SMS was a light cruiser of the Imperial German Navy. The ship, originally ordered in 1913 by the Russian navy under the name , was launched in April 1914 at the Schichau-Werke shipyard in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). However, due to the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the incomplete ship was confiscated by Germany and renamed SMS for the East Prussian port of Pillau (now Baltiysk, Russia). was commissioned into the German Navy in December 1914. She was armed with a main battery of eight 15 cm SK L/45 (5.9-inch) guns and had a top speed of . One sister ship was built, .
spent the majority of her career in II Scouting Group, and saw service in both the Baltic and North Seas. In August 1915, she participated in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga against the Russian Navy, and on 31 May – 1 June 1916, she saw significant action at the Battle of Jutland. She was hit by a large-caliber shell once in the engagement, but suffered only moderate damage. She assisted the badly damaged battlecruiser reach port on 2 June after the conclusion of the battle. She also took part in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight, though was not damaged in the engagement. was assigned to the planned, final operation of the High Seas Fleet in the closing weeks of the war, but a large scale mutiny forced it to be canceled.
After the end of the war, was ceded to Italy as a war prize in 1920. Renamed , she was commissioned in the (Royal Navy) in January 1924. She was modified and rebuilt several times over the next two decades. In the early years of World War II, she provided gunfire support to Italian troops in several engagements in the Mediterranean. In 1943, she was slated to become an anti-aircraft defense ship, but while awaiting conversion, she was sunk by USAAF bombers in Livorno in June 1943. The wreck was partially scrapped by the Germans in 1944, and ultimately raised for scrapping in January 1948.
Design
In 1912, the Imperial Russian Navy held a design competition for a new class of cruisers intended for service in their colonial empire, which were to replace the ageing and in East Asian waters. Several foreign firms, including the German company Schichau-Werke, submitted proposals for the vessels. The Russian fleet was in dire need of new cruisers, and only Schichau promised to meet an early delivery deadline, so they received the contracts for two ships in December 1912. These were to have been named and ; the outbreak of World War I in July 1914 led to their seizure by the German government, and they became and , respectively.
was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced normally and up to at full load. The ship had a straight stem and a raised forecastle deck. Her superstructure included a conning tower just aft of the forecastle and a second deck house further aft. She was fitted with two pole masts equipped with spotting platforms. had a crew of twenty-one officers and 421 enlisted men.
Her propulsion system consisted of two sets of Marine steam turbines driving two propellers. Steam was provided by six coal-fired Yarrow water-tube boilers and four oil-fired Yarrow boilers, which were vented through three funnels located amidships. The propulsion system was rated to produce for a top speed of . carried of coal, and an additional of oil that gave her a range of approximately at .
The ship was armed with eight SK L/45 guns in single pedestal mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle, four were located amidships, two on either side, and two were side by side aft. She also carried four SK L/55 anti-aircraft guns, though these were replaced with a pair of two SK L/45 anti-aircraft guns. She was also equipped with a pair of torpedo tubes mounted on the deck. She could also carry 120 mines. The conning tower had thick sides, and the deck was covered with up to thick armor plate.
Service history German service was ordered by the Imperial Russian Navy as from the Schichau-Werke shipyard in Danzig. She was laid down on 12 April 1913, and was launched on 11 April 1914, after which fitting-out work commenced. Following the start of World War I, which saw Germany and Russia on opposite sides of the conflict, the German government seized the ship on 5 August, which was already nearing completion. She was renamed after the town of that name. She was commissioned into service on 14 December to begin sea trials, under the command of (FK—Frigate Captain) Lebrecht von Klitzing. In January 1915, Klitzing was replaced by FK Konrad Mommsen. s initial testing was completed on 13 March 1915.
Following her commissioning, was assigned to II Scouting Group. Her first major operation took place on 17–18 April, which was a sweep by the ships of II Scouting Group in the direction of Swarte Bank. Another operation, this time with the entire High Seas Fleet, took place from 21 to 22 April. Neither operation resulted in contact with vessels of the British Royal Navy. On 17 May, and the rest of her group sortied for a minelaying operation in the North Sea that lasted into the following day. She next went to sea on 29 May, again with the High Seas Fleet, for another unsuccessful sweep for British warships.
She next took part in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915. A significant detachment from the High Seas Fleet, including eight dreadnoughts and three battlecruisers, went into the Baltic to clear the Gulf of Riga of Russian naval forces. was initially assigned to the screening force that patrolled to the north of the gulf to prevent Russian forces from intervening in the operation. On 12 August, bombarded the Russian position at Zerel. The following day, Russian submarines fired three torpedoes at the ship, all of which missed. participated in the second attack on 16 August, led by the dreadnoughts and . The minesweepers cleared the Russian minefields by the 20th, allowing the German squadron to enter the Gulf. On 25 August, bombarded Dagerort, destroying a lighthouse at St. Andreasburg and a coast watch station at Cape Ristna. The Russians had by this time withdrawn to Moon Sound, and the threat of Russian submarines and mines in the Gulf prompted the Germans to retreat. The major units of the High Seas Fleet were back in the North Sea before the end of August, arriving there on 29 August.
resumed the series of patrols and minelaying operations in the North Sea for the rest of 1915. These included laying a minefield off Swarte Bank on 11–12 September and a sweep for British ships off the Amrun Bank on 19–20 October. A patrol in the German Bight followed on 23–24 October. All of these actions concluded without encountering British vessels. On 16 December, she and the rest of II Scouting Group swept through the Skagerrak and Kattegat in an attempt to locate British merchant shipping to Scandinavia, which ended on 18 December without significant success.
The year 1916 began with a similar pattern, though from 6 to 11 February, the commander of the fleet's torpedo-boats, (Commodore) Johannes Hartog, temporarily used as his flagship. During this period, led a patrol by the II, VII, and IX Torpedo-boat Flotillas to the western North Sea, which ended without combat. She participated in another fleet sweep on 5–6 March, followed by a patrol for II Scouting Group on 25–26 March. On 21 April, joined a patrol led by the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group toward Horns Rev that ended the next day, again having failed to locate any hostile warships. The flagship of II Scouting Group, the cruiser , struck a mine during the operation; the acting commander, Ludwig von Reuter, transferred to for the rest of the patrol. After arriving back at the naval base in Wilhelmshaven, Reuter transferred to the cruiser . On 23–24 April, she participated in the bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft in company with I Scouting Group. The cruisers of II Scouting Group briefly fought the British Harwich Force, but after the battlecruisers returned from bombarding Lowestoft, their gunfire dissuaded Rear Admiral Reginald Tyrwhitt from pursuit; the British quickly turned south and fled. The German ships arrived back in port on 25 April. She took part in another sweep toward the Amrun Bank on 4–5 May.
Battle of Jutland
In May 1916, Admiral Reinhard Scheer, the fleet commander, planned to lure a portion of the British fleet away from its bases and destroy it with the entire High Seas Fleet. remained in II Scouting Group, attached to I Scouting Group, for the operation. The squadron left the Jade roadstead at 02:00 on 31 May, bound for the waters of the Skagerrak. The main body of the fleet followed an hour and a half later. Shortly before 15:30, the opposing cruiser screens engaged; was the first German cruiser to encounter the British. and steamed to assist, and at 16:12 they began firing on and at a range of . As the British ships turned away, the German shells fell short, and at 16:17, and checked their fire. About fifteen minutes later, the three cruisers engaged a seaplane launched by the seaplane tender . They failed to score any hits, but the aircraft was forced off after which its engine broke down and it was forced to land. The three cruisers then returned to their stations ahead of the German battlecruisers.
Shortly before 17:00, the British 5th Battle Squadron had arrived on the scene, and at 16:50 they spotted , , and . Eight minutes later, the powerful battleships and opened fire at at a range of . Several salvos fell close to the German cruisers, prompting them to lay a cloud of smoke and turn away at high speed. About an hour later, the German battlecruisers were attacked by the destroyers and , but , , and the battlecruisers' secondary guns drove them off. At around 18:30, and the rest of II Scouting Group encountered the cruiser ; they opened fire and scored several hits on the ship. As both sides' cruisers disengaged, Rear Admiral Horace Hood's three battlecruisers intervened. His flagship scored a hit on that exploded in her engine room and disabled the ship. was also hit by a shell from . The shell exploded below the ship's chart house; most of the blast went overboard, but the starboard air supply shaft vented part of the explosion into the second boiler room. All six of the ship's coal-fired boilers were temporarily disabled, though she could still make on her four oil-fired boilers, allowing her to escape under cover of heavy fog. By 20:30, three of the six boilers were back in operation, allowing her to steam at .