On January 18, 1871, the Kingdom of Prussia, which had won the Franco-Prussian War, completed the unification of Germany and established the Empire, historically known as the Second German Empire. Previously, the Kingdom of Prussia because of its long-term dominance on land, the development of the navy lagged behind, although later the empire was established, because the territory was mainly bordered by the Baltic Sea such a closed and narrow sea area, so the navy did not improve much, although some ironclad ships were built, the displacement was not very large, and the larger ones such as the Saxon class were only 7650 tons.
USS Saxony
In June 1888, Wilhelm II ascended the throne as German emperor, he was an avid navy fan, seeing that Britain and France had powerful naval fleets, galloping on all seas and occupying a large number of overseas territories. Wilhelm II was naturally reluctant and determined to develop ocean-going naval forces to challenge the maritime supremacy of Britain, France and other countries. At that time, since the reunification of Germany, its national strength was booming, and its strong industrial production capacity provided the basis for the Kaiser's ideal of expanding its navy. In fact, as early as the reign of Wilhelm I, Germany had plans to build two large warships, and Wilhelm II increased his budget at this time and decided to build four.
Brandenburg class
The warships to be built were the first large ships of the German Empire to exceed 10,000 tons, and they were also equipment that could compete with other powers, and this ship was named the Brandenburg-class battleships. At that time, Germany did not have the experience of building tens of thousands of tons of warships, so the Brandenburg class borrowed from the design of French battleships, the most typical is freeboard inversion, which has the advantage of balancing the weight of the armor and good stability of the hull, but the deck area is reduced, making the superstructure appear chaotic and the center of gravity is too high. At that time, large British warships generally used two twin 305-mm guns, and the Brandenburg class chose a smaller caliber main gun in order to maintain the rate of fire of the gun.
Construction of all four Brandenburg-class battleships began in 1890, with the Wools completed on 31 October 1893 at the Royal Wilhelm Shipyard, the Brandenburg on 19 November 1893 at the Voltenburg Shipyard, the Grand Elector at the Royal Wilhelm Shipyard on 29 April 1894 and the Wiesenberg at the Voltsong Shipyard on 14 December 1894. The Brandenburg class has a establishment of 568 people, a standard displacement of 10,012 tons, a full load of 10,670 tons, a total length of 115.7 meters, a width of 19.5 meters, and a draft of 7.8 meters; the power system is two steam engines, 12 round boilers, the output power varies from 9680 horsepower to 10228 horsepower, and biaxial propulsion.
Brandenburg class host
The maximum speed is 16 knots, the cruising range is 4500 nautical miles/10 knots, and the coal load is 1050 tons; In terms of armament, it consists of two 40 mm caliber twin guns with a diameter of 35 times the diameter in the bow and tail of the ship, one twin gun of 35 caliber in the middle of the hull, six single-mounted secondary guns of 105 mm caliber, eight 88 mm single-mounted rapid-fire guns, 12 37-mm machine guns and six 450 mm torpedo tubes in close defense. The Brandenburg-class hull protection was still good, with Krupp Harvey nickel steel armor, waterline belt armor 400 mm thick, reduced to 300 mm front and rear, deck armor 60 mm thick, main gun turret frontal armor 120 mm thick, top armor 50 mm thick, commander tower armor 300 mm thick.
Artillery, armor belt layout
After entering service, the Brandenburg class became the nucleus of the German Navy. On July 4, 1900, four Brandenburg-class battleships, six cruisers, three torpedo boats, and ten auxiliary ships formed a fleet and sailed to Dagu, Tianjin, China, to show their might in the Eight-Power Alliance's war of aggression against China. On 11 August 1901, four Brandenburg-class ships returned to Wilhelmshaven, Germany, and although the expedition was not fruitful, it gave the German Navy valuable experience in ocean navigation. In July 1910, the Ottoman Empire purchased the Elector and the Wiesenberg for 9 million marks each, and renamed Barbarossa Hyladin and Tor Gudres.
After the outbreak of World War I, the German Navy's Brandenburg and Wools were already lagging behind because of their age, so they only took on patrol and alert duties. On May 13, 1919, the Wools was decommissioned and disbanded shortly after. The Brandenburg was decommissioned on the 19th of the same month and disbanded in 1920.
Barbarossa Hyladin, sold to the Ottoman Empire, took part in the defense of the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915 , and on 8 August of the same year, on its way to support an army line, the ship was sunk by the British submarine E-11, killing 253 people on board. The Tor Gudrez towed the wounded battlecruiser Fortitude back to port on 25 January 1916, and the ship has been used as a training ship. In 1936, the cannons on the ship Tor Gudrera were removed and installed on the coast of the Dardanelles, and the ship was decommissioned in 1938.
As one of Germany's first large warships with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons, due to the technical limitations of the time, the design of the Brandenburg-class battleships was not successful. However, the ship provided a reference for the subsequent warship construction of the Imperial German Navy.