SMS Graf Spee

:"For the World War II German pocket battleship, see Admiral Graf Spee"

SMS "Graf Spee" was a First World War "Mackensen" class battle cruiser built for the German Imperial Navy. "Graf Spee" was named after Vice Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee.

Design

The first ship of the class, "Mackensen", was ordered in peacetime, with six more ordered during the wartime construction program. Although initially intended to carry 38 cm guns, the ships were built with 35 cm guns so as to keep their weight down. However, when it became known that Britain was building battlecruisers with 38 cm guns (HMS "Renown" and HMS "Repulse"), the design of the last three ships in the class was modified to accommodate 38 cm guns and came to be known as the "Ersatz Yorck" class because the lead ship was a replacement for the armored cruiser "Yorck", which had sunk in 1914.

"Graf Spee" was laid down on 30 November 1915 at the Schichau yards in Danzig. She had a length of 223 m (732 ft), a beam of 30.4 m, a draught of 9.3 m, and a designed displacement of 35,300 tons. The armament consisted of eight 35 cm guns, fourteen 15 cm guns and eight 8.8 cm guns as well as five torpedo tubes. Four engines were to give her a maximum speed of convert|28.8|kn|km/h|1 and a range of convert|8000|nmi|km|-3 at convert|14|kn|km/h|0. The crew was to number 1,186 men.

Fate

The war ended before any of these ships were completed. Construction of "Graf Spee" was stopped shortly after the end of World War I on 17 November 1918, more than a year before completion, and she was scrapped in Kiel from 1921 to 1923. Work on "Mackensen", launched 1917 at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, was stopped 14 months before completion and the ship was broken up in 1921. "Prinz Eitel Friedrich" was about 21 months from completion when construction was stopped; she was launched after the war and scrapped immediately thereafter. "Fürst Bismarck" was never launched and scrapped in the shipyard in 1920-1922.