Chapter 02 -- Protected Cruisers: A Brief Experiment
SMS Hansa – Victoria Louise Class – a lithograph circa 1900.
IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: CUXHAVEN
By: Dreadnought & AP
Chapter 02:
PROTECTED CRUISERS:
A BRIEF EXPERIMENT
Beginning in the 1860’s, the navies of the world transitioned from wooden-hulled warships to ironclads, then again to steel hulls. All the basic rules of naval construction were suddenly in constant flux. And not only ship’s hulls were changing. The cannon arming the ships began to change more in two decades than they had in the preceding hundred years. New metallurgy, new chemical explosives, explosive shells, and better rifling techniques made them far more powerful than they had ever been. Consequently, for the next several decades, it proved difficult to design a ship with sufficient armor, while maintaining the speed and range required of a "cruiser”.
To further complicate matters, around the 1880’s, a fairly effective, hardened-tip, form of armor-piercing ammunition made an appearance. For naval designers, this made protecting the sides of a ship with thick armor plates problematic. This was really not a viable solution. There were limits on the thickness of plate armor that could be processed in a rolling mill. And even if armor dominated the design of the ship, it was likely the next generation of guns and shells would still be able to pierce it. An additional problem was weight and speed. The more armor you hung on a ship – the heavier it got, and the slower it moved – making the design completely unacceptable. So if you wanted a semi-cheap, fast, cruiser the only practical alternative was to leave it “unprotected”.
But, as you might think, the idea of building an expensive modern cruiser, loading it with guns and men, and then watching two 6-inch shells send it to the bottom -- worried politicians and admirals alike. Fortunately, in 1884, the British armaments firm of Armstrong-Whitworth & Co. had two bright lads in the design department of their Elswick shipyard. They decided to give the ship’s sides only minimal armor while actually armoring a deck just below the waterline. Since this deck could only be struck by a shell in an oblique manner, it could be less thick and heavy than belt armor (side armor). The ship could be designed with the engines, boilers, and magazines beneath the protective armored deck. This would allow the ship to suffer enormous damage to the upper hull and superstructure while the watertight area below the armored deck kept it afloat and stable. This spark of genius produced the “protected cruiser”.
Protective Deck Cross-section
French La Gloire – Commissioned 1859. You see her as she looked in 1869.
With the appearance of seagoing ironclads – French La Gloire, 1859, and Britain’s iron-hulled HMS Warrior, 1861 -- the wooden steam navies gave way to superior ironclad steamers. Over the next two decades, the composition of fleets changed as well. All of the confusing classifications of warships -- 1st rate, 2nd rate, 3rd rate, etc, etc – were done away with, for the most part. What remained were the big, lumbering ironclads of the battle line – and their “scouts” – the cruisers. (There were, in fact, still classifications of ironclads, but it boiled down to whether or not you put the 4th rates up front to get shot to pieces, or held them back as a “forlorn hope”.)
The demand for cruisers rose dramatically. If it had been economically impractical to deploy a ship-of-the-line to the wilds of the African coast – it was even less practical to send a slow, coal-fired ironclad. Cruisers were far more affordable than battleships, which appealed to less financially endowed nations, and to parsimonious politicians everywhere. The discovery of the “protective armor deck” endorsed the cheaper course and showed the way forward.
HMS Warrior – 1861. Picture taken after restoration, perhaps 2009.
PROTECTED CRUISERS
At the same time Gen. Caprivi was ordering his “foreign station” ships, the “fleet” was making the change from ironclad steam frigates to more modern steel construction. Mostly in response to French construction, the Germans laid down the first of the eight-ship Siegfried Class in 1888. Only 4,058 tons and 240 feet long, these glorified “battleships” were actually intended merely for coastal defense and could not truly be called battleships. During the recent Franco-Prussian War, the Prussian Navy had been too small, and mostly too antiquated, to make a good showing. But Caprivi was determined to change that. His goal was to create a “Hochseeflotte” (High Sea Fleet) that could not only defend the German coast, but project naval power into the sea zones of potential European enemies. And the Siegfried’s were just a beginning.
SMS Siegfried – Laid down in 1888 -- Lead ship of a class of eight coastal defense battleships.
The Siegfried Class coastal defense ships were unsuitable for deep water operations with the new light cruisers already under construction. They were too small and slow, with a severely restricted operating radius. Caprivi knew the Reichstag could not be persuaded to allocate funds for modern battleships. And light cruisers, no matter how modern, could only do so much with 4.1-inch guns. So something was needed to lend heavier support to the thin-skinned light cruisers.
The first protected cruisers to be built in Germany were the Irene and Prinzess Wilhelm (1886), followed by the Kaiserin Augusta (1890).
SMS IRENE and PRINZESS WILHELM
Protected Cruiser SMS Irene – First protected cruiser built for the Imperial navy – 1888. Shown late in her career.
SMS Irene was the first protected cruiser to enter service with the Imperial navy and was laid down in 1886 at the AG Vulcan Shipyard in Stettin. She was commissioned in 1888. Prinzess Wilhelm, her sister ship, was laid down the same year in the Germaniawerft Shipyard in Kiel, but was not commissioned until 1889. At 4,271 tons and 340 feet in length, the class was equipped with double expansion engines driving twin propellers for a speed of 18 knots. The two cruisers were fairly heavily armed with four 5.9-inch guns, eight 4.1-inch guns, six 1.5-inch revolving cannon, and three 13.8-inch torpedo tubes. Armor protection consisted of the revolutionary “protective armored deck” 2 inches thick with sloping sides increasing to 3 inches, with a 2-inch thick conning tower.
SMS Prinzess Wilhelm – Sister ship to Irene – 1889. Seen soon after commissioning. Note the laundry drying up forward.
In summer of 1888, Irene joined a squadron sent to Britain as part of Wilhelm II’s coronation plans. The winter months were spent escorting the Kaiser’s yacht on a Mediterranean cruise, with state visits to Turkey and Italy, and port calls in Athens and Venice. She again escorted the Kaiser’s yacht, Hohenzollern, to Britain for the 1890 Cowes Regatta. In November, 1894, Irene was dispatched to Casablanca to investigate the murder of a German national – then proceeded to join the East Asian Squadron, followed in 1895 by Prinzess Wilhelm. Both ships spent the remainder of their active careers in the Far East. When replaced by more modern cruisers, they returned to Germany, were modernized, and then “laid up”. Stricken from the Naval List in 1914, they remained laid-up until sold for scrap in 1921. It is interesting to note that each ship fetched a sale price of 909,000 Marks.
SMS KAISERIN AUGUSTA
Kaiserin Augusta – 1892. The third protected cruiser to join the Imperial Navy.
The Kaiserin Augusta Class consisted of a single ship laid down in 1890 at the Germaniawerft Shipyard in Kiel. Due to budgetary restrictions, this ship was designed primarily as a fleet scout, with alterations increasing her radius of action and providing a crew large enough for landing parties so that she might serve on colonial stations. She was lengthened over the previous class in order to carry twice as many boilers and larger engines so that she would have more than enough speed to scout ahead of the fleet.
Kaiserin Augusta was 400 feet in length with a much increased displacement of 6,056 tons. Her hull had both transverse and longitudinal steel frames with ten watertight compartments. The outer hull consisted of a single layer of wood planking sheathed in “Muntz Metal”. Developed by George Muntz, of Birmingham, England, this metal sheathing was a brass alloy consisting of copper, zinc, and a trace of iron. This mixture duplicated the anti-fouling protection of copper at only two thirds the cost. Perhaps the most famous ship to use this sheathing was the clipper Cutty Sark.
Armor protection was provided on the “protective armored deck” principle with two inches of Krupp steel on top and 2.8 inches on the sloping sides. The conning tower was 2 inches thick. Krupp steel had just come into use and was superior to any other process at the time. Krupp plates could be rolled thinner, and therefor, lighter than others while still being just as shot-resistant.
Kaiserin Augusta was powered by three 3-cylinder triple expansion steam engines driving three shafts with power supplied by eight fire-tube boilers trunked into three funnels. A top speed of 21.5 knots was reached on trials, largely due to the triple screw arrangement. In need of great speed, the naval architects decided it could only be achieved with the untried triple arrangement. Only a handful of French and American ships had experimented with triple screws, but they made Kaiserin Augusta the fastest warship in the World (at the time), and the first Imperial Navy ship with that arrangement. Armament was quite similar to the preceding class, with four 5.9-inch guns and eight 4.1-inch guns – all mounted in sponsoned hull casemates on the main deck level. There were also five 13.8-inch torpedo tubes -- four in deck swivel mounts (two on either broadside) -- with the fifth tube submerged in the bow.
One point of interest can be discerned by examining the picture above. In the early decades of the 20th Century, warships tended to be “minimalist” in their external design features. Some navies were inclined toward more “deck clutter” than others, but the Imperial Navy kept “top hamper” and superstructure to an “essentials only” minimum. The Russo-Japanese War of 1905 would later prove that unarmored portions of a hull, deck houses, and sprawling superstructure, not only provided a bigger target, but could be shredded by high explosive shells and turned into a blazing mass. The Imperial Bureau of Design did not yet have “combat” proof – but they understood a low profile equaled a smaller target. Kaiserin Augusta had a minimal bridge, two masts, three funnels, and some ship’s boats on deck – a very low target silhouette with little that could be shredded or set afire.
Kaiserin Augusta was commissioned for sea trials in November, 1892, but they were interrupted by the need to send “modern” cruisers to New York City to represent Germany at a celebration of Columbus's first voyage. A similar, earlier, celebration in Genoa, Italy, had prompted negative remarks about the Prinzess Wilhelm. As hoped, Kaiserin Augusta made a significant impression – and all the more impressive for having achieved an average speed of 21.5 knots on her Atlantic crossing.
After completion of sea trials, the ship was dispatched to Morocco to assist in a show of force during the “Casablanca Crisis” – a text-book example of gunboat diplomacy. In March and April of 1896, Kaiserin Augusta escorted the Emperor’s yacht on the annual Mediterranean cruise. While still in the Mediterranean, in November, 1897, Kaiserin Augusta received orders for the Far East, where she was to join the East Asiatic Squadron. Two months after her arrival in Tsingtao, she made “port calls” at British Hong Kong and Nagasaki, Japan.
Following the 1898 outbreak of the Spanish-American War, the East Asiatic Squadron was ordered to concentrate all available ships in Manila Bay to protect German interests, and if possible, to seize a suitable chunk of the Spanish Philippines as another naval station. Kaiserin Augusta was present for this show of force, but since the Americans decided to occupy the islands, she merely carried the former Governor General of the Philippines, Basilio Augustin, to Hong Kong, where he could book passage for Spain. Shortly thereafter, Kaiserin Augusta put in at the small port of Taku, China, at the request of the German ambassador, and landed an infantry detachment which then marched overland to Peking and joined the guard force of the German legation.
Late in 1899, the Chinese "Boxer Rebellion” broke out and the foreign diplomatic legations in Tientsin soon found themselves surrounded and under siege. This resulted in all the European squadrons in Asia sending warships to Taku, the closest port to Tientsin with a railroad connection. The Chinese forts guarding the river mouth were quickly reduced and a “beachhead” established for future operations. Kaiserin Augusta ferried men of III Seebatallion from Tsingtao to the assembly point at Taku, in addition to disembarking a 60-man landing party. These troops were to join Admiral Edward Seymour’s multi-national relief force bound for Tientsin. Unfortunately, the ship’s Executive Officer, K.K. Oltmann, was lost in the fighting.
If this all sounds like a boring litany of odd jobs and errands – you are forgiven for thinking as much. But Kaiserin Augusta had a service career typical of most “foreign station” cruisers of the period. Whether lying at anchor in some far flung corner of the empire, or turning up at one of the many “political hot spots” of a contentious era, or simply ferrying diplomats to and fro – there was nothing too dangerous or too mundane to receive the attention of a cruiser.
Kaiserin Augusta received orders to return to Germany in March, 1902, and was decommissioned in June. Already obsolete, she was modernized and placed in reserve, where she remained until 1914. With the coming of World War I, she was reactivated for use as a gunnery training ship, and was briefly assigned to the Baltic Coastal Defense Division. Decommissioned in December 1918, and stricken from the Naval Register in 1919, she was sold and broken up in 1920.
VICTORIA LOUISE CLASS PROTECTED CRUISERS
SMS Victoria Louise at anchor – circa 1904. Note the “military mast” forward, and the pole mast aft.
The Victoria Louise Class protected cruisers were the last of their kind built for the Imperial Navy. Their design introduced the combination “clipper / ram bow” and the “slab-sided” look that would typify later German cruisers. The class consisted of five vessels, laid down in 1895 and 1896, and commissioned in 1898 and 1899.
In the early 1890s, the German naval command was still divided over what type of cruisers to build. The Reichsmarineamt (Imperial Navy Office) preferred a combination of large cruisers of around 6,000 tons similar to Kaiserin Augusta – with significantly smaller vessels of about 1,500 tons for support. The Oberkommando der Marine (Naval High Command) urged a uniform force of 3,000 ton cruisers. With no coherent plan in place, the Navy Office failed to secure funding for cruisers in 1892, 1893, and 1894. The Reichstag finally authorized construction of three 6,000 ton ships for the 1895–1896 budget year, with two more vessels authorized for 1896–1897.
SMS Victoria Louise – Plan Profile.
The resulting Victoria Louise Class protected cruisers were scaled-down versions of the contemporary Kaiser Friederich III Class pre-dreadnought battleships, with a much heavier armament than the Kaiserin Augusta. They carried the same “military” foremast as the battleships with a pole mast aft, and a combination of turrets and casemates for the guns. This design set a precedent for later cruisers, with large, stepped, slab-like sides and a combination "clipper” bow with ram. It should be noted the ships also had a considerably higher freeboard with a raised forecastle deck to keep the bows “dry” in heavy weather.
SMS Hertha – Victoria Louise Class: commissioned 1898 – 5,660 tons – 19 knots – 2x8.3-inch guns – 8x5.9-inch guns – protective armored deck 4 inches.
Hertha is painted in yellow ocher and white – the standard paint scheme for ships serving on foreign duty stations. She is seen here, putting to sea, bound for Tsingtao and the Imperial German East Asiatic Squadron. In the background, the armored cruisers SMS Prinz Adalbert (outboard) and Freiderich Carl (inboard) are tied up at mooring points. Prinz Adalbert has her boat boom deployed with a harbor motor launch hooked on and a ship’s cutter just arriving. The mooring points are by @mattb325, modified, with sailors and rope coil props by “AP”. Breakwaters are by “Uki”. The three cruisers, motor launch, and cutter are all the diligent and wonderfully detailed craftsmanship of @AP.
The Victoria Louise Class protected cruisers were the first “modern” cruisers to enter service with the Kaiserliche Marine. The naval architects dropped the long, flat, tub-like hull and adopted the substantial design elements of other European navies. At the bow and stern are two large, 8.3-inch gun turrets, with a forward and aft superstructure behind them and the midships section accommodating three funnels and the ship’s boats. Her secondary battery of eight 5.9-inch guns are mounted four on each beam – two in yellow ocher casemated turrets on the main deck, with two more in casemates in the hull one deck below.
The hull form of the Victoria Louise Class has done away with the bluff bows and rounded stern of the old cruisers and taken on a much more streamlined shape. The underwater lines have been tested in an early model tank to produce the swiftest possible hull form, while the three funnels accommodate the exhaust from twelve boilers. Though the multiple funnels give the appearance of great speed, her triple expansion engines could provide no more than 19 knots.
Since the class was laid down in two different years, there were slight differences between the first three ships and the last two, but they were close to 362 feet in length and displaced approximately 6,500 tons. They were armed with two 8.3-inch main battery guns in single turrets, one fore and one aft. Eight 5.9-inch guns were placed amidships on either broadside, four in turreted casemates and four in casemates. Three submerged 19-inch torpedo tubes were mounted, one in either broadside, and one in the bow. The first three cruisers had a top speed of 19.5 knots, while the last two were only capable of 18.5 knots. All were designed with the new triple screw arrangement.
Victoria Louise Class – Here we see SMS Venita (outboard) and SMS Hansa (inboard), “nested” at mooring points along the breakwater. Moored astern of them are the armored cruisers SMS Prinz Adalbert and Freidrich Carl. Ahead of them you see a Passat Class tug nudging the armored cruiser SMS Furst Bismarck into her berth. In the bottom left of the picture is the bow of a collier, moored to a barrel buoy. In situations where the cruisers have been “nested” at their moorings – those are not simply “duplicate plops”. Each cruiser is an individual and original scratch-built model crafted by @AP.
Krupp steel was used to armor the ships, with a protected armor deck of 1.6 inches and sloping 4-inch sides reaching down to the waterline. The forward conning tower had sides of 5.9 inches with a 1.2-inch thick roof. The aft control position was only protected against splinter damage with a half inch of steel plate. The gun turrets and casemates were all given 4-inch armor.
These were small ships (only 362 feet) but if you examine them closely, you will see that @AP has worked an immense amount of detail into each model – and the class has been extensively researched for accuracy. You will note all five ships were built with an “Admiral’s Walk” at the stern. In most warship classes (cruiser and larger) a single ship would be selected to serve as a “flagship” and finished with admiral’s quarters and a walk (porch) at the stern. This is normal practice for battleships and battlecruisers that will serve together in battle squadrons. In most cases, these smaller cruisers will serve on foreign duty stations and may very well be the only “large” warship in the area. There may be numerous smaller gunboats, shallow draft craft, or auxiliary steamers – but this cruiser will be the “muscle” on station. The station might be commanded by a rear-admiral (Konteradmiral) or possibly only a “commodore” – but this cruiser would serve as his station flagship – and is equipped accordingly.
Ships of the Victoria Louise Class served in a variety of assignments, including the American Station, the East Asiatic Squadron, and the Hochseeflotte. Hertha and Hansa were on station for the 1900 Chinese Boxer Uprising and took part in the reduction of the Taku Forts. Vineta was involved in the 1902–1903 Venezuelan Crisis and bombarded a number of fortresses.
The storming of the Taku forts – June 16-17, 1900. A period lithograph, note the multi-national nature of the assaulting forces.
All of the ships were modernized between 1905 and 1911 and then assigned as gunnery training ships. When war broke out in 1914, the cruisers were organized into the “V Scouting Group” of the Hochseeflotte, but they were quickly found unsuitable for front-line service, and the scouting group was disbanded. They finished the war in secondary roles and were scrapped in 1920-1921. Victoria Louise had been converted into a merchant ship, but was also scrapped in 1923.
This is SMS Victoria Louise tied up at the Replenishment pier. On the opposite side of the basin is the armored cruiser SMS Prinz Heinrich. The “Replenishment Pier” has been re-lotted from the PEG “Pier One Seaport”. The base lot was modified to include “Navy” trucks and personnel – as well as removing some of the more modern cargo props and replacing them with items more compatible with our “turn of the century” time period. The “pier portions” had some cargo props removed as well, but remained basically the same. “WMP” seawall props were placed on the outer edges of the pier to resemble wooden caissons often seen on piers of the era.
The first thing you will notice is SMS Victoria Louise is painted in the gray and white paint scheme standard to all ships serving in “home waters”. During wartime, the bright white would be replaced with a light gray more suited to blend into the weather conditions in the North Sea. If you examine the stern main battery turret, you will see a work detail performing a bit of maintenance. During peacetime, it was quite common for crews to clean and polish the gun barrels, mend the canvas/asbestos sleeves designed to seal the gun port in the turret, or remove rust and touch-up the gun tube paint. Note the weathering of the hull, the rusty anchor hawse hole, and the superbly applied soot stains on the funnels.
If you are really interested in studying the level of detail on these ship models (and I hope you find them that interesting) – I would recommend downloading the shot and viewing it in a photo-viewer program. The program will allow you to “blow-up” the image and examine it in detail. The fifteen to twenty minutes it will take you to study these ships will be time well spent. “AP” is meticulous in his modeling and wonderfully “creative” in the way he employs the crewmen. IMHO – he is the most highly skilled modeler this site has seen in its’ twenty-year existence.
Another view of SMS Victoria Louise (as well as Prinz Heinrich). As a first effort at a “modern” cruiser, she is an immensely interesting warship. She was a great leap forward from the old Kaiserin Augusta and set the stage for the Kaiserliche Marine to move into the 20th Century. Her designers did a fine job integrating the modern warship elements into a compact and streamlined hull – even the bulky “military mast” towering over the bridge seems to fit right into the design. She was a “progressive” ship for the Kaiserliche Marine, and in her own way, really quite handsome. Model scratch-built by @AP.
This is a view of SMS Freya, the third ship of the Victoria Louise Class, commissioned in 1898. She is taking on stores and provisions at the replenishment dock in preparation for a “good will” cruise in European waters. You will note Freya is painted in the “Home Waters” livery of gray and white. She just finished loading at the munitions docks and has not finished stowing the shells and powder charges in the aft magazine. You can see the working detail gathered around the aft main battery turret.
This shot is an attempt to get a close-up of the working party. Each of the 250 lb, 8.3-inch shells, has to be lowered through an access hatch to the shell room deep inside the ship. To facilitate the work, the detail has rigged a temporary derrick on the left side of the gun turret. The projectiles can be seen standing beside the turret. To the left, the brass cartridge cases with the main powder charge can be seen carefully stacked awaiting their turn. Two officers are supervising the delicate work.
The Victoria Louise Class were the last protected cruisers built for the Imperial Navy – largely because the type had outlived its’ usefulness. Science and technology had continued to advance in leaps and bounds, and naval technology was no different. By the time Vineta was launched in September, 1899, she was all but obsolete – eclipsed by the more powerful cruisers of her potential enemies. But the Victoria Louise Class provided valuable experience in the design of a larger cruiser to act as support for the scouting units. Her design would also lead directly to the next generation of German cruisers – the armored cruiser.
SMS Hansa – 1899 – Fourth ship of the Victoria Louise Class – the last protected cruisers built for the Kaiserliche Marine.
NEXT TIME……
THE ADVENT OF
THE
ARMORED CRUISER
AND -- before you leave us --
Here are TWO new prop packs for you to enjoy. I know I mentioned publishing every two weeks -- but "AP's" real-life schedule will be keeping him pretty busy for the next few weeks, so we decided it would be better to get these packs out as soon as possible...
ENJOY -- !!
Once gain --- MY MANY THANKS to @Barroco Hispano for his generously given time and talent creating so many beautiful warships for this series.
MY SPECIAL THANKS to my partner -- @AP -- for volunteering his considerable talents and valuable time providing so many beautiful and highly detailed models that have added so much variety, originality, and “life” to the dockyards. Without his talent, imagination, and hard work – there would be many, many scenes that could not have been created, and there would be far less historical accuracy. His generosity has made it possible for me to “show” you what I would only have been able to “tell” you about.
If you enjoyed anything you saw – please punch the “like” button so I will know. A comment would be even more informative.
Comments and critiques requested and gratefully accepted. All questions answered promptly to the best of my ability.
You may wish to visit these CJ’s as well……
SERIES I:
IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: WILHELMSHAVEN
SERIES II:
IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: CUXHAVEN
Appearing – Work In Publication
SERIES III:
IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: BREMERHAVEN
Appearing -- ???
And please feel free to drop in at…
THE SIMTROPOLIS SHIPYARD
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