SMS Hannover: Difference between revisions

SMS Hannover in 1906.
Career
Builder:	Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven
Ordered:
Laid down:	7 November 1904
Launched:	29 September 1905
Commissioned:	1 October 1907
Fate:	Scrapped between 1944 and 1946 in Bremerhaven
General characteristics
Displacement:	13,200 tons standard 14,218 tons full load
Length:	127.6 meters (418.63 feet)
Beam:	22.2 meters (72.83 feet)
Draft:	7.7 meters (25.26 feet)
Propulsion:	3 shafts, 3 expansion engines, 17,768 shp
Speed:	18.5 knots
Range:	4,800 nautical miles at 10 knots
Complement:	743
Armament:	4 x 28 cm/40 cal (11" L/40) (2 × 2) 14 x 17 cm/35 cal (6.7" L/35) (casemated) 22 x 88 mm/30 cal (casemated) 6 x 45 cm (17.7") torpedo tubes
Armor protection:	230 mm (9") in belt 280 mm (11") in turrets 76 mm (3") in deck
Aircraft:	None

SMS Hannover was the second of the five Deutschland-class pre-dreadnoughts of the Deutsches Kaiserliche Marine. She was named after the State of Hannover of Germany in Lower Saxony.

Built by the Kaiserliche Werft at their shipyards in Wilhelmshaven, the keel of the Hannover was laid down on 7 November 1904 and she was launched on 29 September 1905. On completion she was commissioned on 1 October 1907 and cost Germany 24.3 million Goldmarks. By the time of their commissioning however, the Hannover and the other ships of the Deutschland class had been rendered obsolete by the launching of the new British battleship HMS Dreadnought in 1906.

Hannover and her sister ships SMS Deutschland, Pommern, Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein represented Germany’s last pre-dreadnought battleships. They were similar in general type to the Braunschweig-class immediately preceding them, although the Deutschlands were more heavily armoured. The practice of fitting a type of intermediate calibre artillery common in other powers' navies was not followed in the German Navy due to the difficulty in controlling the firing and in spotting the fall of shot from three different sizes of guns.

After commissioning Hannover was initially attached to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the German High Seas Fleet on 13 February 1908, until transferring to the First Battle Squadron in September of that year. She remained with the 1st Battle Squadron until 1911, when she was transferred back to the 2nd Squadron, of which she became the flagship in 1912.

As part of the High Seas Fleet's 2nd Battle Squadron under Rear-Admiral Mauve, and despite being outdated by the time, Hannover and her sisters took part in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. During the battle she fired a total of eight 28-cm and 22 17-cm shells, and remained undamaged. Pommern was sunk.

After Jutland she was sent to Kiel on 4 November 1916 for repairs and refits, and she was used as a target ship in the Baltic Sea. In March 1917 some of her guns were removed, and the Hannover was relegated to guard duty and coastal defence for the remainder of the First World War.

After World War I, under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles Germany was allowed to keep her obsolescent warships, and this included the Hannover; owing to budgetary constraints she was decommissioned on 17 December 1918. Modernized in Wilhelmshaven in 1920 and 1921, she was again commissioned as the flagship of German naval forces in the Baltic in June 1921.

She continued in sevice with the German Weimar Navy until final decommissioning on 25 September 1931, when she was stricken from the active rolls. From 1931 to 1935 Hannover served in the Reichsmarine as a test ship for ground mine damage evaluation. She was then held in reserve for conversion into a remote-controlled target ship for aircraft, but this was never carried out.

She was scrapped in Bremerhaven from 1944 to 1946.

• SMS Hannover at www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk
• Deutschland Class battleships at http://www.geocities.com/Heartland