Nassau Class Battleships (1909)
Above, SMS Rheinland shows off the proud profile of Germany's first dreadnoughts; or better said, her first all-big-gun battleships. Commissioned 1909-1910, the 4-ship Nassau class had an interesting history. Originally designed as enlarged Deutschland pre-dreadnoughts, they were already laid down when Dreadnought made her thunderclap debut in 1906. Work on the Nassaus was halted and they were hastily redesigned and enlarged to carry not four, but twelve 11" guns. The Kaiser's propaganda machine boasted that they carried two more heavy guns than the Dreadnought but ignored the disadvantages in the design, and the fact that the guns were not full 12". The heavy secondary armament of 5.9" guns studding the hull (above) was mounted so close to the water as to be useless in any kind of seaway; though of course these ships were created more as a political statement than as viable fighting machines.
Nassau's armament was disposed in six twin turrets, arranged in the hexagonal pattern, with four wing turrets. This gave a broadside of 8 barrels. The German Admiralty touted the features of the gun model, a special high-muzzle-velocity design, as making them virtually equal to the British Mk XII 12"/50 on the early dreadnoughts. This specious claim was based on an assumed more rapid rate of fire, but in fact the German guns shot a far lighter warhead -- one with less armor piercing capacity. (In actuality this may have been canceled out by the defective quality of many British shells in the early part of the War, but shell quality introduces a different set of variables unrelated to the comparative ballistics of the guns.)
Nassau, photographed from a zeppelin overhead, fairly bristles with 11" guns. Despite the many guns, this was an inefficient design and compared badly to the Dreadnought. When built, the Nassaus lacked an effective means of coordinated firing such as the director firing developed around this time for the British fleet. Another point of inferiority: the Nassaus were propelled by traditional triple-expansion piston steam engines rather than turbines, limiting them to 20 knots on a good day, with the frequent adjustments and breakdowns to which piston engines were subject. German turbine manufacturing at this time was limited to destroyer and cruiser engines, plus giant ocean liners for the merchant marine. Within four years, all German batttleships would be powered by state-of-the-art turbines produced at Blöhm + Voss (Hamburg), the Kaiserliche Werft (Kiel), and Vulkan Werft (Stettin). When new, the Nassaus were noted to be excellent steamers. They were fitted with bilge keels and Frahm anti-rolling tanks. Whatever their other shortcomings, they provided a steady platform and their shooting was consistently among the best of the High Seas Fleet. Some of the photographers out to document the battleship phenomenon and, indeed, shutterbugs among the crews, scored rather well, too, as their shots in our Nassau Photo Album conclusively demonstrate.
Specifications for the Nassau class:
Dimensions: 477'9" x 88'3" x 28'1" Displacement: 20,535 tons. Armament: (12) 11"/45 cal. (6x2), (12) 5.9"/45, and (16) 3.1"/45 cal. guns; (6) 20" torpedo tubes. Armor: Belt: 10.63"; turrets: 11"; conning tower: 15.75"; deck: 2.3"/1.5". Fuel capacity: 950 tons of coal plus 200 tons No. 2 bunker oil; 2,700 tons coal maximum. Propulsion: (12) coal-fired Schulz-Thornycroft boilers; (3) 3-cyl. vertical triple expansion engines developing 26,244 SHP, shafted to triple screw. Speed: 20.3 to 21.4 kts. Crew: 1,008. Endurance: 9,400nm @ 10 kts. Initial cost: £1,838,000 per ship at 1907 valuation.
Ships in class: Nassau · Rheinland · Westfalen · Posen.
Metric Specs:
Dimensions: 145.6m x 26.9m x 8.57m. Displacement: 20,535 tons. Armament: (12) 28 cm/45 cal. (6x2), (12) 15 cm/45 cal., and (16) 8 cm/45 cal. guns. (6) 508-mm torpedo tubes. Armor: Belt: 270 mm; turrets: 280 mm; conning tower: 400 mm; deck: 58/38 mm. Fuel capacity: 950 tons of coal plus 200 tons No. 2 bunker oil; 2,700 tons coal maximum. Propulsion: (3) 3-cyl. vertical triple expansion engines developing 19,570 kW, shafted to triple screw. Speed: 37 km/hr. Crew: 1,008. Endurance: 17,409 km @ 18.5 km/hr.
The Nassaus were all present at the Battle of Jutland, where they formed the vanguard of the Hochseeflotte during the night-time phase of the battle. As of 10 p.m., the British Grand Fleet stood between the German High Seas Fleet and its escape route to Horns Reef and base: Adm. Reinhard Scheer ordered his entire fleet to cut across the tail end of the Grand Fleet, gambling that they would make it through light British forces before the heavy units arrived to engage the Germans. Starting shortly before midnight, the Nassaus saw heavy fighting when breaking through the trailing British destroyer formations. In confused action the German battleships collided with, shot up and sank a number of British light cruisers and destroyers (Tipperary, Spitfire, Broke, Turbulent, Ardent, Sparrowhawk). The armored cruiser Black Prince, lost in the day's action and looking for the British fleet, bumbled into the midst of the German vanguard and became a target for point-blank salvos. Disabled instantly, the four-funnel cruiser blazed and then exploded gratifyingly and sank with all 990 hands (above, in an oil sketch by Claus Bergen. For a thrilling enlarged view, click here.) The British fleet was providing wonderful target practice for the German ships' secondary gunners, who operated with seeming impunity. While the German fleet was highly trained in night fighting, the British had avoided any such training; now this intentional neglect came back to haunt them.
Moreover, all this noisy activity occurred within easy shot of HMS Marlborough, limping along with torpedo damage well behind the main body of Grand Fleet battleships. Marlborough had a considerable entourage of battleships clustered around her, however, including HMS Revenge, HMS Agincourt, and Adm. Evan-Thomas' 3 remaining Queen Elizabeth class superdreadnoughts, mounting eight 15" guns apiece. Incredibly, although the torpedo activity and gunfire were continuously noted and recorded on all these great warships -- although the Germans' silhouettes were recognized as enemy craft -- although this great concentration of British firepower was steaming along only 6,000 yards from the destroyer-battleship clashes, no one reported the action to Commander-in-Chief Sir John Jellicoe, or indeed to the squadron commander. It was assumed (erroneously) that they must already know. Although HMS Malaya's great 15" guns were loaded and trained on the German battleships at a critical moment, the ship's commander, Capt. Algernon Boyle, refused permission to open fire. When he later had second thoughts about it, the moment had passed -- the Germans were many turns of the screw closer to safety.
This was a root failure of the British system. Timely reporting to Adm. Jellicoe might have alerted him to the enemy's position in contact with the rear of the British fleet and led to a conclusive win in this late stage of the battle; as things happened, the British hesitated, managing to snatch stalemate from the jaws of victory. The Germans broke through in a series of brief, violent skirmishes into a patch of sea with a clear run to base. British torpedo attacks missed all the lumbering dreadnoughts, but managed to pick off the pre-dreadnought Pommern. The British decoding operation at Whitehall intercepted a message from the German commander, Adm. Reinhard Scheer, ordering aerial reconnaissance of Horns Reef at dawn, which would surely have tipped Jellicoe to the Germans' course. The decoded message was given to an Admiralty official unfamiliar with fleet operations, who pocketed it and did not forward it on to Jellicoe: another failure of the British service. Jellicoe had guessed their likely position completely wrong; and no one dared to contradict him. It seems unlikely Jellicoe would have given a fig about having a wrong hunch exposed if by so doing he could have clinched complete victory. But it was not to be.
The German people, starved for encouraging news after 2 years of brutal trench warfare, were overjoyed when the German press played Jutland as a decisive German victory: it was an occasion for national rejoicing. The British failed to issue a counter-claim and, indeed, the Admiralty's response was strangely muted, lending credence to the doubtful German claim. Knowing they had failed to bag the Germans -- had failed to recognize and sieze the chance in the Nelson manner -- had lost 3 of their battlecruisers with all hands, the Royal Navy was more in a mood to nurse its wounds than to dispute the Germans' assertions of victory. Adm. Beatty had said "There seems to be something wrong with our ships today" during the battle. Now he admitted, "There is something wrong with our ships -- and something wrong with our system." The British cabinet, enmeshed in the twin nightmares of Verdun and the Somme, failed to exert effective spin on the great sea battle. Looking back on the opportunity they had let slip, one British officer commented, "The flash of guns, the display of searchlights, the sudden glare of explosions, and the blazing torches of burning destroyers marked the German escape route as unmistakably as the compass on the Friedrich der Grosse's bridge." Yet by brazening it out, the Germans had escaped certain destruction at the cost of 3 light cruisers, an armored cruiser, and one obsolete pre-dreadnought.
Meantime in Germany, the Nassaus reaped their share of the glory during the few weeks' euphoria over the Skagerrak (as the battle was known in Germany). But the empty hoopla of victory soon dissolved into a long ennui of forced inactivity. The Hochseeflotte's battle damage was repaired by mid-July, but the fleet only once more ventured forth in strength (in a movement strikingly similar to the Jutland sortie, but including submarines and mines, as the original Jutland plan had.) By the beginning of 1917, the High Command had despaired of victory on the surface. Their emphasis had shifted to U-boat warfare; most of the more enterprising officers and men of the fleet volunteered for submarines rather than be stuck in the "dead area" of the battle fleet. The great ships remained tied up through the end of the War, becoming cauldrons of discontent and revolution. As in Russia, sailors in the idle fleet were key agitators contributing to the fall of the dynasty. At right, revolutionary battleship sailors parade through Berlin after toppling the Kaiser in 1918.
After the War, the Nassaus were not deemed important enough to be interned at Scapa Flow, but the peace treaty demanded that they be disarmed and rendered to the Allies as war reparations (two Deutschland class vessels and a Braunschweig were the only battleships Germany was allowed to keep). The Rheinland had run hard aground in Schillig Roads off Wilhelmshaven, and was partly scrapped in place, then re-floated and towed to the wrecking yard. The remaining three ships were handed over to France, Italy and Britain, respectively. Thence they were sold to the scrap-metal man in conformance with the Versailles Treaty, being dismantled from 1920-22.
Web Resources of Interest
- Battle of Jutland: The Night Action in Detail
- Battle of Jutland Video
- Germany's High Seas Fleet in the World War: Adm. Scheer's Lengthy Memoir
- Outcome of the Battle of Jutland
- J.J. Scherr's Web Tribute
- The British Armored Cruisers - Many of Them Casualties at Jutland
- Top of Page
- Lay In a Course for Global Site Nav
Getting down to business soon after commissioning, the Nassau is captured by the camera at target practice. Gross-Admiral Tirpitz lost no time milking maximum propaganda benefit out of his new dreadnoughts, using misleading and sometimes false information to claim superiority over British battleships. Caption reads "The Navy: Loosing a Broadside." The Nassau class consistently won gunnery honors in the Fleet.
On a 1911 training cruise in the Bay of Biscay, Nassau class dreadnoughts show why they were considered excellent sea-boats. That's Rheinland again in the foreground. Enlarge
The Westfalen at Wilhelmshaven. The kindly afternoon light picks out her wing turrets and other details. The pole masts, two large funnels and huge middeck cranes made the German dreadnoughts instantly recognizable. At Jutland they were quickly identified by Royal Navy personnel even in the black of night from 3 miles distance. Yet something held back all the Brits from opening fire. It was a decided stroke of luck for the German sailors -- and not their only one of the War. Enlarge
In an interesting contrast to the bottom photo on our Braunschweig class page, the Westfalen leads the High Seas Fleet to sea for maneuvers. The pictures are only six or seven years apart, but what a difference in firepower! And in only a few years, it will be the Oldenburg leading the fleet out.
