SMS Wittelsbach

SMS Wittelsbach ("His Majesty's Ship Wittelsbach") was the lead ship of the of pre-dreadnought battleships of the Kaiserliche Marine. Wittelsbach was built at Wilhelmshaven Navy Dockyard. She was laid down in 1899 and completed in October 1902, at the cost of 22,740,000 marks. Wittelsbach was the first capital ship built under the Navy Law of 1898, brought about by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz.

The ship served in the I Squadron of the German fleet for the majority of her career. Wittelsbach was rapidly superseded by new "all-big-gun" warships, and as a result served for less than eight years before being decommissioned on 20 September 1910. After the start of World War I in August 1914, Wittelsbach was brought back to active duty in the IV Battle Squadron. The ship saw limited duty in the Baltic Sea against Russian forces, though the threat from British submarines forced the ship to withdraw by 1916. The ship then saw service in a number of auxiliary roles, ultimately as a tender for minesweepers after 1919. In July 1921, however, the ship was sold and broken up for scrap metal.

Construction
Wittelsbach's keel was laid in 1899, at the Kaiserliche Werft in Wilhelmshaven, under construction number 25. She was ordered under the contract name "C", as a new unit for the fleet. The vessel was the first battleship built under the direction of State Secretary Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, according to the terms of the Navy Law of 1898. Wittelsbach was launched on 3 July 1900 and commissioned on 15 October 1902.

The ship was 126.8 m long overall and had a beam of 22.8 m and a draft of 7.95 m forward. The ship was powered by three 3-cylinder vertical triple expansion engines that drove three screws. Steam was provided by six naval and six cylindrical boilers. Wittelsbach's powerplant was rated at 14000 ihp, which generated a top speed of 18 kn.

Wittelsbach's armament consisted of a main battery of four 24 cm (9.4 in) SK L/40 guns in twin gun turrets, one fore and one aft of the central superstructure. Her secondary armament consisted of eighteen 15 cm (5.9 inch) SK L/40 guns and twelve 8.8 cm (3.45 in) SK L/30 quick-firing guns. The armament suite was rounded out with six 45 cm torpedo tubes, all in above-water swivel mounts.

Service history
Upon commissioning in 1902, Wittelsbach was assigned to the I Squadron of the Active Battle Fleet. In 1905 the German fleet was reorganized into two squadrons of battleships. Wittelsbach was assigned to the I Division of I Squadron. The ship was joined by her sisters SMS Wettin and SMS Zähringen. The German fleet consisted of another three-ship division in the I Squadron and 2 three-ship divisions in the II Squadron. This was supported by a cruiser division, composed of two armored cruisers and six protected cruisers. That year, Kapitän zur See Maximilian von Spee, who would go on to command the East Asia Squadron at the outbreak of World War I, took command of the ship.

In 1907, the newest s were beginning to enter service. This provided the Navy with enough ships to form two full battle squadrons of eight ships each. The fleet was then renamed the Hochseeflotte (High Seas Fleet). Wittelsbach served in the I Division until 20 September 1910. The ship was then decommissioned and placed in reserve; her crew was then sent to man the newly commissioned dreadnought SMS Posen.

At the start of World War I, Wittelsbach was mobilized as part of the IV Battle Squadron, under the command of Vice Admiral Ehrhard Schmidt. Starting on 3 September, the IV Squadron, assisted by the armored cruiser SMS Blücher, conducted a sweep into the Baltic. The operation lasted until 9 September and failed to bring Russian naval units to battle. In May 1915, Wittelsbach and the rest of IV Squadron was transferred to support the German Army in the Baltic Sea area. Wittelsbach and her sisters were then based in Kiel. On 6 May, the IV Squadron ships were tasked with providing support to the assault on Libau. Wittelsbach and the other ships were stationed off Gotland to intercept any Russian cruisers that might attempt to intervene in the landings; the Russians, however, did not do so. On 10 May, after the invasion force had entered Libau, the British submarines HMS E1 and HMS E9 spotted the IV Squadron, but were too far away to attack them.

By 1916, the threat from submarines in the Baltic convinced the German navy to withdraw the elderly Wittelsbach-class ships from active service. Wittelsbach was initially used as a training ship based in Kiel. The ship was then transferred to Wilhelmshaven for use as a fleet tender. Wittelsbach was converted into a depot ship in 1919 for minesweepers in the newly constituted Reichsmarine. She carried 12 of these shallow draft vessels. The ship served in this capacity for little more than a year; on 8 March 1921, Wittelsbach was stricken from the Navy List and sold four months later, on 7 July, for 3,561,000 Marks. The ship was then broken up for scrap in Wilhelmshaven.