SMS Seydlitz
Encyclopedia
SMS Seydlitz"SMS" stands for "Seiner Majestät Schiff", or "His Majesty's Ship" in German. was a 25,000-metric ton battlecruiser
Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz
referred to the ship as a large cruiser (großer kreuzer) in his annual budgets in an attempt to reduce opposition from the Reichstag
; the ship was not referred to as battlecruiser (schlachtkreuzer) until after the war. of the Kaiserliche Marine
, built in Hamburg
. She was ordered in 1910 and commissioned in May 1913, the fourth battlecruiser built for the High Seas Fleet
. She was named after Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz
, a Prussian general during the reign of King Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War
.
Seydlitz represented the culmination of the first generation of German battlecruisers, which had started with the in 1906, and continued with the pair of Moltke class battlecruisers
ordered in 1907 and 1908. Seydlitz featured several incremental improvements over the preceding designs, including a redesigned propulsion system and an improved armor layout. The ship was also significantly larger than her predecessors—she was approximately 3,000 metric tons heavier than the Moltke class ships.
Seydlitz participated in many of the large fleet actions during the First World War, including the battles of Dogger Bank
and Jutland
in the North Sea
. The ship suffered severe damage during both of these engagements; during the Battle of Dogger Bank, a 13.5 in (34.3 cm) shell from the British battlecruiser struck Seydlitzs rearmost turret and nearly caused a magazine explosion that could have destroyed the ship. At the Battle of Jutland she was hit 21 times by heavy caliber shells, one of which penetrated the working chamber of the aft superfiring turret. Although the resulting fire destroyed the turret, the safety measures put in place after the battle of Dogger Bank prevented a worse catastrophe. The ship was also hit by a torpedo during the battle, causing her to take in over 5,300 metric tons of water, and her freeboard
was reduced to 2.5 m. She had to be lightened significantly to permit her crossing of the Jade Bar
. The ship inflicted severe damage on her British opponents as well; early in the battle, salvos from both Seydlitz and destroyed the battlecruiser in a matter of seconds. The ship also saw some limited action in the Baltic Sea
, when she provided screening for the German flotilla that attempted to clear the Gulf of Riga
in 1915.
As with the rest of the German battlecruisers that survived the war, Seydlitz was interned in Scapa Flow
in 1918. The ship, along with the rest of the High Seas Fleet, was scuttled
in June 1919, to prevent its seizure by the British Royal Navy
. She was raised on 2 November 1928, and scrapped by 1930 in Rosyth
.
Despite the success of the previous German battlecruisers designs—those of and the Moltke class
—there was still significant debate as to how new ships of the type were to be designed. In 1909, the Reichsmarineamt (Navy Department) requested Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz
, the State Secretary, provide them with the improvements that would be necessary for the next battlecruiser design. Tirpitz continued to push for the use of battlecruisers solely as fleet scouts and to destroy enemy cruisers, along the lines of the battlecruisers employed by the British Royal Navy
. The Kaiser, Wilhelm II, and the majority of the Navy Department argued that due to Germany's numerical inferiority compared to the Royal Navy, the ships would also have to fight in the line of battle
. Ultimately, the Kaiser and the Navy Department won the debate, and the battlecruiser for the 1909–1910 building year would continue in the pattern of the previous Von der Tann and Moltke class designs.
Financial constraints meant that there would have to be a trade-off between speed, battle capabilities, and displacement. The initial design specifications mandated that speed was to have been at least as high as with the Moltke class, and that the ship was to have been armed with either eight 305 mm (12 in) guns or ten 280 mm (11 in) guns. The design staff considered triple turrets, but these were discarded when it was decided that the standard 280 mm twin turret was sufficient.
In August 1909, the Reichstag
stated that it would tolerate no increases in cost over the Moltke-class battlecruisers, and so for a time, the Navy Department considered shelving the new design and to instead build a third Moltke class ship. Admiral Tirpitz was able to negotiate a discount on armor plate from both Krupp and Dillingen; Tirpitz also pressured the ship's builder, Blohm & Voss, for a discount. These cost reductions freed up sufficient funds to make some material improvements to the design. On 27 January 1910, the Kaiser approved the design for the new ship, ordered under the provisional name "Cruiser J".
, and 200.6 m (658.1 ft) overall. The ship had a beam of 28.5 m (93.5 ft), which was increased to 28.8 m (94.5 ft) with anti-torpedo nets equipped. She had a draft of 9.29 m (30.5 ft) forward and 9.09 m (29.8 ft) aft. Seydlitz displaced 24,988 metric tons as designed, and carrying a full load, the ship displaced 28,550 metric tons. Seydlitz had a double bottom
for 76 percent of the length of the hull. The ship carried a number of smaller boats, including one picket boat, three barges, two launches
, two yawl
s, and two dinghies
.
Seydlitz was described as having been a good sea boat with gentle motion. The ship lost up to 60 percent of her speed at a hard rudder, and would heel over to 9 degrees. The ship had a standard complement of 43 officers and 1025 men, and while she served as the I Scouting Group
flagship, she was manned by an additional 13 officers and 62 men.
s with 52 fire boxes—2 fire boxes per boiler—divided into three engine rooms. These powered two sets of Parsons direct-drive turbines. Each set consisted of a high-pressure outboard turbine which exhausted into a low-pressure inboard turbine. Each turbine drove a 3-bladed screw
that was 3.88 m (12.7 ft) in diameter. Steering was controlled by tandem rudder
s.
The engines were designed to produce 63000 shp and a top speed of 26.5 knots. Using forced draft on trials, the engines provided up to 89738 shp and a top speed of 28.1 knots. The ship carried up to 3600 tonnes (3,543.1 LT) of coal. With full fuel stores, Seydlitz could steam at a cruising speed of 14 knots for 4200 nautical miles (7,778.4 km). Electrical power was provided by six turbo generators
that produced 1,800 kW at 220 V.
Seydlitz mounted a nearly identical main battery to that of the preceding Moltke class ships—ten 28 cm (11 in) SK L/50 gunsIn Imperial German Navy gun nomenclature, "SK" (Schnellfeuerkanone) denotes that the gun is quick firing, while the L/50 denotes the length of the gun. In this case, the L/50 gun is 50 calibers, meaning that the gun is 50 as times long as it is in diameter. in five twin turrets
. The guns were arranged similarly as well, with one turret fore, two staggered wing turrets, and two super-firing turrets aft. They were placed in newer Drh. L C/1910 mountings, which enabled depression of the guns down to −8 degrees and elevation to 13.5 degrees—the same range of motion of the earlier Drh. L C/1908 turrets. At 13.5 degrees, the guns could be fired to 18100 metre. In 1916, as with , Seydlitz had her main turrets modified to allow for elevation up to 16 degrees, for a maximum range of 19100 metre. The fore and aft guns were able to train approximately 150 degrees in both directions from the centerline. The two staggered wing turrets were able to train only 80 degrees in both directions from the perpendicular. The main battery was supplied with 87 armored piercing
rounds per gun, for a total of 870 shells. In addition to the 666 lb (302.1 kg) shell, each gun chambered a 57 lb (25.9 kg) fore propellant
charge in a silk bag and a 174 lb (78.9 kg) main charge in a brass case. The guns fired the shells at a muzzle velocity
of 2887 ft (880 m) per second.
Seydlitz carried a similar secondary battery to the preceding Moltke class design. The ship mounted twelve 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 quick-firing guns in single casemate
s along the center of the ship. These guns could hit targets out to a distance of 13500 metre, and after the 1916 refit, the range was extended to 16800 metre. The 15 cm guns had a total of 1,920 shells, with 160 rounds for each gun. The ship was also armed with twelve 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 quick-firing guns, which were mounted in casemates as well. Two of these guns were removed in 1916 and replaced with high-angle 8.8 cm Flak L/45 guns. As was customary for all German capital ships of the time, Seydlitz was equipped with four submerged torpedo tubes. The ship mounted one tube in the bow, one in the stern, and two on the sides of the vessel. The weapons were 50 cm (19.7 in) in diameter, and a total of 11 torpedoes were stored.
cemented and nickel steel
for its armor plating. The ship had an armored belt that was 300 mm (11.8 in) thick at its strongest area in the citadel, and tapered down to 100 mm (3.9 in) in the bow and stern. The main belt was reinforced by a torpedo bulkhead
that was 50 mm (2 in) thick. The forward conning tower
had 350 mm (13.8 in) of armor on the sides, and a 200 mm (7.9 in) thick roof. The turrets were protected by 250 mm (9.8 in) on the sides and armor ranging in thickness from 70–100 mm (2.75–3.94 in) on the turret roofs. The casemates had lighter armor protection, with 150 mm (5.9 in) on the sides and 35 mm (1.4 in) roofs. The deck armor ranged in thickness, depending on the area being protected. In the more vital areas, the deck armor was 80 mm (3.1 in) thick, while less important areas of the ship were covered by only 30 mm (1.2 in). A 50 mm (2 in) belt of sloping armor was placed under the main deck armor. The turret barbette
s were protected by plating 230 mm (9.1 in) thick. The portions of the barbettes that were behind the main belt were thinner to save weight, which was a practice employed on most German and British ships of the period.
, which had been recently transferred to the reserve fleet.
After trials, Seydlitz joined the rest of the High Seas Fleet
for maneuvers off Helgoland. Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper
, the commander of the I Scouting Group
, raised his flag in the ship on 23 June 1914. The ship served as Hipper's flagship until 26 October 1917.
attacked the German destroyers patrolling the Heligoland Bight. Six German light cruisers—, , , , , and —responded to the attack and inflicted serious damage to the British raiders. The arrival at approximately 13:37 of the British 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, under the command of Vice Admiral David Beatty
, quickly put the German ships at a disadvantage.
Along with the rest of the I Scouting Group battlecruisers, Seydlitz was stationed in the Wilhelmshaven
Roads on the morning of the battle. By 08:50, Rear Admiral Hipper had requested permission from Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl
, the commander in chief of the High Seas Fleet, to send his ships to relieve the beleaguered German cruisers. The battlecruisers and were ready to sail by 12:10, but the low tide
prevented the ships from being able to pass over the sand bar
at the mouth of the Jade Estuary safely. At 14:10, Moltke and Von der Tann were able to cross the Jade bar; Hipper ordered the German light cruisers to fall back to his ships, while Hipper himself was about an hour behind in Seydlitz. At 14:25, the remaining light cruisers—Strassburg, Stettin, Frauenlob, Stralsund, and Ariadne—rendezvoused with the battlecruisers. Seydlitz arrived on the scene by 15:10, while Ariadne succumbed to battle damage and sank. Hipper ventured forth cautiously to search for the two missing light cruisers, and , which had already sunk. By 16:00, the German flotilla turned around to return to the Jade Estuary, arriving at approximately 20:23.
s, left the Jade Estuary and steamed towards the English coast. The flotilla arrived off Great Yarmouth
at daybreak the following morning and bombarded the port, while the light cruiser laid a minefield. The British submarine responded to the bombardment, but struck one of the mines laid by Stralsund and sank. Shortly thereafter, Hipper ordered his ships to turn back to German waters. While Hipper's ships were returning to German waters, a heavy fog covered the Heligoland Bight, so the ships were ordered to halt until visibility improved so they could safely navigate the defensive minefields. The armored cruiser made a navigational error that led the ship into one of the German minefields. Yorck struck two mines and quickly sank; the coastal defense ship was able to save 127 men of the crew.
s and 8 pre-dreadnought
s and a screening force of 2 armored cruisers, 7 light cruisers, and 54 torpedo boats, departed to provide distant cover.
On 26 August 1914, the German light cruiser had run aground in the Gulf of Finland
; the wreck was captured by the Russian navy, which found code books used by the German navy, along with navigational charts for the North Sea. These documents were then passed on to the Royal Navy. Room 40
began decrypting German signals, and on 14 December, intercepted messages relating to the plan to bombard Scarborough. The exact details of the plan were unknown, and it was assumed that the High Seas Fleet would remain safely in port, as in the previous bombardment. Vice Admiral Beatty's four battlecruisers, supported by the 3rd Cruiser Squadron and the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron, along with the 2nd Battle Squadron's six dreadnoughts, were to ambush Hipper's battlecruisers.
During the night of 15 December, the main body of the High Seas Fleet encountered British destroyers. Fearing the prospect of a nighttime torpedo attack, Admiral Ingenohl ordered the ships to retreat. Hipper was unaware of Ingenohl's reversal, and so he continued with the bombardment. Upon reaching the British coast, Hipper's battlecruisers split into two groups. Seydlitz, Moltke, and Blücher went north to shell Hartlepool, while Von der Tann and Derfflinger went south to shell Scarborough and Whitby. During the bombardment of Hartlepool, Seydlitz was hit three times and Blücher was hit six times by the coastal battery. Seydlitz suffered only minimal damage, and no casualties. By 09:45 on the 16th, the two groups had reassembled, and they began to retreat eastward.
By this time, Beatty's battlecruisers were in position to block Hipper's chosen egress route, while other forces were en route to complete the encirclement. At 12:25, the light cruisers of the II Scouting Group began to pass through the British forces searching for Hipper. One of the cruisers in the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron spotted Stralsund and signaled a report to Beatty. At 12:30, Beatty turned his battlecruisers towards the German ships. Beatty presumed that the German cruisers were the advance screen for Hipper's ships, but the battlecruisers were some 50 km (31 mi) ahead. The 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron, which had been screening for Beatty's ships, detached to pursue the German cruisers, but a misinterpreted signal from the British battlecruisers sent them back to their screening positions.Beatty had intended to retain only the two rearmost light cruisers from Goodenough's
squadron, but 's signalman misinterpreted the signal, thinking that it was intended for the whole squadron, and thus transmitted it to Goodenough, who ordered his ships back into their screening positions ahead of Beatty's battlecruisers. This confusion allowed the German light cruisers to escape and alerted Hipper to the location of the British battlecruisers. The German battlecruisers wheeled to the northeast of the British forces and made good their escape.
Both the British and the Germans were disappointed that they failed to effectively engage their opponents. Admiral Ingenohl's reputation suffered greatly as a result of his timidity. The captain of the Moltke was furious; he stated that Ingenohl had turned back "because he was afraid of eleven British destroyers which could have been eliminated … under the present leadership we will accomplish nothing." The official German history criticized Ingenohl for failing to use his light forces to determine the size of the British fleet, stating: "He decided on a measure which not only seriously jeopardized his advance forces off the English coast but also deprived the German Fleet of a signal and certain victory."
area. Ingenohl was initially reluctant to attempt to destroy these forces, because the I Scouting Group was temporarily weakened while Von der Tann was in drydock for periodic maintenance. Konteradmiral Richard Eckermann, the Chief of Staff of the High Seas Fleet, insisted on the operation, and so Ingenohl relented and ordered Hipper to take his battlecruisers to the Dogger Bank.
On 23 January, Hipper sortied, with Seydlitz in the lead, followed by Moltke, Derfflinger, and Blücher, along with the light cruisers Graudenz, Rostock, Stralsund, and Kolberg and 19 torpedo boats from V Flotilla and II and XVIII Half-Flotillas. Graudenz and Stralsund were assigned to the forward screen, while Kolberg and Rostock were assigned to the starboard and port, respectively. Each light cruiser had a half-flotilla of torpedo boats attached.
Again, interception and decryption of German wireless signals played an important role. Although they were unaware of the exact plans, the cryptographers of Room 40 were able to deduce that Hipper would be conducting an operation in the Dogger Bank area. To counter it, Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, Rear Admiral Archibald Moore's 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron and Commodore William Goodenough
's 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron were to rendezvous with Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt
's Harwich Force
at 8:00 on 24 January, approximately 30 mi (48.3 km) north of the Dogger Bank.
At 08:14, Kolberg spotted the light cruiser and several destroyers from the Harwich Force.Aurora challenged Kolberg with a search light, at which point Kolberg attacked Aurora and scored two hits. Aurora returned fire and scored two hits on Kolberg in retaliation. Hipper immediately turned his battlecruisers towards the gunfire, when, almost simultaneously, Stralsund spotted a large amount of smoke to the northwest of her position. This was identified as a number of large British warships steaming towards Hipper's ships.
Hipper turned south to flee, but was limited to 23 knots (45.1 km/h), which was the maximum speed of the older armored cruiser Blücher. The pursuing British battlecruisers were steaming at 27 knots (52.9 km/h), and quickly caught up to the German ships. At 09:52, opened fire on Blücher from a range of approximately 20,000 yards (18,300 m); shortly thereafter, and began firing as well. At 10:09, the British guns made their first hit on Blücher. Two minutes later, the German ships began returning fire, primarily concentrating on Lion, from a range of 18,000 yards (15,460 m). At 10:28, Lion was struck on the waterline, which tore a hole in the side of the ship and flooded a coal bunker. At 10:30, , the fourth ship in Beatty's line, came within range of Blücher and opened fire. By 10:35, the range had closed to 17,500 yards (16,000 m), at which point the entire German line was within the effective range of the British ships. Beatty ordered his battlecruisers to engage their German counterparts.Thus, Lion on Seydlitz, Tiger on Moltke, Princess Royal on Derfflinger, and New Zealand on Blücher. Confusion aboard Tiger led the captain to believe he was to fire on Seydlitz, which left Moltke able to fire without distraction.
Seydlitz was struck in her forecastle
at 10:25, by a 13.5 in shell from Lion, but this hit did minor damage. At 10:40, Lion hit Seydlitz with a single 13.5 in (343 mm) shell, which holed the deck and penetrated the rear barbette. The shell itself failed to enter the barbette, but the explosion flashed into the working chamber and detonated the propellant charges inside.
The explosion killed 159 men, and destroyed both of the rear turrets. The fire was prevented from spreading to the shell magazines, which could have destroyed the ship, by the quick action of the executive officer, who ordered both magazines be flooded.The near destruction of Seydlitz revealed the dangers flash fires in main battery turrets and their working chambers. Following an investigation into the explosion, the German navy tightened ammunition and propellant handling procedures, which to a large degree made it unlikely that a flash fire could destroy a ship. The British navy was unaware of these dangers, and so did not take similar measures, which resulted in disastrous consequences for the British battlecruisers at the Battle of Jutland, where three ships were destroyed by magazine explosions. See: Tarrant, p. 40 The Pumpenmeister Wilhelm Heidkamp
was severely injured when he turned the red-hot valves to flood the magazines. At 11:01, Seydlitz struck back at Lion, and with a single 28 cm shell, knocked out two of Lions engines. Shortly thereafter, a pair of 30.5 cm shells fired by Derfflinger struck Lion, one at the waterline. The penetration allowed water to enter the port feed tank—this hit eventually crippled Lion, the sea water contamination forced the ship's crew to shut down the port engine. At 11:25, Seydlitz was struck on her armored belt amidships by a third and final shell, which did little damage.
By this time, Blücher was severely damaged after having been pounded by heavy shells. The chase ended when there were several reports of U-boats ahead of the British ships; Beatty quickly ordered evasive maneuvers, which allowed the German ships to increase the distance to their pursuers. At this time, Lions last operational dynamo failed, which dropped her speed to 15 knots. Beatty, in the stricken Lion, ordered the remaining battlecruisers to "Engage the enemy's rear," but signal confusion caused the ships to solely target Blücher, allowing Moltke, Seydlitz, and Derfflinger to escape. By the time Beatty regained control over his ships, after having boarded Princess Royal, the German ships had too far a lead for the British to catch them; at 13:50, he broke off the chase.
Seydlitz was repaired at the Kaiserliche Werft
in Wilhelmshaven
from 25 January to 31 March 1915, after which she rejoined the fleet.
. The intention was to destroy the Russian naval forces in the area, including the pre-dreadnought
Slava
, and to use the minelayer to block the entrance to Moon Sound with naval mines. The German forces, under the command of Vice Admiral Hipper, included the four Nassau-class
and four Helgoland-class
battleships, the battlecruisers Seydlitz, Moltke, and Von der Tann, and a number of smaller craft. Throughout the operation, Seydlitz and the other two battlecruisers remained in the Baltic and provided cover for the assault into the Gulf of Riga.
Following the operation, Seydlitz and the other heavy units of the High Seas Fleet returned to the North Sea. On 11–12 September, Seydlitz and the rest of the I Scouting Group covered a minefield laying operation off Terschelling
. On 24 November, the ship ran aground in the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal
, but was quickly refloated. On 4 December, while exiting the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, Seydlitz became entangled in one of the net barriers. Divers had to remove the tangled nets from the starboard screws.
, who flew his flag in Seydlitz. The German battlecruisers Derfflinger, , Moltke, Seydlitz and Von der Tann left the Jade Estuary at 10:55 on 24 April, and were supported by a screening force of 6 light cruisers and two torpedo boat flotillas. The heavy units of the High Seas Fleet sailed at 13:40, with the objective to provide distant support for Bödicker's ships. The British Admiralty was made aware of the German sortie through the interception of German wireless
signals, and deployed the Grand Fleet at 15:50.
By 14:00, Bödicker's ships had reached a position off Norderney
, at which point he turned his ships northward to avoid the Dutch observers on the island of Terschelling
. At 15:38, Seydlitz struck a naval mine
, which tore a 15 m (50-foot) hole in her hull, just abaft of the starboard broadside torpedo tube. 11 men were killed and 1400 short tons (1,250 LT) of water entered the ship. The ship's draft increased 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) at the bow of the ship. Seydlitz turned back with the screen of light cruisers at a speed of 15 knots (29.4 km/h). The four remaining battlecruisers turned south immediately in the direction of Norderney to avoid further mine damage. By 16:00, Seydlitz was clear of imminent danger, so the ship stopped to allow Bödicker to disembark. The torpedo boat brought Bödicker to Lützow, and the operation continued as planned. After Bödicker departed the ship, Seydlitz, escorted by a pair of torpedo boats, withdrew southward to the Jade. She was out of service for over a month for repair work due to the mine damage.
began planning another foray into the North Sea. He had initially intended to launch the operation in mid-May, but the mine damage to Seydlitz had proved difficult to repair—Scheer was unwilling to embark on a major raid without his battlecruiser forces at full strength. On May 22, the Wilhelmshaven
dockyard reported the ship to be fit for duty, but tests carried out that night showed that the broadside torpedo flat that had been damaged by the mine was still not watertight, and there were still leaks in the fore and aft transverse bulkheads. Further repairs were necessary, and so the operation was postponed another week, by which time the Wilhelmshaven dockyard assured Scheer that the ship would be ready. At noon on 28 May, the repairs to Seydlitz were finally completed, and the ship returned to the I Scouting Group.
On the night of 30 May 1916, Seydlitz and the other four battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group lay in anchor in the Jade roadstead
. The following morning, at 02:00 CET
,It should be noted that the times mentioned in this section are in CET
, which is congruent with the German perspective. This is one hour ahead of GMT
, the time zone commonly used in British works. the ships slowly steamed out towards the Skagerrak
at a speed of 16 knots (31.4 km/h). By this time, Hipper had transferred his flag from Seydlitz to the newer battlecruiser Lützow. Seydlitz took her place in the center of the line, to the rear of Derfflinger and ahead of Moltke. The II Scouting Group, consisting of the light cruisers , Rear Admiral Bödicker
's flagship, , , and , and 30 torpedo boats of the II, VI, and IX Flotillas, accompanied Hipper's battlecruisers.
An hour and a half later, the High Seas Fleet under the command of Admiral Scheer left the Jade; the force was composed of 16 dreadnoughts. was in dock at the time. The High Seas Fleet was accompanied by the IV Scouting Group, composed of the light cruisers , , , , and , and 31 torpedo boats of the I, III, V, and VII Flotillas, led by the light cruiser Rostock. The six pre-dreadnoughts of the II Battle Squadron had departed from the Elbe roads at 02:45, and rendezvoused with the battle fleet at 5:00.
Shortly before 16:00, Hipper's force encountered Vice Admiral Beatty's
battlecruiser squadron. The German ships were the first to open fire, at a range of approximately 15000 yards. The British rangefinders had misread the range to their German targets, and so the first salvos fired by the British ships fell a mile past the German battlecruisers. As the two lines of battlecruisers deployed to engage each other, Seydlitz began to duel with her opposite in the British line, . By 16:54, the range between the ships decreased to 12900 yards, which enabled Seydlitzs secondary battery to enter the fray. She was close enough to the ships of the British 9th and 10th Destroyer Flotillas that her secondary guns could effectively engage them. The other four German battlecruisers employed their secondary battery against the British battlecruisers.
Between 16:55 and 16:57, Seydlitz was struck by two heavy caliber shells from Queen Mary. The first shell penetrated the side of the ship five feet above the main battery deck, and caused a number of small fires. The second shell penetrated the barbette of the aft superfiring turret. Four propellant charges were ignited in the working chamber; the resulting fire flashed up into the turret and down to the magazine. The anti-flash precautions that had been put in place after the explosion at Dogger Bank prevented any further propellant explosions. Regardless, the turret was destroyed and most of the gun crew had been killed in the blaze.
By 17:25, the British battlecruisers were taking a severe battering from their German opponents. had been destroyed by a salvo from Von der Tann approximately 20 minutes before, and Beatty sought to turn his ships away by 2 points in order to regroup, while the s of the 5th Battle Squadron arrived on the scene and provided covering fire. As the British battlecruisers began to turn away, Seydlitz and Derfflinger were able to concentrate their fire on Queen Mary. Witnesses reported at least 5 shells from two salvos hit the ship, which caused an intense explosion that ripped the Queen Mary in half. Shortly after the destruction of Queen Mary, both British and German destroyers attempted to make torpedo attacks on the opposing lines. One British torpedo struck Seydlitz at 17:57. The torpedo hit the ship directly below the fore turret, slightly aft of where she had been mined the month before. The explosion tore a hole 40 feet long by 13 feet wide (12 m × 4.0 m), and caused a slight list. Despite the damage, the ship was still able to maintain her top speed, and kept position in the line.
The leading ships of the German battle fleet had by 18:00 come within effective range of the British ships, and had begun trading shots with the British battlecruisers and Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. Between 18:09 and 18:19, Seydlitz was hit by a 380 mm (15 in) shell from either or . This shell struck the face of the port wing turret and disabled the guns. A second 380 mm shell penetrated the already disabled aft superfiring turret and detonated the cordite charges that had not already burned. The ship also had two of her 150 mm guns disabled from British gunfire, and the rear turret lost its right-hand gun.
As the evening wore on, visibility steadily decreased for the German ships. Seydlitzs commander, Kapitän zur See
von Egidy, later remarked:
At around 19:00, Beatty's forces were nearing the main body of the Grand Fleet, and to delay the discovery of the Grand Fleet's location by the German fleet, he turned his ships towards the German line, in order to force them to turn as well. This reduced the distance between the British and German battlecruisers from 14000 yards. Visibility continued to favor the British, and the German battlecruisers paid the price. Over the next several minutes, Seydlitz was hit six times, primarily on the forward section of the ship. A fire started under the ship's forecastle. The smothering fire from Beatty's ships forced Hipper to temporarily withdraw his battlecruisers to the southwest. As the ships withdrew, Seydlitz began taking on more water, and the list to starboard worsened. The ship was thoroughly flooded above the middle deck in the fore compartments, and had nearly lost all buoyancy.
By 19:30, the High Seas Fleet, which was by that point pursuing the British battlecruisers, had not yet encountered the Grand Fleet. Scheer had been considering retiring his forces before darkness exposed his ships to torpedo boat attack. He had not yet made a decision when his leading battleships encountered the main body of the Grand Fleet. This development made it impossible for Scheer to retreat, for doing so would have sacrificed the slower pre-dreadnought battleships of the II Battle Squadron, while using his dreadnoughts and battlecruisers to cover their retreat would have subjected his strongest ships to overwhelming British fire. Instead, Scheer ordered his ships to turn 16 points to starboard, which would bring the pre-dreadnoughts to the relative safety of the disengaged side of the German battle line.
Seydlitz and the other battlecruisers followed the move,With the exception of Lützow, which had lost speed and was unable to keep up. which put them astern of König. Hipper's badly battered ships gained a temporary moment of respite, and uncertainty over the exact location and course of Scheer's ships led Admiral Jellicoe
to turn his ships eastward, towards what he thought was the likely path of the German retreat. The German fleet was instead sailing west, but Scheer ordered a second 16-point turn, which reversed course and pointed his ships at the center of the British fleet. The German fleet came under intense fire from the British line, and Scheer sent Seydlitz, Von der Tann, Moltke, and Derfflinger at high speed towards the British fleet, in an attempt to disrupt their formation and gain time for his main force to retreat. By 20:17, the German battlecruisers had closed to within 7700 yards of , at which point Scheer directed the ships to engage the lead ship of the British line. Seydlitz managed to hit Colossus once, but caused only minor damage to the ship's superstructure. Three minutes later, the German battlecruisers turned in retreat, covered by a torpedo boat attack.
A pause in the battle at dusk allowed Seydlitz and the other German battlecruisers to cut away wreckage that interfered with the main guns, extinguish fires, repair the fire control and signal equipment, and ready the searchlights for nighttime action. During this period, the German fleet reorganized into a well-ordered formation in reverse order, when the German light forces encountered the British screen shortly after 21:00. The renewed gunfire gained Beatty's attention, so he turned his battlecruisers westward. At 21:09, he sighted the German battlecruisers, and drew to within 8500 yards before opening fire at 20:20. In the ensuing melee, Seydlitz was hit several times; one shell struck the rear gun turret and other hit the ship's bridge. The entire bridge crew was killed and several men in the conning tower were wounded. The German ships returned fire with every gun available, and at 21:32 hit both Lion and Princess Royal in the darkness. The maneuvering of the German battlecruisers forced the leading I Battle Squadron to turn westward to avoid collision. This brought the pre-dreadnoughts of the II Battle Squadron directly behind the battlecruisers, and prevented the British ships from pursuing the German battlecruisers when they turned southward. The British battlecruisers opened fire on the old battleships; the German ships turned southwest to bring all of their guns to bear against the British ships.
By 22:15, Hipper was finally able to transfer to Moltke, and then ordered his ships to steam at 20 knots (39.2 km/h) towards the head of the German line. Only Seydlitz and Moltke were in condition to comply; Derfflinger and Von der Tann could make at most 18 knots, and so these ships lagged behind. Seydlitz and Moltke were in the process of steaming to the front of the line when the ships passed close to Stettin, which forced the ship to drastically slow down to avoid collision. This forced Frauenlob, Stuttgart, and München to turn to port, which led them into contact with the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron; at a range of 800 yards, the cruisers on both sides pummeled each other. Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter
decided to attempt to lure the British cruisers towards Moltke and Seydlitz. Nearly simultaneously, the heavily damaged British cruisers broke off the attack. As the light cruisers were disengaging, a torpedo fired by struck Frauenlob, and the ship exploded. The German formation fell into disarray, and in the confusion, Seydlitz lost sight of Moltke. The ship was no longer able to keep up with Moltkes 22 knots, and so detached herself to proceed to the Horns Reef lighthouse independently.
At 00:45, Seydlitz was attempting to thread her way through the British fleet, but was sighted by the dreadnought and noted as a "ship or Destroyer". Agincourts captain did not want to risk giving away his ship's position, and so allowed her to pass. By 01:12, Seydlitz had managed to slip through the British fleet, and she was able to head for the safety of Horns Reef. At approximately 03:40, she scraped over Horns Reef. Both of the ship's gyro-compasses had failed, so the light cruiser was sent to guide the ship home. By 15:30 on 1 June, Seydlitz was in critical condition; the bow was nearly completely submerged, and the only buoyancy that remained in the forward section of the ship was the broadside torpedo room. Preparations were being made to evacuate the wounded crew when a pair of pump steamers arrived on the scene. The ships were able to stabilize Seydlitzs flooding, and the ship managed to limp back to port. She reached the outer Jade river on the morning of 2 June, and on 3 June the ship entered Entrance III of the Wilhelmshaven Lock. At most, Seydlitz had been flooded by 5308 tonnes (5,224.2 LT) of water.
Close to the end of the battle, at 03:55, Hipper transmitted a report to Admiral Scheer informing him of the tremendous damage his ships had suffered. By that time, Derfflinger and Von der Tann each had only two guns in operation, Moltke was flooded with 1,000 tons of water, and Seydlitz was severely damaged. Hipper reported: "I Scouting Group was therefore no longer of any value for a serious engagement, and was consequently directed to return to harbor by the Commander-in-Chief, while he himself determined to await developments off Horns Reef with the battlefleet."
During the course of the battle, Seydlitz was hit 21 times by heavy-caliber shells, twice by secondary battery shells, and once by a torpedo. The ship suffered a total of 98 of her crew killed and 55 wounded. Seydlitz herself fired 376 main battery shells and scored approximately 10 hits.
s and .
Late 1917 saw the High Seas Fleet beginning to conduct anti-convoy raids in the North Sea between Britain and Norway. In October and December 1917, two British convoys to Norway were intercepted and destroyed by German cruisers and destroyers, prompting Beatty, now the Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet, to detach several battleships and battlecruisers to protect convoys. This presented to Admiral Scheer the opportunity for which he had been waiting the entire war: the chance to isolate and eliminate a portion of the Grand Fleet. At 05:00 on 23 April 1918, the High Seas Fleet left harbor with the intention of intercepting one of the heavily escorted convoys. Wireless radio traffic was kept to a minimum to prevent the British from learning of the operation. By 14:10, the convoy had still not yet been located, and so Scheer turned the High Seas Fleet back towards German waters.
Seydlitz was to have taken part in what would have amounted to the "death ride" of the High Seas Fleet shortly before the end of World War I. The bulk of the High Seas Fleet was to have sortied from their base in Wilhelmshaven to engage the British Grand Fleet; Scheer
—by now the Großadmiral
of the fleet—intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy, in order to retain a better bargaining position for Germany, whatever the cost to the fleet. While the fleet was consolidating in Wilhelmshaven, war-weary sailors began deserting en masse. As Von der Tann and Derfflinger passed through the locks that separated Wilhelmshaven's inner harbor and roadstead, some 300 men from both ships climbed over the side and disappeared ashore.
On 24 October 1918, the order was given to sail from Wilhelmshaven. Starting on the night of 29 October, sailors on several battleships mutinied
; three ships from the III Squadron refused to weigh anchors, and acts of sabotage were committed on board the battleships and . The order to sail was rescinded in the face of this open revolt. The following month, the German Revolution began; it toppled the monarchy and led to the Armistice
that ended the war.
The vessel was surrendered with the rest of the High Seas Fleet on 24 November 1918 and interned at Scapa Flow
. In order to prevent his fleet from being surrendered to the British under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles
, Rear Admiral von Reuter ordered the scuttling
of the High Seas Fleet on 21 June 1919, while the guard ships of the First Battle Squadron
were away on exercises.Seydlitz slipped beneath the surface at 13:50. On her side and on the bottom in twelve fathoms of water the wreck was frequently mistaken for a small island, and was sold in this condition as scrap to the salvage firm of Cox and Danks along with a battleship and twenty-six destroyers. The ship was raised on 2 November 1928, and while still inverted was towed south to be scrapped in Rosyth by 1930. Seydlitzs bell is on display at the Laboe Naval Memorial
.
Battlecruiser
Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...
Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz
Alfred von Tirpitz
Alfred von Tirpitz was a German Admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussia never had a major navy, nor did the other German states before the German Empire was formed in 1871...
referred to the ship as a large cruiser (großer kreuzer) in his annual budgets in an attempt to reduce opposition from the Reichstag
Reichstag (German Empire)
The Reichstag was the parliament of the North German Confederation , and of the German Reich ....
; the ship was not referred to as battlecruiser (schlachtkreuzer) until after the war. of the Kaiserliche Marine
Kaiserliche Marine
The Imperial German Navy was the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded...
, built in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
. She was ordered in 1910 and commissioned in May 1913, the fourth battlecruiser built for the High Seas Fleet
High Seas Fleet
The High Seas Fleet was the battle fleet of the German Empire and saw action during World War I. The formation was created in February 1907, when the Home Fleet was renamed as the High Seas Fleet. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was the architect of the fleet; he envisioned a force powerful enough to...
. She was named after Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz
Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz
Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Seydlitz was a Prussian soldier and one of the greatest German cavalry generals.-Early life:...
, a Prussian general during the reign of King Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines...
.
Seydlitz represented the culmination of the first generation of German battlecruisers, which had started with the in 1906, and continued with the pair of Moltke class battlecruisers
Moltke class battlecruiser
The Moltke class was a class of two "all-big-gun" battlecruisersThe German navy classified the ships as Großen Kreuzer . These ships differed from older Großen Kreuzer, such as the Roon class, in that they carried a uniform main battery, instead of four large guns and a mixed array of smaller weapons...
ordered in 1907 and 1908. Seydlitz featured several incremental improvements over the preceding designs, including a redesigned propulsion system and an improved armor layout. The ship was also significantly larger than her predecessors—she was approximately 3,000 metric tons heavier than the Moltke class ships.
Seydlitz participated in many of the large fleet actions during the First World War, including the battles of Dogger Bank
Battle of Dogger Bank (1915)
The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval battle fought near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea on 24 January 1915, during the First World War, between squadrons of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet....
and Jutland
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...
in the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
. The ship suffered severe damage during both of these engagements; during the Battle of Dogger Bank, a 13.5 in (34.3 cm) shell from the British battlecruiser struck Seydlitzs rearmost turret and nearly caused a magazine explosion that could have destroyed the ship. At the Battle of Jutland she was hit 21 times by heavy caliber shells, one of which penetrated the working chamber of the aft superfiring turret. Although the resulting fire destroyed the turret, the safety measures put in place after the battle of Dogger Bank prevented a worse catastrophe. The ship was also hit by a torpedo during the battle, causing her to take in over 5,300 metric tons of water, and her freeboard
Freeboard (nautical)
In sailing and boating, freeboardmeans the distance from the waterline to the upper deck level, measured at the lowest point of sheer where water can enter the boat or ship...
was reduced to 2.5 m. She had to be lightened significantly to permit her crossing of the Jade Bar
Jadebusen
The Jade Bight, is a bay on the North Sea coast of Germany. It was formerly known simply as Jade or Jahde.About 180 km² in area, the Jade was largely created by storm floods during the 12th and 16th centuries. During this period it was connected in the East to the river Weser...
. The ship inflicted severe damage on her British opponents as well; early in the battle, salvos from both Seydlitz and destroyed the battlecruiser in a matter of seconds. The ship also saw some limited action in the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
, when she provided screening for the German flotilla that attempted to clear the Gulf of Riga
Battle of the Gulf of Riga
The Battle of the Gulf of Riga was a World War I naval operation of the German High Seas Fleet against the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Gulf of Riga in the Baltic Sea in August 1915...
in 1915.
As with the rest of the German battlecruisers that survived the war, Seydlitz was interned in Scapa Flow
Scapa Flow
right|thumb|Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern endScapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. It is about...
in 1918. The ship, along with the rest of the High Seas Fleet, was scuttled
Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow
The scuttling of the German fleet took place at the Royal Navy's base at Scapa Flow, in Scotland, after the end of the First World War. The High Seas Fleet had been interned there under the terms of the Armistice whilst negotiations took place over the fate of the ships...
in June 1919, to prevent its seizure by the British Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. She was raised on 2 November 1928, and scrapped by 1930 in Rosyth
Rosyth
Rosyth is a town located on the Firth of Forth, three miles south of the centre of Dunfermline. According to an estimate taken in 2008, the town has a population of 12,790....
.
Development
Moltke class battlecruiser
The Moltke class was a class of two "all-big-gun" battlecruisersThe German navy classified the ships as Großen Kreuzer . These ships differed from older Großen Kreuzer, such as the Roon class, in that they carried a uniform main battery, instead of four large guns and a mixed array of smaller weapons...
—there was still significant debate as to how new ships of the type were to be designed. In 1909, the Reichsmarineamt (Navy Department) requested Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz
Alfred von Tirpitz
Alfred von Tirpitz was a German Admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussia never had a major navy, nor did the other German states before the German Empire was formed in 1871...
, the State Secretary, provide them with the improvements that would be necessary for the next battlecruiser design. Tirpitz continued to push for the use of battlecruisers solely as fleet scouts and to destroy enemy cruisers, along the lines of the battlecruisers employed by the British Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. The Kaiser, Wilhelm II, and the majority of the Navy Department argued that due to Germany's numerical inferiority compared to the Royal Navy, the ships would also have to fight in the line of battle
Line of battle
In naval warfare, the line of battle is a tactic in which the ships of the fleet form a line end to end. A primitive form had been used by the Portuguese under Vasco Da Gama in 1502 near Malabar against a Muslim fleet.,Maarten Tromp used it in the Action of 18 September 1639 while its first use in...
. Ultimately, the Kaiser and the Navy Department won the debate, and the battlecruiser for the 1909–1910 building year would continue in the pattern of the previous Von der Tann and Moltke class designs.
Financial constraints meant that there would have to be a trade-off between speed, battle capabilities, and displacement. The initial design specifications mandated that speed was to have been at least as high as with the Moltke class, and that the ship was to have been armed with either eight 305 mm (12 in) guns or ten 280 mm (11 in) guns. The design staff considered triple turrets, but these were discarded when it was decided that the standard 280 mm twin turret was sufficient.
In August 1909, the Reichstag
Reichstag (German Empire)
The Reichstag was the parliament of the North German Confederation , and of the German Reich ....
stated that it would tolerate no increases in cost over the Moltke-class battlecruisers, and so for a time, the Navy Department considered shelving the new design and to instead build a third Moltke class ship. Admiral Tirpitz was able to negotiate a discount on armor plate from both Krupp and Dillingen; Tirpitz also pressured the ship's builder, Blohm & Voss, for a discount. These cost reductions freed up sufficient funds to make some material improvements to the design. On 27 January 1910, the Kaiser approved the design for the new ship, ordered under the provisional name "Cruiser J".
General characteristics
Seydlitz was 200 m (656.2 ft) long at the waterlineWaterline
The term "waterline" generally refers to the line where the hull of a ship meets the water surface. It is also the name of a special marking, also known as the national Load Line or Plimsoll Line, to be positioned amidships, that indicates the draft of the ship and the legal limit to which a ship...
, and 200.6 m (658.1 ft) overall. The ship had a beam of 28.5 m (93.5 ft), which was increased to 28.8 m (94.5 ft) with anti-torpedo nets equipped. She had a draft of 9.29 m (30.5 ft) forward and 9.09 m (29.8 ft) aft. Seydlitz displaced 24,988 metric tons as designed, and carrying a full load, the ship displaced 28,550 metric tons. Seydlitz had a double bottom
Double bottom
A double bottom is a ship hull design and construction method where the bottom of the ship has two complete layers of watertight hull surface: one outer layer forming the normal hull of the ship, and a second inner hull which is somewhat higher in the ship, perhaps a few feet, which forms a...
for 76 percent of the length of the hull. The ship carried a number of smaller boats, including one picket boat, three barges, two launches
Launch (boat)
A launch in contemporary usage refers to a large motorboat. The name originally referred to the largest boat carried by a warship. The etymology of the word is given as Portuguese lancha "barge", from Malay lancha, lancharan, "boat," from lanchar "velocity without effort," "action of gliding...
, two yawl
Yawl
A yawl is a two-masted sailing craft similar to a sloop or cutter but with an additional mast located well aft of the main mast, often right on the transom, specifically aft of the rudder post. A yawl (from Dutch Jol) is a two-masted sailing craft similar to a sloop or cutter but with an...
s, and two dinghies
Dinghy
A dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or towed for use as a ship's boat by a larger vessel. It is a loanword from either Bengali or Urdu. The term can also refer to small racing yachts or recreational open sailing boats. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor,...
.
Seydlitz was described as having been a good sea boat with gentle motion. The ship lost up to 60 percent of her speed at a hard rudder, and would heel over to 9 degrees. The ship had a standard complement of 43 officers and 1025 men, and while she served as the I Scouting Group
I Scouting Group
The I Scouting Group was a special reconnaissance unit within the German Kaiserliche Marine. The unit was famously commanded by Admiral Franz von Hipper during World War I. The I Scouting Group was one of the most active formations in the High Seas Fleet during the war; the unit took part in every...
flagship, she was manned by an additional 13 officers and 62 men.
Propulsion
Seydlitzs steam plant consisted of 27 Schulz-Thornycroft small-tube boilerBoiler
A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications.-Materials:...
s with 52 fire boxes—2 fire boxes per boiler—divided into three engine rooms. These powered two sets of Parsons direct-drive turbines. Each set consisted of a high-pressure outboard turbine which exhausted into a low-pressure inboard turbine. Each turbine drove a 3-bladed screw
Propeller
A propeller is a type of fan that transmits power by converting rotational motion into thrust. A pressure difference is produced between the forward and rear surfaces of the airfoil-shaped blade, and a fluid is accelerated behind the blade. Propeller dynamics can be modeled by both Bernoulli's...
that was 3.88 m (12.7 ft) in diameter. Steering was controlled by tandem rudder
Rudder
A rudder is a device used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft or other conveyance that moves through a medium . On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw and p-factor and is not the primary control used to turn the airplane...
s.
The engines were designed to produce 63000 shp and a top speed of 26.5 knots. Using forced draft on trials, the engines provided up to 89738 shp and a top speed of 28.1 knots. The ship carried up to 3600 tonnes (3,543.1 LT) of coal. With full fuel stores, Seydlitz could steam at a cruising speed of 14 knots for 4200 nautical miles (7,778.4 km). Electrical power was provided by six turbo generators
Electrical generator
In electricity generation, an electric generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. A generator forces electric charge to flow through an external electrical circuit. It is analogous to a water pump, which causes water to flow...
that produced 1,800 kW at 220 V.
Armament
Gun turret
A gun turret is a weapon mount that protects the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in many directions.The turret is also a rotating weapon platform...
. The guns were arranged similarly as well, with one turret fore, two staggered wing turrets, and two super-firing turrets aft. They were placed in newer Drh. L C/1910 mountings, which enabled depression of the guns down to −8 degrees and elevation to 13.5 degrees—the same range of motion of the earlier Drh. L C/1908 turrets. At 13.5 degrees, the guns could be fired to 18100 metre. In 1916, as with , Seydlitz had her main turrets modified to allow for elevation up to 16 degrees, for a maximum range of 19100 metre. The fore and aft guns were able to train approximately 150 degrees in both directions from the centerline. The two staggered wing turrets were able to train only 80 degrees in both directions from the perpendicular. The main battery was supplied with 87 armored piercing
Armor-piercing shot and shell
An armor-piercing shell is a type of ammunition designed to penetrate armor. From the 1860s to 1950s, a major application of armor-piercing projectiles was to defeat the thick armor carried on many warships. From the 1920s onwards, armor-piercing weapons were required for anti-tank missions...
rounds per gun, for a total of 870 shells. In addition to the 666 lb (302.1 kg) shell, each gun chambered a 57 lb (25.9 kg) fore propellant
Propellant
A propellant is a material that produces pressurized gas that:* can be directed through a nozzle, thereby producing thrust ;...
charge in a silk bag and a 174 lb (78.9 kg) main charge in a brass case. The guns fired the shells at a muzzle velocity
Muzzle velocity
Muzzle velocity is the speed a projectile has at the moment it leaves the muzzle of the gun. Muzzle velocities range from approximately to in black powder muskets , to more than in modern rifles with high-performance cartridges such as the .220 Swift and .204 Ruger, all the way to for tank guns...
of 2887 ft (880 m) per second.
Seydlitz carried a similar secondary battery to the preceding Moltke class design. The ship mounted twelve 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 quick-firing guns in single casemate
Casemate
A casemate, sometimes rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired. originally a vaulted chamber in a fortress.-Origin of the term:...
s along the center of the ship. These guns could hit targets out to a distance of 13500 metre, and after the 1916 refit, the range was extended to 16800 metre. The 15 cm guns had a total of 1,920 shells, with 160 rounds for each gun. The ship was also armed with twelve 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 quick-firing guns, which were mounted in casemates as well. Two of these guns were removed in 1916 and replaced with high-angle 8.8 cm Flak L/45 guns. As was customary for all German capital ships of the time, Seydlitz was equipped with four submerged torpedo tubes. The ship mounted one tube in the bow, one in the stern, and two on the sides of the vessel. The weapons were 50 cm (19.7 in) in diameter, and a total of 11 torpedoes were stored.
Armor
As was standard for German warships of the period, Seydlitz used KruppKrupp
The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
cemented and nickel steel
Krupp cemented armour
Krupp Cemented Armour is a further evolved variant of Krupp Armour, developed during the early years of the 20th Century. The process is largely the same with slight changes in the alloy composition: in % of total – carbon 0.35, nickel 3.90, chromium 2.00, manganese .35, silicon .07, phosphorus...
for its armor plating. The ship had an armored belt that was 300 mm (11.8 in) thick at its strongest area in the citadel, and tapered down to 100 mm (3.9 in) in the bow and stern. The main belt was reinforced by a torpedo bulkhead
Torpedo bulkhead
A torpedo bulkhead is a type of armor common on the more heavily armored warships, especially battleships and battlecruisers of the early 20th century. It is designed to keep the ship afloat even if the hull was struck underneath the belt armor by a shell or by a torpedo...
that was 50 mm (2 in) thick. The forward conning tower
Conning tower
A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armored, from which an officer can con the vessel; i.e., give directions to the helmsman. It is usually located as high on the ship as practical, to give the conning team good visibility....
had 350 mm (13.8 in) of armor on the sides, and a 200 mm (7.9 in) thick roof. The turrets were protected by 250 mm (9.8 in) on the sides and armor ranging in thickness from 70–100 mm (2.75–3.94 in) on the turret roofs. The casemates had lighter armor protection, with 150 mm (5.9 in) on the sides and 35 mm (1.4 in) roofs. The deck armor ranged in thickness, depending on the area being protected. In the more vital areas, the deck armor was 80 mm (3.1 in) thick, while less important areas of the ship were covered by only 30 mm (1.2 in). A 50 mm (2 in) belt of sloping armor was placed under the main deck armor. The turret barbette
Barbette
A barbette is a protective circular armour feature around a cannon or heavy artillery gun. The name comes from the French phrase en barbette referring to the practice of firing a field gun over a parapet rather than through an opening . The former gives better angles of fire but less protection...
s were protected by plating 230 mm (9.1 in) thick. The portions of the barbettes that were behind the main belt were thinner to save weight, which was a practice employed on most German and British ships of the period.
Service history
Pre-war
Seydlitz was launched on 30 March 1912, and was christened by General der Kavallerie von Kleist. On 22 May 1913 the ship was commissioned into the German fleet, manned by the crew of the old armored cruiserArmored cruiser
The armored cruiser was a type of warship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Like other types of cruiser, the armored cruiser was a long-range, independent warship, capable of defeating any ship apart from a battleship, and fast enough to outrun any battleships it encountered.The first...
, which had been recently transferred to the reserve fleet.
After trials, Seydlitz joined the rest of the High Seas Fleet
High Seas Fleet
The High Seas Fleet was the battle fleet of the German Empire and saw action during World War I. The formation was created in February 1907, when the Home Fleet was renamed as the High Seas Fleet. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was the architect of the fleet; he envisioned a force powerful enough to...
for maneuvers off Helgoland. Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper
Franz von Hipper
Franz Ritter von Hipper was an admiral in the German Imperial Navy . Franz von Hipper joined the German Navy in 1881 as an officer cadet. He commanded several torpedo boat units and served as watch officer aboard several warships, as well as Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht Hohenzollern...
, the commander of the I Scouting Group
I Scouting Group
The I Scouting Group was a special reconnaissance unit within the German Kaiserliche Marine. The unit was famously commanded by Admiral Franz von Hipper during World War I. The I Scouting Group was one of the most active formations in the High Seas Fleet during the war; the unit took part in every...
, raised his flag in the ship on 23 June 1914. The ship served as Hipper's flagship until 26 October 1917.
Battle of Heligoland Bight
Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, a brief engagement between German light cruisers and a raiding force of British cruisers and battlecruisers took place on 28 August 1914. During the morning, British cruisers from the Harwich ForceHarwich Force
The Harwich Force was a squadron of the Royal Navy, formed during the First World War, that went on to play a significant role in the war.-History:...
attacked the German destroyers patrolling the Heligoland Bight. Six German light cruisers—, , , , , and —responded to the attack and inflicted serious damage to the British raiders. The arrival at approximately 13:37 of the British 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, under the command of Vice Admiral David Beatty
David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty
Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO was an admiral in the Royal Navy...
, quickly put the German ships at a disadvantage.
Along with the rest of the I Scouting Group battlecruisers, Seydlitz was stationed in the Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...
Roads on the morning of the battle. By 08:50, Rear Admiral Hipper had requested permission from Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl
Friedrich von Ingenohl
Gustav Heinrich Ernst Friedrich von Ingenohl was a German admiral from Neuwied best known for his command of the German High Seas Fleet at the beginning of World War I....
, the commander in chief of the High Seas Fleet, to send his ships to relieve the beleaguered German cruisers. The battlecruisers and were ready to sail by 12:10, but the low tide
Tide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth....
prevented the ships from being able to pass over the sand bar
Shoal
Shoal, shoals or shoaling may mean:* Shoal, a sandbank or reef creating shallow water, especially where it forms a hazard to shipping* Shoal draught , of a boat with shallow draught which can pass over some shoals: see Draft...
at the mouth of the Jade Estuary safely. At 14:10, Moltke and Von der Tann were able to cross the Jade bar; Hipper ordered the German light cruisers to fall back to his ships, while Hipper himself was about an hour behind in Seydlitz. At 14:25, the remaining light cruisers—Strassburg, Stettin, Frauenlob, Stralsund, and Ariadne—rendezvoused with the battlecruisers. Seydlitz arrived on the scene by 15:10, while Ariadne succumbed to battle damage and sank. Hipper ventured forth cautiously to search for the two missing light cruisers, and , which had already sunk. By 16:00, the German flotilla turned around to return to the Jade Estuary, arriving at approximately 20:23.
Bombardment of Yarmouth
On 2 November 1914, Seydlitz, followed by Moltke, Von der Tann, and the armored cruiser , along with four light cruiserLight cruiser
A light cruiser is a type of small- or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck...
s, left the Jade Estuary and steamed towards the English coast. The flotilla arrived off Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth, often known to locals as Yarmouth, is a coastal town in Norfolk, England. It is at the mouth of the River Yare, east of Norwich.It has been a seaside resort since 1760, and is the gateway from the Norfolk Broads to the sea...
at daybreak the following morning and bombarded the port, while the light cruiser laid a minefield. The British submarine responded to the bombardment, but struck one of the mines laid by Stralsund and sank. Shortly thereafter, Hipper ordered his ships to turn back to German waters. While Hipper's ships were returning to German waters, a heavy fog covered the Heligoland Bight, so the ships were ordered to halt until visibility improved so they could safely navigate the defensive minefields. The armored cruiser made a navigational error that led the ship into one of the German minefields. Yorck struck two mines and quickly sank; the coastal defense ship was able to save 127 men of the crew.
Bombardment of Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby
Admiral von Ingenohl decided that another raid on the English coast should to be carried out in the hopes of luring a portion of the Grand Fleet into combat where it could be destroyed. At 03:20 on 15 December, Seydlitz, Moltke, Von der Tann, the new battlecruiser , and , along with the light cruisers Kolberg, Strassburg, Stralsund, and Graudenz, and two squadrons of torpedo boats left the Jade. The ships sailed north past the island of Heligoland, until they reached the Horns Reef lighthouse, at which point the ships turned west towards Scarborough. Twelve hours after Hipper left the Jade, the High Seas Fleet, consisting of 14 dreadnoughtDreadnought
The dreadnought was the predominant type of 20th-century battleship. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her were referred to as "dreadnoughts", and earlier battleships became known as pre-dreadnoughts...
s and 8 pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea-going battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad warships of the 1870s and 1880s...
s and a screening force of 2 armored cruisers, 7 light cruisers, and 54 torpedo boats, departed to provide distant cover.
On 26 August 1914, the German light cruiser had run aground in the Gulf of Finland
Gulf of Finland
The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. Other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn...
; the wreck was captured by the Russian navy, which found code books used by the German navy, along with navigational charts for the North Sea. These documents were then passed on to the Royal Navy. Room 40
Room 40
In the history of Cryptanalysis, Room 40 was the section in the Admiralty most identified with the British cryptoanalysis effort during the First World War.Room 40 was formed in October 1914, shortly after the start of the war...
began decrypting German signals, and on 14 December, intercepted messages relating to the plan to bombard Scarborough. The exact details of the plan were unknown, and it was assumed that the High Seas Fleet would remain safely in port, as in the previous bombardment. Vice Admiral Beatty's four battlecruisers, supported by the 3rd Cruiser Squadron and the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron, along with the 2nd Battle Squadron's six dreadnoughts, were to ambush Hipper's battlecruisers.
During the night of 15 December, the main body of the High Seas Fleet encountered British destroyers. Fearing the prospect of a nighttime torpedo attack, Admiral Ingenohl ordered the ships to retreat. Hipper was unaware of Ingenohl's reversal, and so he continued with the bombardment. Upon reaching the British coast, Hipper's battlecruisers split into two groups. Seydlitz, Moltke, and Blücher went north to shell Hartlepool, while Von der Tann and Derfflinger went south to shell Scarborough and Whitby. During the bombardment of Hartlepool, Seydlitz was hit three times and Blücher was hit six times by the coastal battery. Seydlitz suffered only minimal damage, and no casualties. By 09:45 on the 16th, the two groups had reassembled, and they began to retreat eastward.
William Goodenough
Admiral Sir William Edmund Goodenough GCB, MVO was a senior Royal Navy officer of World War I.-Naval career:Goodenough joined the Royal Navy in 1882. He was appointed Commander of the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth in 1905...
squadron, but 's signalman misinterpreted the signal, thinking that it was intended for the whole squadron, and thus transmitted it to Goodenough, who ordered his ships back into their screening positions ahead of Beatty's battlecruisers. This confusion allowed the German light cruisers to escape and alerted Hipper to the location of the British battlecruisers. The German battlecruisers wheeled to the northeast of the British forces and made good their escape.
Both the British and the Germans were disappointed that they failed to effectively engage their opponents. Admiral Ingenohl's reputation suffered greatly as a result of his timidity. The captain of the Moltke was furious; he stated that Ingenohl had turned back "because he was afraid of eleven British destroyers which could have been eliminated … under the present leadership we will accomplish nothing." The official German history criticized Ingenohl for failing to use his light forces to determine the size of the British fleet, stating: "He decided on a measure which not only seriously jeopardized his advance forces off the English coast but also deprived the German Fleet of a signal and certain victory."
Battle of Dogger Bank
In early January 1915, it became known that British ships were conducting reconnaissance in the Dogger BankDogger Bank
Dogger Bank is a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about off the east coast of England. It extends over approximately , with its dimensions being about long and up to broad. The water depth ranges from 15 to 36 metres , about shallower than the surrounding sea. It is a...
area. Ingenohl was initially reluctant to attempt to destroy these forces, because the I Scouting Group was temporarily weakened while Von der Tann was in drydock for periodic maintenance. Konteradmiral Richard Eckermann, the Chief of Staff of the High Seas Fleet, insisted on the operation, and so Ingenohl relented and ordered Hipper to take his battlecruisers to the Dogger Bank.
On 23 January, Hipper sortied, with Seydlitz in the lead, followed by Moltke, Derfflinger, and Blücher, along with the light cruisers Graudenz, Rostock, Stralsund, and Kolberg and 19 torpedo boats from V Flotilla and II and XVIII Half-Flotillas. Graudenz and Stralsund were assigned to the forward screen, while Kolberg and Rostock were assigned to the starboard and port, respectively. Each light cruiser had a half-flotilla of torpedo boats attached.
Again, interception and decryption of German wireless signals played an important role. Although they were unaware of the exact plans, the cryptographers of Room 40 were able to deduce that Hipper would be conducting an operation in the Dogger Bank area. To counter it, Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, Rear Admiral Archibald Moore's 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron and Commodore William Goodenough
William Goodenough
Admiral Sir William Edmund Goodenough GCB, MVO was a senior Royal Navy officer of World War I.-Naval career:Goodenough joined the Royal Navy in 1882. He was appointed Commander of the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth in 1905...
's 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron were to rendezvous with Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt
Reginald Tyrwhitt
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Reginald Yorke Tyrwhitt, 1st Baronet, GCB, DSO was a senior officer of the Royal Navy in World War I who commanded light forces stationed at Harwich on the east coast of England during the first part of the war.-Naval career:Tyrwhitt entered the Navy as a cadet in July, 1885...
's Harwich Force
Harwich Force
The Harwich Force was a squadron of the Royal Navy, formed during the First World War, that went on to play a significant role in the war.-History:...
at 8:00 on 24 January, approximately 30 mi (48.3 km) north of the Dogger Bank.
At 08:14, Kolberg spotted the light cruiser and several destroyers from the Harwich Force.Aurora challenged Kolberg with a search light, at which point Kolberg attacked Aurora and scored two hits. Aurora returned fire and scored two hits on Kolberg in retaliation. Hipper immediately turned his battlecruisers towards the gunfire, when, almost simultaneously, Stralsund spotted a large amount of smoke to the northwest of her position. This was identified as a number of large British warships steaming towards Hipper's ships.
Hipper turned south to flee, but was limited to 23 knots (45.1 km/h), which was the maximum speed of the older armored cruiser Blücher. The pursuing British battlecruisers were steaming at 27 knots (52.9 km/h), and quickly caught up to the German ships. At 09:52, opened fire on Blücher from a range of approximately 20,000 yards (18,300 m); shortly thereafter, and began firing as well. At 10:09, the British guns made their first hit on Blücher. Two minutes later, the German ships began returning fire, primarily concentrating on Lion, from a range of 18,000 yards (15,460 m). At 10:28, Lion was struck on the waterline, which tore a hole in the side of the ship and flooded a coal bunker. At 10:30, , the fourth ship in Beatty's line, came within range of Blücher and opened fire. By 10:35, the range had closed to 17,500 yards (16,000 m), at which point the entire German line was within the effective range of the British ships. Beatty ordered his battlecruisers to engage their German counterparts.Thus, Lion on Seydlitz, Tiger on Moltke, Princess Royal on Derfflinger, and New Zealand on Blücher. Confusion aboard Tiger led the captain to believe he was to fire on Seydlitz, which left Moltke able to fire without distraction.
Seydlitz was struck in her forecastle
Forecastle
Forecastle refers to the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters...
at 10:25, by a 13.5 in shell from Lion, but this hit did minor damage. At 10:40, Lion hit Seydlitz with a single 13.5 in (343 mm) shell, which holed the deck and penetrated the rear barbette. The shell itself failed to enter the barbette, but the explosion flashed into the working chamber and detonated the propellant charges inside.
In the reloading chamber, where the shell penetrated, part of the charge in readiness for loading was set on fire. The flames rose high up into the turret and down into the ammunition chamber, and thence through a connecting door, usually kept shut, through which men from the ammunition chamber tried to escape into the fore turret. The flames thus made their way through to the other ammunition chamber and thence up to the second turret, and from this cause the entire guns' crews of both turrets perished very quickly. The flames rose above the turrets as high as a house.
The explosion killed 159 men, and destroyed both of the rear turrets. The fire was prevented from spreading to the shell magazines, which could have destroyed the ship, by the quick action of the executive officer, who ordered both magazines be flooded.The near destruction of Seydlitz revealed the dangers flash fires in main battery turrets and their working chambers. Following an investigation into the explosion, the German navy tightened ammunition and propellant handling procedures, which to a large degree made it unlikely that a flash fire could destroy a ship. The British navy was unaware of these dangers, and so did not take similar measures, which resulted in disastrous consequences for the British battlecruisers at the Battle of Jutland, where three ships were destroyed by magazine explosions. See: Tarrant, p. 40 The Pumpenmeister Wilhelm Heidkamp
Wilhelm Heidkamp
Pumpenmeister Wilhelm Heidkamp was a German sailor who fought in World War I.Heidkamp was born in Herkenrath and joined the German Navy as a machinist in 1902. He transferred to SMS Seydlitz in 1912....
was severely injured when he turned the red-hot valves to flood the magazines. At 11:01, Seydlitz struck back at Lion, and with a single 28 cm shell, knocked out two of Lions engines. Shortly thereafter, a pair of 30.5 cm shells fired by Derfflinger struck Lion, one at the waterline. The penetration allowed water to enter the port feed tank—this hit eventually crippled Lion, the sea water contamination forced the ship's crew to shut down the port engine. At 11:25, Seydlitz was struck on her armored belt amidships by a third and final shell, which did little damage.
By this time, Blücher was severely damaged after having been pounded by heavy shells. The chase ended when there were several reports of U-boats ahead of the British ships; Beatty quickly ordered evasive maneuvers, which allowed the German ships to increase the distance to their pursuers. At this time, Lions last operational dynamo failed, which dropped her speed to 15 knots. Beatty, in the stricken Lion, ordered the remaining battlecruisers to "Engage the enemy's rear," but signal confusion caused the ships to solely target Blücher, allowing Moltke, Seydlitz, and Derfflinger to escape. By the time Beatty regained control over his ships, after having boarded Princess Royal, the German ships had too far a lead for the British to catch them; at 13:50, he broke off the chase.
Seydlitz was repaired at the Kaiserliche Werft
Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven
Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven was a German shipbuilding company in Wilhelmshaven, Prussian Hanover. It was founded in 1853, first as Königliche Werft Wilhelmshaven but renamed in 1871 with the proclamation of the German Empire...
in Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...
from 25 January to 31 March 1915, after which she rejoined the fleet.
Battle of the Gulf of Riga
On 3 August 1915, Seydlitz, Moltke, and Von der Tann were transferred to the Baltic with I Reconnaissance Group (AG) to participate in a planned foray into the Riga GulfGulf of Riga
The Gulf of Riga, or Bay of Riga, is a bay of the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Estonia. According to C.Michael Hogan, a saline stratification layer is found at a depth of approximately seventy metres....
. The intention was to destroy the Russian naval forces in the area, including the pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea-going battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad warships of the 1870s and 1880s...
Slava
Russian battleship Slava
Slava was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy, the last of the five s. Commissioned too late to participate in the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War, she survived while all of her sister ships were either sunk during the battle or surrendered to the Imperial...
, and to use the minelayer to block the entrance to Moon Sound with naval mines. The German forces, under the command of Vice Admiral Hipper, included the four Nassau-class
Nassau class battleship
The Nassau class were a group of four German dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Navy. They were the German response to the introduction of the "all big gun" British . The class was composed of , , , and . All four ships were laid down in mid-1907, and completed between May and September...
and four Helgoland-class
Helgoland class battleship
The Helgoland class was the second class of German dreadnought battleships. Constructed from 1908 to 1912, the class comprised four ships: , the lead ship; ; ; and . The design was a significant improvement over the previous ships; they had a larger main battery— main guns instead of the weapons...
battleships, the battlecruisers Seydlitz, Moltke, and Von der Tann, and a number of smaller craft. Throughout the operation, Seydlitz and the other two battlecruisers remained in the Baltic and provided cover for the assault into the Gulf of Riga.
Following the operation, Seydlitz and the other heavy units of the High Seas Fleet returned to the North Sea. On 11–12 September, Seydlitz and the rest of the I Scouting Group covered a minefield laying operation off Terschelling
Terschelling
Terschelling is a municipality and an island in the northern Netherlands, one of the West Frisian Islands.Waddenislanders are known for their resourcefulness in using anything and everything that washes ashore. With few trees to use for timber, most of the farms and barns are built with masts...
. On 24 November, the ship ran aground in the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal
Kiel Canal
The Kiel Canal , known as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal until 1948, is a long canal in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.The canal links the North Sea at Brunsbüttel to the Baltic Sea at Kiel-Holtenau. An average of is saved by using the Kiel Canal instead of going around the Jutland Peninsula....
, but was quickly refloated. On 4 December, while exiting the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, Seydlitz became entangled in one of the net barriers. Divers had to remove the tangled nets from the starboard screws.
Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft
On 24–25 April 1916, the I Scouting Group undertook another operation to bombard the English coast, this time, the towns of Yarmouth and Lowestoft. Hipper was on sick leave, so the German ships were under the command of Konteradmiral Friedrich BödickerFriedrich Bödicker
Vice Admiral Friedrich Bödicker, was a flag officer of the Kaiserliche Marine during the First World War.-Biography:...
, who flew his flag in Seydlitz. The German battlecruisers Derfflinger, , Moltke, Seydlitz and Von der Tann left the Jade Estuary at 10:55 on 24 April, and were supported by a screening force of 6 light cruisers and two torpedo boat flotillas. The heavy units of the High Seas Fleet sailed at 13:40, with the objective to provide distant support for Bödicker's ships. The British Admiralty was made aware of the German sortie through the interception of German wireless
Wireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
signals, and deployed the Grand Fleet at 15:50.
By 14:00, Bödicker's ships had reached a position off Norderney
Norderney
Norderney is one of the seven populated East Frisian Islands off the North Sea coast of Germany. It is also a municipality in the district of Aurich in Lower Saxony....
, at which point he turned his ships northward to avoid the Dutch observers on the island of Terschelling
Terschelling
Terschelling is a municipality and an island in the northern Netherlands, one of the West Frisian Islands.Waddenislanders are known for their resourcefulness in using anything and everything that washes ashore. With few trees to use for timber, most of the farms and barns are built with masts...
. At 15:38, Seydlitz struck a naval mine
Naval mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...
, which tore a 15 m (50-foot) hole in her hull, just abaft of the starboard broadside torpedo tube. 11 men were killed and 1400 short tons (1,250 LT) of water entered the ship. The ship's draft increased 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) at the bow of the ship. Seydlitz turned back with the screen of light cruisers at a speed of 15 knots (29.4 km/h). The four remaining battlecruisers turned south immediately in the direction of Norderney to avoid further mine damage. By 16:00, Seydlitz was clear of imminent danger, so the ship stopped to allow Bödicker to disembark. The torpedo boat brought Bödicker to Lützow, and the operation continued as planned. After Bödicker departed the ship, Seydlitz, escorted by a pair of torpedo boats, withdrew southward to the Jade. She was out of service for over a month for repair work due to the mine damage.
Battle of Jutland
Almost immediately after the Lowestoft raid, Admiral Reinhard ScheerReinhard Scheer
Reinhard Scheer was an Admiral in the German Kaiserliche Marine. Scheer joined the navy in 1879 as an officer cadet; he progressed through the ranks, commanding cruisers and battleships, as well as major staff positions on land. At the outbreak of World War I, Scheer was the commander of the II...
began planning another foray into the North Sea. He had initially intended to launch the operation in mid-May, but the mine damage to Seydlitz had proved difficult to repair—Scheer was unwilling to embark on a major raid without his battlecruiser forces at full strength. On May 22, the Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...
dockyard reported the ship to be fit for duty, but tests carried out that night showed that the broadside torpedo flat that had been damaged by the mine was still not watertight, and there were still leaks in the fore and aft transverse bulkheads. Further repairs were necessary, and so the operation was postponed another week, by which time the Wilhelmshaven dockyard assured Scheer that the ship would be ready. At noon on 28 May, the repairs to Seydlitz were finally completed, and the ship returned to the I Scouting Group.
On the night of 30 May 1916, Seydlitz and the other four battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group lay in anchor in the Jade roadstead
Roadstead
A roadstead is a place outside a harbor where a ship can lie at anchor. It is an enclosed area with an opening to the sea, narrower than a bay or gulf. It has a surface that cannot be confused with an estuary. It can be created artificially by jetties or dikes...
. The following morning, at 02:00 CET
Central European Time
Central European Time , used in most parts of the European Union, is a standard time that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time . The time offset from UTC can be written as +01:00...
,It should be noted that the times mentioned in this section are in CET
Central European Time
Central European Time , used in most parts of the European Union, is a standard time that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time . The time offset from UTC can be written as +01:00...
, which is congruent with the German perspective. This is one hour ahead of GMT
Greenwich Mean Time
Greenwich Mean Time is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. It is arguably the same as Coordinated Universal Time and when this is viewed as a time zone the name Greenwich Mean Time is especially used by bodies connected with the United...
, the time zone commonly used in British works. the ships slowly steamed out towards the Skagerrak
Skagerrak
The Skagerrak is a strait running between Norway and the southwest coast of Sweden and the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea area, which leads to the Baltic Sea.-Name:...
at a speed of 16 knots (31.4 km/h). By this time, Hipper had transferred his flag from Seydlitz to the newer battlecruiser Lützow. Seydlitz took her place in the center of the line, to the rear of Derfflinger and ahead of Moltke. The II Scouting Group, consisting of the light cruisers , Rear Admiral Bödicker
Friedrich Bödicker
Vice Admiral Friedrich Bödicker, was a flag officer of the Kaiserliche Marine during the First World War.-Biography:...
's flagship, , , and , and 30 torpedo boats of the II, VI, and IX Flotillas, accompanied Hipper's battlecruisers.
An hour and a half later, the High Seas Fleet under the command of Admiral Scheer left the Jade; the force was composed of 16 dreadnoughts. was in dock at the time. The High Seas Fleet was accompanied by the IV Scouting Group, composed of the light cruisers , , , , and , and 31 torpedo boats of the I, III, V, and VII Flotillas, led by the light cruiser Rostock. The six pre-dreadnoughts of the II Battle Squadron had departed from the Elbe roads at 02:45, and rendezvoused with the battle fleet at 5:00.
Shortly before 16:00, Hipper's force encountered Vice Admiral Beatty's
David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty
Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO was an admiral in the Royal Navy...
battlecruiser squadron. The German ships were the first to open fire, at a range of approximately 15000 yards. The British rangefinders had misread the range to their German targets, and so the first salvos fired by the British ships fell a mile past the German battlecruisers. As the two lines of battlecruisers deployed to engage each other, Seydlitz began to duel with her opposite in the British line, . By 16:54, the range between the ships decreased to 12900 yards, which enabled Seydlitzs secondary battery to enter the fray. She was close enough to the ships of the British 9th and 10th Destroyer Flotillas that her secondary guns could effectively engage them. The other four German battlecruisers employed their secondary battery against the British battlecruisers.
Between 16:55 and 16:57, Seydlitz was struck by two heavy caliber shells from Queen Mary. The first shell penetrated the side of the ship five feet above the main battery deck, and caused a number of small fires. The second shell penetrated the barbette of the aft superfiring turret. Four propellant charges were ignited in the working chamber; the resulting fire flashed up into the turret and down to the magazine. The anti-flash precautions that had been put in place after the explosion at Dogger Bank prevented any further propellant explosions. Regardless, the turret was destroyed and most of the gun crew had been killed in the blaze.
The leading ships of the German battle fleet had by 18:00 come within effective range of the British ships, and had begun trading shots with the British battlecruisers and Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. Between 18:09 and 18:19, Seydlitz was hit by a 380 mm (15 in) shell from either or . This shell struck the face of the port wing turret and disabled the guns. A second 380 mm shell penetrated the already disabled aft superfiring turret and detonated the cordite charges that had not already burned. The ship also had two of her 150 mm guns disabled from British gunfire, and the rear turret lost its right-hand gun.
As the evening wore on, visibility steadily decreased for the German ships. Seydlitzs commander, Kapitän zur See
Captain at Sea
Captain at Sea, is a naval rank corresponding to command of a ship-of-the-line or capital ship....
von Egidy, later remarked:
"Visibility had generally become unfavorable. There was a dense mist, so that as a rule only the flashes of the enemy's guns, but not the ships themselves, could be seen. Our distance had been reduced from 18,000 to 13,000 yards. From north-west to north-east we had before us a hostile line firing its guns, though in the mist we could only glimpse the flashes from time to time. It was a mighty and terrible spectacle."
At around 19:00, Beatty's forces were nearing the main body of the Grand Fleet, and to delay the discovery of the Grand Fleet's location by the German fleet, he turned his ships towards the German line, in order to force them to turn as well. This reduced the distance between the British and German battlecruisers from 14000 yards. Visibility continued to favor the British, and the German battlecruisers paid the price. Over the next several minutes, Seydlitz was hit six times, primarily on the forward section of the ship. A fire started under the ship's forecastle. The smothering fire from Beatty's ships forced Hipper to temporarily withdraw his battlecruisers to the southwest. As the ships withdrew, Seydlitz began taking on more water, and the list to starboard worsened. The ship was thoroughly flooded above the middle deck in the fore compartments, and had nearly lost all buoyancy.
By 19:30, the High Seas Fleet, which was by that point pursuing the British battlecruisers, had not yet encountered the Grand Fleet. Scheer had been considering retiring his forces before darkness exposed his ships to torpedo boat attack. He had not yet made a decision when his leading battleships encountered the main body of the Grand Fleet. This development made it impossible for Scheer to retreat, for doing so would have sacrificed the slower pre-dreadnought battleships of the II Battle Squadron, while using his dreadnoughts and battlecruisers to cover their retreat would have subjected his strongest ships to overwhelming British fire. Instead, Scheer ordered his ships to turn 16 points to starboard, which would bring the pre-dreadnoughts to the relative safety of the disengaged side of the German battle line.
Seydlitz and the other battlecruisers followed the move,With the exception of Lützow, which had lost speed and was unable to keep up. which put them astern of König. Hipper's badly battered ships gained a temporary moment of respite, and uncertainty over the exact location and course of Scheer's ships led Admiral Jellicoe
John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe
Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, GCB, OM, GCVO was a British Royal Navy admiral who commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in World War I...
to turn his ships eastward, towards what he thought was the likely path of the German retreat. The German fleet was instead sailing west, but Scheer ordered a second 16-point turn, which reversed course and pointed his ships at the center of the British fleet. The German fleet came under intense fire from the British line, and Scheer sent Seydlitz, Von der Tann, Moltke, and Derfflinger at high speed towards the British fleet, in an attempt to disrupt their formation and gain time for his main force to retreat. By 20:17, the German battlecruisers had closed to within 7700 yards of , at which point Scheer directed the ships to engage the lead ship of the British line. Seydlitz managed to hit Colossus once, but caused only minor damage to the ship's superstructure. Three minutes later, the German battlecruisers turned in retreat, covered by a torpedo boat attack.
By 22:15, Hipper was finally able to transfer to Moltke, and then ordered his ships to steam at 20 knots (39.2 km/h) towards the head of the German line. Only Seydlitz and Moltke were in condition to comply; Derfflinger and Von der Tann could make at most 18 knots, and so these ships lagged behind. Seydlitz and Moltke were in the process of steaming to the front of the line when the ships passed close to Stettin, which forced the ship to drastically slow down to avoid collision. This forced Frauenlob, Stuttgart, and München to turn to port, which led them into contact with the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron; at a range of 800 yards, the cruisers on both sides pummeled each other. Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter
Ludwig von Reuter
Ludwig von Reuter was a German admiral during World War I, who commanded the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet when it was interned at Scapa Flow at the end of the war. On 21 June 1919 he ordered the scuttling of the fleet to prevent the British from seizing the ships.-Early life:Reuter was...
decided to attempt to lure the British cruisers towards Moltke and Seydlitz. Nearly simultaneously, the heavily damaged British cruisers broke off the attack. As the light cruisers were disengaging, a torpedo fired by struck Frauenlob, and the ship exploded. The German formation fell into disarray, and in the confusion, Seydlitz lost sight of Moltke. The ship was no longer able to keep up with Moltkes 22 knots, and so detached herself to proceed to the Horns Reef lighthouse independently.
At 00:45, Seydlitz was attempting to thread her way through the British fleet, but was sighted by the dreadnought and noted as a "ship or Destroyer". Agincourts captain did not want to risk giving away his ship's position, and so allowed her to pass. By 01:12, Seydlitz had managed to slip through the British fleet, and she was able to head for the safety of Horns Reef. At approximately 03:40, she scraped over Horns Reef. Both of the ship's gyro-compasses had failed, so the light cruiser was sent to guide the ship home. By 15:30 on 1 June, Seydlitz was in critical condition; the bow was nearly completely submerged, and the only buoyancy that remained in the forward section of the ship was the broadside torpedo room. Preparations were being made to evacuate the wounded crew when a pair of pump steamers arrived on the scene. The ships were able to stabilize Seydlitzs flooding, and the ship managed to limp back to port. She reached the outer Jade river on the morning of 2 June, and on 3 June the ship entered Entrance III of the Wilhelmshaven Lock. At most, Seydlitz had been flooded by 5308 tonnes (5,224.2 LT) of water.
During the course of the battle, Seydlitz was hit 21 times by heavy-caliber shells, twice by secondary battery shells, and once by a torpedo. The ship suffered a total of 98 of her crew killed and 55 wounded. Seydlitz herself fired 376 main battery shells and scored approximately 10 hits.
Later operations
On 15 June 1916, repair work to Seydlitz began in the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven, and continued until 1 October. The ship then underwent individual training, and rejoined the fleet in November. With his previous flagship Lützow at the bottom of the North Sea, Admiral Hipper again raised his flag in Seydlitz. On 4 November, Seydlitz and Moltke, along with the II Division, I Battle Squadron, the III Battle Squadron, and the new battleship sailed to Bovbjerg on the Danish coast, in order to retrieve the stranded the U-boatU-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
s and .
Late 1917 saw the High Seas Fleet beginning to conduct anti-convoy raids in the North Sea between Britain and Norway. In October and December 1917, two British convoys to Norway were intercepted and destroyed by German cruisers and destroyers, prompting Beatty, now the Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet, to detach several battleships and battlecruisers to protect convoys. This presented to Admiral Scheer the opportunity for which he had been waiting the entire war: the chance to isolate and eliminate a portion of the Grand Fleet. At 05:00 on 23 April 1918, the High Seas Fleet left harbor with the intention of intercepting one of the heavily escorted convoys. Wireless radio traffic was kept to a minimum to prevent the British from learning of the operation. By 14:10, the convoy had still not yet been located, and so Scheer turned the High Seas Fleet back towards German waters.
Fate
Reinhard Scheer
Reinhard Scheer was an Admiral in the German Kaiserliche Marine. Scheer joined the navy in 1879 as an officer cadet; he progressed through the ranks, commanding cruisers and battleships, as well as major staff positions on land. At the outbreak of World War I, Scheer was the commander of the II...
—by now the Großadmiral
Grand Admiral
Grand admiral is a historic naval rank, generally being the highest such rank present in any particular country. Its most notable use was in Germany — the German word is Großadmiral.-France:...
of the fleet—intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy, in order to retain a better bargaining position for Germany, whatever the cost to the fleet. While the fleet was consolidating in Wilhelmshaven, war-weary sailors began deserting en masse. As Von der Tann and Derfflinger passed through the locks that separated Wilhelmshaven's inner harbor and roadstead, some 300 men from both ships climbed over the side and disappeared ashore.
On 24 October 1918, the order was given to sail from Wilhelmshaven. Starting on the night of 29 October, sailors on several battleships mutinied
Wilhelmshaven mutiny
The Kiel mutiny was a major revolt by sailors of the German High Seas Fleet on 3 November 1918. The revolt triggered the German revolution which was to sweep aside the monarchy within a few days. It ultimately led to the end of the First World War and to the establishment of the Weimar Republic.-...
; three ships from the III Squadron refused to weigh anchors, and acts of sabotage were committed on board the battleships and . The order to sail was rescinded in the face of this open revolt. The following month, the German Revolution began; it toppled the monarchy and led to the Armistice
Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)
The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...
that ended the war.
The vessel was surrendered with the rest of the High Seas Fleet on 24 November 1918 and interned at Scapa Flow
Scapa Flow
right|thumb|Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern endScapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. It is about...
. In order to prevent his fleet from being surrendered to the British under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
, Rear Admiral von Reuter ordered the scuttling
Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow
The scuttling of the German fleet took place at the Royal Navy's base at Scapa Flow, in Scotland, after the end of the First World War. The High Seas Fleet had been interned there under the terms of the Armistice whilst negotiations took place over the fate of the ships...
of the High Seas Fleet on 21 June 1919, while the guard ships of the First Battle Squadron
1st Battle Squadron (United Kingdom)
The British 1st Battle Squadron was a squadron of battleships, initially part of the Royal Navy's Home Fleet, renamed the Grand Fleet during World War I...
were away on exercises.Seydlitz slipped beneath the surface at 13:50. On her side and on the bottom in twelve fathoms of water the wreck was frequently mistaken for a small island, and was sold in this condition as scrap to the salvage firm of Cox and Danks along with a battleship and twenty-six destroyers. The ship was raised on 2 November 1928, and while still inverted was towed south to be scrapped in Rosyth by 1930. Seydlitzs bell is on display at the Laboe Naval Memorial
Laboe Naval Memorial
The Laboe Naval Memorial is a memorial located in Laboe, near Kiel, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Started in 1927 and completed in 1936, the monument originally memorialized the World War I war dead of the Kaiserliche Marine, with the Kriegsmarine dead of World War II being added after 1945...
.