SMS Bayern and SMS Baden - The high seas fleets first and last super dreadnoughts

[de Radio Demon@live 266]

SMS Bayern

Note: the main focus here will be on Bayern specifically however Baden will be mentioned due to certain contradictory information.

 

                                                                 

Commissioning

SMS Bayern was laid down in December 22nd, 1913 as the lead ship of her class consisting of 4 ships, Bayern, Baden being completed with the Sachsen and Württemberg were ordered but were never completed by the end of the war. Bayern was launched on February 18th, 1915, and finally was commissioned on July 15th, 1916 making them the first and only class of super dreadnought ever to serve in the high seas fleet.

 

Armament

Unlike previous German dreadnoughts the Bayerns were armed with 8 15 inch guns (380mm) found in four turrets. She also contained a secondary battery of 16 single 5.9cm (150mm) casemate guns, 4 8.8cm (88mm) guns mounted in shield gun mounts. Additionally she had 5 60cm (24cm) underwater torpedo tubes with one located at the bow and two on both side of the ship. In the case of Bayern and her sister ship Baden these torpedo tubes would be removed after finding structural weakness due to them after both ships struck mines in 1917. Interestingly even though they are the only class of German super dreadnought in the First World War they were originally planned to be armed with 12 12inch guns found in 4 turrets, 3 per turret even as other navies such as the British, American, and Japanese navies were already moving on to larger guns such as 15 inch armed  vessels however after engineers examined the triple 12 inch gun turrets on the Austro Hungarian dreadnoughts of the Tegetthoff class that these turrets still had too many problems resulting in the decision to arm the with the 15 inch guns they were completed making them true super dreadnought compared to previous classes that were armed with either 12 inch or 11inch caliber guns.

Armament: 

8 × 38 cm (15 in) SK L/45 guns 

-8/+16 elevation (later modification allowed the ships to elevate to +20 in elevation) 

720 shells or 90 per gun (180 per turret)

 At a range of 20,000 m (66,000 ft), the armor-piercing shells could penetrate up to 336 mm (13.2 in) of steel plate. The guns had a rate of fire of around one shell every 38 seconds.

 Muzzle velocity was 805 meters per second (2,640 ft/s).

16 × 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns

2,240 rounds in total

 5 to 7 rounds per minute

0 to 2 to 4 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns  ( 0 for Bayern pre 1917 refit, 2 for baden, and 4 for Bayern with the 1917 refit.)

(Note: the original plan for the Bayern class was to include 8 8.8cm flack guns however this never came to pass however I have decided to include it as a option always since it was apart of the final design)

400 rounds (Baden W/ 2 8.8cm flak guns, this is a estimate upon the basis that Bayern with 4 flak 8.8cm guns had 800 rounds indicating 200 rounds per 8.8cm gun )

800 rounds (Bayern W/ 4 8.8cm flak guns)

1600 rounds ( this is the assumed amount of rounds the ships would have had if they had got the 8 8.8cm flak guns upon the basis that Bayern with 4 flak 8.8cm guns had 800 rounds )

5 × 60 cm (24 in) torpedo tubes (Removed in 1917 in the refits that added the 8.8's for Bayern)

20 torpedo in total (4 per launcher)

 

                               

 

                   
 

Armor:

Belt: 170–350 mm (6.7–13.8 in)

Conning tower: 400 mm (15.7 in)

Deck: 60 mm–100 mm (2.3–3.9 in)

Turrets: 200 to 350 mm (7.9 to 13.8 in)

 

The Bayern-class ships were protected with Krupp cemented steel armor, as was the standard for German warships of the period. They had an armor belt that was 350 mm (14 in) thick in the central citadel of the ship, where the most important parts of the ship were located. This included the ammunition magazines and the machinery spaces. The belt was reduced in less critical areas, to 200 mm (7.9 in) forward and 170 mm (6.7 in) aft. The bow and sternwere not protected by armor at all. A 50 mm (2 in)-thick torpedo bulkhead ran the length of the hull, several meters behind the main belt. The main armored deck was 60 mm (2.4 in) thick in most places, though the thickness of the sections that covered the more important areas of the ship was increased to 100 mm (3.9 in).

The forward conning tower was protected with heavy armor: the sides were 400 mm (16 in) thick and the roof was 170 mm thick. The rear conning tower was less well armored; its sides were only 170 mm thick and the roof was covered with 80 mm (3.1 in) of armor plate. The main battery gun turrets were also heavily armored: the turret sides were 350 mm thick and the roofs were 200 mm thick. The 15 cm guns had 170 mm thick armor plating on the casemates; the guns themselves had 80 mm thick shields to protect their crews from shell splinters.

                                                                   

 

Propulsion 

 

14 × water-tube boilers

35,000 metric horsepower (35,000 shp)

3 × steam turbines

3 × screw propellers

Speed:22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph)

Dimensions: 

Length:180 m (590 ft 7 in) 

Beam:30 m (98 ft 5 in)

Draft:9.4 m (30 ft 10 in)

Displacement:

Normal: 28,530 t (28,080 long tons)

Full load: 32,200 t (31,700 long tons)

Crew count:

1,187–1,271

Range:

5,000 nmi (9,300 km; 5,800 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)

Service life

Both vessels would end up missing the battle of Jutland, Bayern was assigned to 1st scouting group (post Jutland) in another attempt to lure out the British battlecruisers along with the Dreadnoughts Markgraf and SMS Grosser Kurfürst due to the fact that the only 2 operation German battlecruisers were in a fighting condition, Moltke and Von der Tann. They would be followed by 15 other dreadnoughts, as they began the operation on august 18th, 1916 the British were aware of the Germans plans and instead planned to sortie the Grand fleet what caused admiral Scheer to call a retreat to port after discovering this. Another attempt took place on October 18th-20th what resulted in finding no British warships.

                                                                             

The first major operation Bayern would be apart of that would see her in action was during the joint army naval Operation Albion in a attempt to deal with the remaining Russian vessels present in the gulf of Riga, she would be joined by 4 König class dreadnoughts in division V and VI division what consisted of five Kaiser-class battleships plus and additional 9 light cruisers, 3 torpedo boat flotillas, and dozens of mine warfare ships. She would join in short bombardment of Russian batteries and end up striking a mine killing 7 as well causing flooding causing it to miss out on a ship to ship engagement where the dreadnoughts König and Kronprinz engaged the Russian battleship Slava and the cruiser Bayern.

Following Bayerns repairs she would never see an other major naval surface combat being reassigned to security duties in the North Sea.

 

Fate

As many who many know of the death ride of the high seas fleet, Bayern was one of many ships order to take part in the operation in one last glorious battle in order to make their bargaining on negotiation table better however the operation never happened as sailor mutinied against the suicidal action. Following the surrender of Germany and the end of the First World War she was one of many ships that were to be interned at Scapa Flow  under rear admiral Reuter who believed that the British would seize the ships of the deadline of the treaty not know the date was extended for 2 more days, on the 21st of June Reuter order the high seas fleet to scuttle their vessels after the British fleet left to conduct training maneuvers, Bayern sank at 14:30 (2:30pm) and was later raised and scrapped on September 1st 1934 with only some part of her remaining on the sea floor for where she sank. 

 

                                                                           

Why should this ship come to the game (opinion)

I think Bayern would be a great addition to the game as the potential issue the the German battleships will face as we progress on is the fact that most of the German dreadnoughts were armed with 11inch or 12 inch guns and even if you include German battleships from the Second World War their is still a lack of battleships that have competitive calibers of guns compared to what other nations have made (especially when you include the pocket battleships but those don't really count) leaving the Germans with undeniably quite a plethora of battleships that can be added to the game but the issue with that is that they mainly improve the layout of the primary armament as well as other improvements rather than trying to make/implement larger caliber weapons built to deal with other nations ships such as their super dreadnoughts. Personally I think the 1917 refit would be the best version to put into the game in order to allow the ship to have a AA capability as even in its late war refit its AA defenses are still quite weak compared to many cruisers in the game.

 

I would also like to thank WayOfTheWolk for helping to clarifying some of the information on the ships anti air armament configurations.

 

Post Is subject to change

Sources:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Bayern

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayern-class_battleship

 

http://www.virtualdockyard.co.uk/0-PLANS-PAGES/SMS BADEN.html  (this link also provides the structural layout of Baden that I have not included in here to save space)

 

 

Image sources:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Bayern

 

https://www.naval-encyclopedia.com/ww1/germany/bayern-class-battleships

 

http://www.scapaflowwrecks.com/wrecks/other/bayern.php

 

http://www.virtualdockyard.co.uk/0-PLANS-PAGES/SMS BADEN.html

 

Armor layout image

 

https://www.pngegg.com/en/search?q=lead+Ship

 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2021 by de Radio Demon@live

[ItssLuBu 1,798]

Approved and open for discussion. 

[WayOfTheWolk 1,573]

The Bayern class was originally planned to have eight 8.8cm SK L/45 Flak guns but these reduced to two AA guns only ever installed in 1917. For the sake of the game Gaijin could just follow the original design plans and add the eight planned AA guns despite not being historically accurate.

Edited January 9, 2021 by WayOfTheWolk

[de Radio Demon@live 266]

46 minutes ago, WayOfTheWolk said:

The Bayern class was originally planned to have eight 8.8cm SK L/45 Flak guns but these reduced to two AA guns only ever installed in 1917. For the sake of the game Gaijin could just follow the original design plans and add the eight planned AA guns despite not being historically accurate.

Thank you for clearing things up, I will make sure to edit the post however I will leave the post generally as is.

[Milocat 4,850]

+1, would be a great battleship to add for the German naval tree.

[WayOfTheWolk 1,573]

On 09/01/2021 at 17:49, de Radio Demon@live said:

Thank you for clearing things up, I will make sure to edit the post however I will leave the post generally as is.

You need to update your second question as it is still showing incorrect data. 

[de Radio Demon@live 266]

On 18/01/2021 at 07:18, WayOfTheWolk said:

You need to update your second question as it is still showing incorrect data. 

After checking the poll options again if found that the 4 8.8cm flak gun option was a little off as it seem to indicate that only Bayern got 4 8.8cm flak guns and that the Baden never got the refit Bayern received hence why their is shown to be 2 torpedo tubes shown however for Bayern that had them removed seems to indicate that all of them were removed but Baden still has 2 so I doubt the others were also removed from Baden. I have changed the answer for Baden from "pre 1917 Baden refit" to "Baden as commissioned" and have clarified in the weapons section on what ship received which.

 

Also I have added a part that is more of an assumption as it seems that each flak gun had 200 rounds per gun so I have changed the ammo count number on the basis of the different amount of 8.8cm flak guns.

 

If there is anything else that seems to be incorrect please do point it out specifically so I may be able to correct it with a soon as possible with more ease so I may be able to look into it and confirm the information whether it is incorrect or not.

 

Once again I thank you for pointing this out especially the part on mentioning the error since Baden never hit a mine in 1917 that I accidentally said in the poll itself.

[Stuhlfleisch 3,762]

Yes please, especially now with the SMS Kaiser coming to War Thunder, the SMS Bayern and Baden are probably quite close!

[CokeSpray 7,272]

Suggestion passed to the developers for consideration.

[leroyonly 4,310]

As the Bayern-class has been implemented with update 2.17 Danger Zone,

 

Moved to Implemented Suggestions.