SMS Hannover

SMS "Hannover" was the second of the five "Deutschland"-class pre-dreadnoughts of the Deutschen Kaiserliche Marine. She was named after the Prussian Province of Hanover, now in Lower Saxony.

Construction

Built by the Kaiserliche Werft at their shipyards in Wilhelmshaven, the keel of the "Hannover" was laid down on 7 November 1904 and she was launched on 29 September 1905. On completion she was commissioned on 1 October 1907 and cost Germany 24.3 million "Goldmarks". By the time of their commissioning however, the "Hannover" and the other ships of the "Deutschland" class had been rendered obsolete by the launching of the new British battleship HMS "Dreadnought" in 1906.

"Hannover" and her sister ships "Deutschland", "Pommern", "Schlesien" and "Schleswig-Holstein" represented Germany’s last pre-dreadnought battleships. They were similar in general type to the "Braunschweig"-class immediately preceding them, although the "Deutschlands" were more heavily armoured. The practice of fitting a type of intermediate calibre artillery common in other powers' navies was not followed in the German Navy due to the difficulty in controlling the firing and in spotting the fall of shot from three different sizes of guns.

ervice

After commissioning "Hannover" was initially attached to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the German High Seas Fleet on 13 February 1908, until transferring to the First Battle Squadron in September of that year. She remained with the 1st Battle Squadron until 1911, when she was transferred back to the 2nd Squadron, of which she became the flagship in 1912.

World War I

As part of the High Seas Fleet's 2nd Battle Squadron under Rear-Admiral Franz Mauve, and despite being outdated by the time, "Hannover" and her sisters took part in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. During the battle she fired a total of eight 28-cm and 22 17-cm shells, and remained undamaged. "Pommern" was sunk.

After Jutland she was sent to Kiel on 4 November 1916 for repairs and refits, and she was used as a target ship in the Baltic Sea. In March 1917 some of her guns were removed, and the "Hannover" was relegated to guard duty and coastal defence for the remainder of the First World War.

Postwar service

After World War I, under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles Weimar Germany was allowed to keep her obsolescent warships, and this included the "Hannover". However, owing to budgetary constraints she was decommissioned on 17 December 1918. Modernized in Wilhelmshaven in 1920 and 1921, she was again commissioned as the flagship of German naval forces in the Baltic in June 1921.

She continued in sevice with the German Weimar Navy until final decommissioning on 25 September 1931, when she was stricken from the active rolls. From 1931 to 1935 "Hannover" served in the Reichsmarine as a test ship for ground mine damage evaluation. She was then held in reserve for conversion into a remote-controlled target ship for aircraft, but this was never carried out.

She was scrapped in Bremerhaven from 1944 to 1946.

References

* [http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/hannover.htm SMS Hannover at www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk]
* [http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/1185/deutschl.html Deutschland Class battleships at http://www.geocities.com/Heartland]