaces, where air was pumped into the furnaces, but this risked damage to the boilers if used for prolonged periods. The French built

12852-490: The two following classes and returned to 11-inch guns with the Braunschweig class . While the calibre of the main battery remained generally constant, the performance of the guns improved as longer barrels were introduced. The introduction of slow-burning nitrocellulose and cordite propellant allowed the employment of a longer barrel, and therefore higher muzzle velocity —giving greater range and penetrating power for

12978-455: The two largest other navies combined; at the time, this meant France and Russia, which became formally allied in the early 1890s. The Royal Sovereign and Majestic classes were followed by a regular programme of construction at a much quicker pace than in previous years. The Canopus , Formidable , Duncan and King Edward VII classes appeared in rapid succession from 1897 to 1905. Counting two ships ordered by Chile but taken over by

13104-742: The use of cordite propellant, were lighter and more powerful than the previous guns of larger calibre. The Majestic s provided the model for battleship building in the Royal Navy and many other navies for years to come. Pre-dreadnoughts carried guns of several different calibres, for different roles in ship-to-ship combat. Very few pre-dreadnoughts deviated from what became the classic arrangement of heavy weaponry: A main battery of four heavy guns mounted in two centre-line gunhouses fore and aft (these could be either fully enclosed barbettes or true turrets but, regardless of type, were later to be universally referred to as 'turrets'). These main guns were slow-firing, and initially of limited accuracy; but they were

13230-468: The waterline. By the pre-dreadnought era the torpedo was typically 18-inch (457 mm) in diameter and had an effective range of several thousand metres. However, it was virtually unknown for a battleship to score a hit with a torpedo. During the ironclad age, the range of engagements increased; in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 battles were fought at around 1 mile (1.6 km), while in

13356-462: The waterline. One was in the bow, one in the stern, and four on the broadside . Her armored belt was 240 mm (9.4 in) thick amidships in the citadel , and she had a 40 mm (1.6 in) thick armored deck. The main battery turrets had 280 mm (11 in) thick sides. Schleswig-Holstein was laid down on 18 August 1905 at the Germaniawerft dockyard in Kiel . She

13482-624: The working of her guns. Navies worldwide continued to build masted, turretless battleships which had sufficient freeboard and were seaworthy enough to fight on the high seas. The distinction between coast-assault battleship and cruising battleship became blurred with the Admiral-class ironclads , ordered in 1880. These ships reflected developments in ironclad design, being protected by iron-and-steel compound armour rather than wrought iron . Equipped with breech-loading guns of between 12-inch and 16 ¼-inch (305 mm and 413 mm) calibre,

13608-523: Was affirmed by British, French and German navies in subsidiary theatres of war. The German navy used its pre-dreadnoughts frequently in the Baltic campaign. However, the largest number of pre-dreadnoughts was engaged at the Gallipoli campaign. Twelve British and French pre-dreadnoughts formed the bulk of the force which attempted to " force the Dardanelles " in March 1915. The role of the pre-dreadnoughts

13734-579: Was briefly taken over by Romania at the end of the mutiny. However, she was soon recovered and recommissioned as Panteleimon . After the war, Russia completed four more pre-dreadnoughts after 1905. Between 1893 and 1904, Italy laid down eight battleships; the later two classes of ship were remarkably fast, though the Regina Margherita class was poorly protected and the Regina Elena class lightly armed. In some ways, these ships presaged

13860-411: Was completed by a tertiary battery of light, rapid-fire guns, of any calibre from 3-inch (76 mm) down to machine guns . Their role was to give short-range protection against torpedo boats, or to attack the deck and superstructure of a battleship. In addition to their gun armament, many pre-dreadnought battleships were armed with torpedoes , fired from fixed tubes located either just above or below

13986-629: Was decided by the two Invincible -class battlecruisers which had been dispatched after Coronel. In the Black Sea five Russian pre-dreadnoughts saw brief action against the Ottoman battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim during the Battle of Cape Sarych in November 1914. Two of the Russian pre-dreadnoughts briefly engaged Yavus Sultan Selim again in May 1915. The principle that disposable pre-dreadnoughts could be used where no modern ship could be risked

14112-410: Was during the pre-dreadnought era that the first destroyers were constructed to deal with the torpedo-boat threat, though at the same time the first effective submarines were being constructed. The pre-dreadnought age saw the beginning of the end of the 19th century naval balance of power in which France and Russia vied for competition against the massive Royal Navy , and saw the start of the rise of

14238-724: Was held in the collection of the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden as of 1990. Pre-dreadnought battleship Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built from the mid- to late- 1880s to the early 1900s . Their designs were conceived before the appearance of HMS  Dreadnought in 1906 and their classification as "pre-dreadnought" is retrospectively applied. In their day, they were simply known as "battleships" or else more rank-specific terms such as "first-class battleship" and so forth. The pre-dreadnought battleships were

14364-466: Was hit by one large-caliber shell. After the battle, Schleswig-Holstein was relegated to guard duty in the mouth of the Elbe River before being decommissioned in late 1917. As one of the few battleships permitted for Germany by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles , Schleswig-Holstein was again pressed into fleet service in the 1920s. In 1935, the old battleship was converted into a training ship for naval cadets. Schleswig-Holstein fired

14490-482: Was intended for the use of the command staff during battle. This was protected by a vertical, full height, ring of armour nearly equivalent in thickness to the main battery gunhouses and provided with observation slits. A narrow armoured tube extended down below this to the citadel; this contained & protected the various voice-tubes used for communication from the CT to various key stations during battle. The battleships of

14616-451: Was launched in 1868, followed in 1871 by HMS  Devastation , a turreted ironclad which more resembled a pre-dreadnought than the previous, and its contemporary, turretless ironclads. Both ships dispensed with masts and carried four heavy guns in two turrets fore and aft. Devastation was the first ocean-worthy breastwork monitor; because of her very low freeboard , her decks were subject to being swept by water and spray, interfering with

14742-627: Was launched on 17 December 1906, the last pre-dreadnought battleship of the German navy. At Schleswig-Holstein ' s launching ceremony, she was christened by Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein , the German Empress; Wilhelm II was also in attendance. Ernst Gunther , the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, gave the commissioning speech. Upon completion, Schleswig-Holstein was commissioned for sea trials on 6 July 1908. Her crew largely came from her sister ship Schlesien . On 21 September

14868-417: Was marked by a move from mounting the main armament in open barbettes to an all-enclosed, turret mounting. The deck was typically lightly armoured with 2 to 4 inches of steel. This lighter armour was to prevent high-explosive shells from wrecking the superstructure of the ship. The majority of battleships during this period of construction were fitted with a heavily-armoured conning tower, or CT, which

14994-439: Was originally defined as 1 ⁄ 10,000,000 of the length of the meridian arc from the North pole to the equator (1% of a centesimal degree of latitude), thus one kilometre of distance corresponds to one centigrad (also known as centesimal arc minute) of latitude. The Earth's circumference is therefore approximately 40,000 km. The equatorial circumference is slightly longer than the polar circumference –

15120-400: Was placed forward and the other aft. Her offensive armament was rounded out with a secondary battery of fourteen 17 cm (6.7 in) SK L/40 guns mounted individually in casemates. A battery of twenty-two 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns in single mounts provided defense against torpedo boats . The ship was also armed with six 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes , all below

15246-398: Was put into dock for repairs 10–25 June 1916. The Navy then decided to withdraw the four remaining Deutschland -class ships, owing to their obsolescence and vulnerability to underwater attacks, as demonstrated by the loss of Pommern . Thereafter, the ship was used as a target for U-boats, except during 12–23 February 1917 when she was used as a guard ship. In April Schleswig-Holstein

15372-453: Was revised with better estimates of the earth’s circumference. In 1637, Robert Norwood proposed a new measurement of 6120 feet for an arcminute of latitude, which was within 44 feet of the currently accepted value for a nautical mile. Since the Earth is not a perfect sphere but is an oblate spheroid with slightly flattened poles, a minute of latitude is not constant, but about 1,862 metres at

15498-638: Was sent to Altenbruch at the mouth of the Elbe; here she was decommissioned on 2 May. Schleswig-Holstein was then disarmed and assigned to the 5th U-boat Flotilla to be used as a barracks ship in Bremerhaven . In 1918 the ship was moved to Kiel, where she remained for the rest of the war. Following the German defeat in World War I, the German navy was reorganized as the Reichsmarine according to

15624-478: Was severely hampered by the presence of the slower Deutschland -class ships; if Scheer had ordered an immediate turn towards Germany, he would have had to sacrifice the slower ships to make his escape. Admiral Scheer decided to reverse the course of the fleet with the Gefechtskehrtwendung , a maneuver that required every unit in the German line to turn 180° simultaneously. Having fallen behind,

15750-482: Was the point at which the ships that had been laid down before were redesignated "pre-dreadnoughts". The pre-dreadnought developed from the ironclad battleship . The first ironclads—the French Gloire and HMS  Warrior —looked much like sailing frigates , with three tall masts and broadside batteries, when they were commissioned in the early 1860s. HMVS Cerberus , the first breastwork monitor ,

15876-446: Was to support the brand-new dreadnought HMS  Queen Elizabeth engaging the Turkish shore defences. Three of the pre-dreadnoughts were sunk by mines, and several more badly damaged. However, it was not the damage to the pre-dreadnoughts which led to the operation being called off. The two battlecruisers were also damaged; since Queen Elizabeth could not be risked in the minefield, and the pre-dreadnoughts would be unable to deal with

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