Magdeburg ( SMS Magdeburg (1911) ) is a light cruiser of the German Navy during the First World War . The lead ship of the same type .
| Magdeburg | |
|---|---|
| SMS Magdeburg | |
 | |
| Service | |
 German Empire | |
| Ship class and type | Light cruiser type " Magdeburg " |
| Manufacturer | AG Weser , Bremen , German Empire |
| Construction started | 1910 |
| Launched | May 13, 1911 |
| Commissioned | August 20, 1912 |
| Removed from the fleet | 1914 |
| Status | Captured and disassembled |
| Main characteristics | |
| Displacement | 4550 t |
| Length | 138.7 m |
| Width | 13.4 m |
| Height | 8.2 m |
| Draft | 4.4-5.16 m |
| Booking | Armor belt - 60 mm; deck - horizontal surface 20 ... 40 mm, bevels 40 ... 60 mm; cutting - horizontal surfaces of 20 mm, vertical - 100 mm; gun shields - 50 mm |
| Engines | 3 steam turbines manufactured by Bergmann Elektricitats-Werke |
| Power | 33 500 l. with. |
| Mover | 3 three-blade screws with a diameter of 2.75 m |
| Travel speed | 27.6 knots |
| Navigation range | 5820 nautical miles at 12 knots |
| Crew | 373 |
| Armament | |
| Artillery | 12 × 105 mm / 45 guns |
| Mine-torpedo armament | 2 × 500 mm torpedo tubes, 120 min |
The cruiser "Magdeburg" was laid by the company " Weser " in the shipyards in the city of Bremen in 1910 . Launching took place on May 13, 1911 , entered into the fleet on August 20, 1912 .
Content
Specifications
The cruiser length was 138.7 m (136 m at the waterline), width - 13.5 m, draft - 5.1 m, displacement - 4550 tons. At the Magdeburg 12 speed-guns of 105 mm caliber were installed , two located below the waterline 500 mm torpedo tubes, as well as anti-aircraft guns. The cruiser carried 120 naval barrage mines and devices for dumping them. The number of the team was 373 people.
Three turbines "Germany" with a total capacity of 33500 l. with. and three screws allowed a speed of 27.6 knots. With a full load of 1,200 tons of coal and a cruising speed of 12 knots, the Magdeburg could travel 5,820 nautical miles .
World War I
After the outbreak of World War I , Magdeburg operated in the Baltic Sea . During the first weeks of the war, the cruiser carried out bombing and laying mines near Libau . Later he was sent to the Gulf of Finland , where on August 26, 1914, in a fog, he sat on stones near the island of Odenholm near the northern coast of modern Estonia . The destroyer V-26 and the cruiser Amazon were sent to the rescue, but attempts to save the ship ended in failure, and soon it was captured by the Russians from the Bogatyr and Pallas cruisers that approached. German ships managed to remove part of the crew, but then they were driven off by the fire of Russian ships. At the same time, the Magdeburg itself was damaged. In the confusion of the battle evacuation was interrupted, and the documents could not be taken from the stranded ship.
According to the regulations of the German fleet it was necessary to burn the signal books in the firebox, but it turned out to be flooded with seawater. Therefore, they had to be thrown overboard. The Russian command sent divers to search for them, and after a brief search, their work was crowned with success: the books lay next to the ship’s side, apparently they were thrown into the water from the wing of the navigating bridge . In a brief battle, 15 sailors of the Magdeburg were killed, and 56 people led by Corvette-Captain Habenicht surrendered to Russian sailors. The commander of the ship Habenicht , seeing the divers, realized that the signal books were already in the hands of the Russians. Subsequently, he was kept under reinforced custody - it was necessary to exclude for him the opportunity to convey the news of the seizure of books to his homeland.
One of the three captured signal books was soon transferred to the British Admiralty , which played a crucial role in the disclosure of the German naval cipher. The opening of the cipher subsequently had a significant impact on both the combat operations at sea and the course of the war as a whole.
Also, the guns that were later installed on a number of small ships of the Baltic Fleet were removed from the cruiser: the gunboat Khrabry received six 105-mm cannons, the Yastreb patrol ship - two, and the Kopchik and Korshun guard ships - one each.
Ship's commanders
| Fregatten Capitan Heinrich Rohardt | August - September 1912 | |
| Fregatten Capitan Wilhelm Bridge | September 1912 - February 1913 | |
| Fregatten Captain / Captain-zur-see Gustav-Julius Merker | February 1913 - March 1914 | |
| Corvette Captain Richard Habenicht | March-August 1914 | |
Second Magdeburg
In 1916, a new Cologne II-class cruiser, numbered 602, was laid in Kiel at the Howaldtswerke shipyard, designed to replace the deceased Magdeburg. On November 17, 1917, he was given the same name, but the construction was not completed by the end of the war, and the unfinished ship was scrapped: firstly, the Versailles Treaty put the German fleet in a very rigid framework, and secondly, the country ravaged by the war metal, and the funds for the completion of the cruiser was not. On November 17, 1919, the unfinished ship was expelled from the fleet, on October 28, 1921 it was sold and in 1922 it was dismantled for metal.
Links
Sources
- Bubnov, Alexander Dmitrievich . In the royal Stake. M .: Veche , 2008. - 272 p. ISBN 978-5-9533-3291-0
- Emelin A. Yu., Bocharov A. A. Legends of the cruiser “Magdeburg” // Almanac “Citadel”. Number 10, 2002, p. 33-44.
- M. A. Partala. Reefs and myths of the island Odenholm: the history of the seizure of secret documents of the German fleet on the cruiser "Magdeburg" in August 1914
- Gerhard Koop / Klaus-Peter Schmolke: Kleine Kreuzer 1903–1918, Bremen bis Cöln-Klasse , Band 12, Schiffsklassen und Schiffstypen der deutschen Marine, Bernard & Graefe Verlag München, 2004, ISBN 3-7637-6252-3
- Matti E.Mäkelä: Das Geheimnis der "Magdeburg":, Die Geschichte des Kleinen Kreuzers und die Bedeutung seiner Signalbücher im Ersten Weltkrieg, Bernard & Graefe Verlag Koblenz, 1984, ISBN 3-7637-5424-5