Liner SMS Wörth

The liner SMS Wörth belonged to the ships of the Brandenburg class, which were considered the high point in imperial tanker shipbuilding, before these ship class were replaced by more modern types. In the imperial navy, the ship mainly traveled abroad and was sent to Asia to suppress the Boxer Rebellion.

 

Launching and design:

The construction of the ships of the Brandenburg class began in the early 90s of the 19th century, even before Alfred Tirpitz took office as State Secretary of the Reichsmarineamt. At the time of construction these ships were considered the pinnacle of the construction of armored ships, only in the later years, the ships were classified as ships of the line.

The development of armored ships went back to the memorandum of Lieutenant General Leo von Caprivi, who in 1884 demanded that the naval line demand that the core of the imperial fleet be sustainable in the long term only with these new ships. The turnaround of the years of practiced use of the ships as pure coastal defense in a deep-sea fleet was thus laid.

After the start of construction of the 4 ships of the Brandenburg class, there were some delays. Reason were supply problems of Krupp in the steel delivery as well as short-term changes of the medium artillery of 8,7cm guns on the new 10,5cm rapid-fire gun. Although the SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm was then the type ship of the new class, it was named after the second ship, the SMS Brandenburg.

The launching of SMS Wörth took place on 6 August 1892, the commissioning on 31 October 1893.

 

 

 

 

 

 

History of SMS Wörth:

After commissioning the usual test drives were made. After the completion of this, the ship served at times as a fleet flagship in the annual autumn maneuvers.

When the Boxer revolts began in China in early 1900, the German naval leadership decided to send the battleships of the Brandenburg class to crush the riots on site and to secure German economic interests.

In August 1901 the ships returned to Wilhelmshaven.

In the period from August 1901 to September 27, 1904, the Wörth was taken out of service to carry out extensive modernization measures. After completion, the ship was decommissioned in September 1906 and assigned to the reserve fleet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use in the war:

With the outbreak of the First World War, the SMS Wörth was reactivated and assigned to the 5th Squadron.

Until 1915, Wörth provided almost exclusively security services until it was decommissioned due to age.

By the end of the war, the ship was finally used as a dwelling ship in Danzig.

 

 

 

Whereabouts:

The SMS Wörth was not one of the ships that had to be interned after the war in Scapa Flow or delivered to the victorious powers.

The deletion from the list of warships took place on 10 March 1919, then the ship was scrapped in Danzig.

 

 

 

Ship data:

Name:	SMS Wörth
Country:	German Empire
Ship Type:	Liner
Class:	Brandenburg-Class
Boatyard:	Germaniawerft, Kiel
Building-costs:	16.054.000 Mark
Launched:	August 6th, 1892
Commissioning:	October 31st, 1893
Whereabouts:	Scrapped in 1919 in Gdansk
Length:	115,7 meters
Width:	19,5 meters
Draft:	Max. 7,4 meters
Displacement:	Max. 10.670 Tons
Crew:	568 to 591 Men
Drive:	12 transverse cylinder steam boilers with coal firing 2 standing 3-cylinder triple expansion steam engines
Power:	10.228 PSi
Maximum speed:	16,3 kn
Armament:	4 × 28 cm L / 40 Ring cannon 2 × 28 cm L / 35 Ring cannon (352 rounds) 6 × 10,5 cm L / 35 Rapid fire (600 rounds) 8 × 8,8 cm L / 30 Rapid Fire Gun (2.000 rounds) 12 × 3,7 cm Revolver cannon 6 × Torpedo tube ∅ 45 cm (2 in the bow, 4 in the sides, over water, 16 shots)
Armor:	Belt over waterline: 300-400 mm Belt under waterline: 180-200 mm Deck: 60 mm Command tower: 30-300 mm Barbettes: 300 mm Domes: 50-120 mm Battery: 42 mm

 

 

 

 

 

You can find the right literature here:

 

German Battleships 1914–18 (1): Deutschland, Nassau and Helgoland classes (New Vanguard)

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.

Click here!

 

 

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 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.

Click here!

 

 

German Battlecruisers of World War One: Their Design, Construction and Operations

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.

Click here!

 

 

The Kaiser's Battlefleet: German Capital Ships 1871-1918

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.

Click here!

 

 

 

 

 

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