The SMS Cyclop was one of the 2 dock ships of the imperial navy, which were developed with the development and use of the first submarines to salvage or repair submerged or damaged submarines can.
Launching and design:
In 1906, the first submarine U1 was commissioned in the imperial navy. At the same time, the development of a type of ship was started, which was able to lift sunken submarines, to repair damaged or towed in a harbor.
The first dock ship volcano launched on 28 September 1907 from the stack. After a short time and the rapid development in the submarine sector, the volcano proved in the long run no longer suitable to accommodate the larger and heavier submarines. It was therefore started with the development of another dock ship, which met the new requirements.
The cyclop was built like the volcano catamaran, but the lifting power of the cranes was doubled with 1,000 tons and the bounded dock widened by 4 meters.
The launching took place during the year 1916, the exact date is unknown.
SMS Cyclop
Use in the war:
In 1917 testing and practice trips were carried out by the shipyard team throughout the year. In June 1918, the first lifting exercise took place and on 1 July 1918, a military crew took over the ship and it was officially put into service.
The only lifting operation took place on October 21, 1918 with the recovery of the SM UB 89, which had sunk in front of the Holtenauer lock by a ramming impact.
Whereabouts:
After the capitulation of the German Empire in November 1918, the victorious powers demanded inter alia the extradition of the Cyclop. This ran accordingly first on March 17, 1919 to Brunsbüttel from there on April 4, 1919 to begin the crossing to Britain.
The ship was accompanied by the small cruiser Regensburg, which took up the crew after delivery of the ship in Harwich on April 9 and brought back to Germany.
In 1923, the Cyclop returned to Germany and was scrapped because under the terms of the Versailles Treaty of the German Navy no submarines were allowed and thus the ship had become redundant.
Ship data:
| Name: |
SMS Cyclop |
| Country: |
German Empire |
| Ship Type: |
Dock ship |
| Class: |
Single ship |
| Boatyard: |
Imperial shipyard, Danzig |
| Building-costs: |
6.983.000 Mark |
| Launched: |
In the course of 1916 |
| Commissioning: |
July 1, 1918 |
| Whereabouts: |
Delivered to Britain on April 9, 1919 and scrapped in Germany in 1923 |
| Length: |
94 meters |
| Width: |
19,6 meters |
| Draft: |
Max. 6,31 meters |
| Displacement: |
Max. 4.872 Tons |
| Crew: |
150 Men |
| Drive: |
4 Marine Boiler |
| Power: |
1.800 PS (1.324 kW) |
| Maximum speed: |
9,0 kn (17 km/h) |
| Armament: |
none |
| Armor: |
none |
You can find the right literature here:
German Battleships 1914–18 (1): Deutschland, Nassau and Helgoland classes (New Vanguard)
German Battleships 1914–18 (1): Deutschland, Nassau and Helgoland classes (New Vanguard) Paperback – February 23, 2010
Supported by official documents, personal accounts, official drawings and specially commissioned artwork, this volume is an enlightening history of the Deutschland to Osfriesland classes. Detailing the last of the pre-dreadnaught battleship classes, this book goes on to explain the revolutionary developments that took place within the German Imperial Navy as they readied themselves for war. This included creating vessels with vast increases in size and armament. This account of design and technology is supplemented by individual ship histories detailing combat experience complete with first-hand accounts. The specially commissioned artwork also brings this history to life with recreations of the battleship Pommern fighting at Jutland and ships of the Osfriesland class destroying HMS Black Prince in a dramatic night-time engagement.
The Imperial German Navy of World War I, Vol. 1 Warships: A Comprehensive Photographic Study of the Kaiser’s Naval Forces
The Imperial German Navy of World War I, Vol. 1 Warships: A Comprehensive Photographic Study of the Kaiser’s Naval Forces Hardcover – December 28, 2016
The Imperial German Navy of WWI is a series of books (Warships, Campaigns, & Uniforms) that provide a broad view of the Kaiser's naval forces through the extensive use of photographs. Every effort has been made to cover all significant areas during the war period. In addition to the primary use of photographs, technical information is provided for each warship along with its corresponding service history; with a special emphasis being placed on those warships that participated in the Battle of Skagerrak (Jutland). Countless sources have been used to establish individual case studies for each warship; multiple photos of each warship are provided. The entire series itself is unprecedented in its coverage of the Kaiser's navy.
German Battlecruisers of World War One: Their Design, Construction and Operations
German Battlecruisers of World War One: Their Design, Construction and Operations Hardcover – November 4, 2014
This is the most comprehensive, English-language study of the German Imperial Navy's battlecruisers that served in the First World War. Known as Panzerkreuzer, literally "armored cruiser," the eight ships of the class were to be involved in several early North Sea skirmishes before the great pitched battle of Jutland where they inflicted devastating damage on the Royal Navy's battlecruiser fleet. This book details their design and construction, and traces the full service history of each ship, recounting their actions, drawing largely from first-hand German sources and official documents, many previously unpublished in English.
The Kaiser's Battlefleet: German Capital Ships 1871-1918
The Kaiser's Battlefleet: German Capital Ships 1871-1918 Hardcover – March 15, 2016
The battleships of the Third Reich have been written about exhaustively, but there is little in English devoted to their Second Reich predecessors. This new book fills an important gap in the literature of the period by covering these German capital ships in detail and studying the full span of battleship development during this period. The book is arranged as a chronological narrative, with technical details, construction schedules, and ultimate fates tabulated throughout, thus avoiding the sometimes disjointed structure that can result from a class-by-class approach. Heavily illustrated with line drawings and photographs, many from German sources, the book offers readers a fresh visual look at these ships. A key objective of the book is to make available a full synthesis of the published fruits of archival research by German writers found in the pre-World War II books of Koop & Schmolke, Großmer's on the construction program of the dreadnaught era, Forstmeier & Breyer on World War I projects, and Schenk & Nottelmann's papers in Warship International. As well as providing data not available in English-language books, these sources correct significant errors in standard English sources.
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