SMS Kaiser Barbarossa

Kaiser Barbarossa
History
Germany
NameKaiser Barbarossa
NamesakeFrederick I Barbarossa
BuilderSchichau, Danzig
Laid down3 August 1898
Launched21 April 1900 (21 April 1900)
Commissioned10 June 1901
Stricken6 December 1919 (6 December 1919)
FateScrapped in 1920
General characteristics
Class and typeKaiser Friedrich III-class pre-dreadnought battleship
Displacement
Length125.3 m (411 ft 1 in)
Beam20.4 m (66 ft 11 in)
Draft7.89 m (25 ft 11 in)
Installed power
Propulsion
Speed17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 mph)
Range3,420 nmi (6,330 km; 3,940 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement
  • 39 officers
  • 612 enlisted
Armament
Armor

SMS Kaiser Barbarossa[a] was a German pre-dreadnought battleship of the Kaiser Friedrich III class. The ship was built for the Imperial Navy, which had begun a program of expansion at the direction of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Construction took place at Schichau, in Danzig. Kaiser Barbarossa was laid down in August 1898, launched on 21 April 1900, and commissioned in June 1901. The ship was armed with a main battery of four 24-centimeter (9.4 in) guns in two twin-gun turrets.

Kaiser Barbarossa served with the German navy from her commissioning in 1901, though her active career was limited by two lengthy stays in dry dock. The first was for repairs following damage to her rudder in 1903, which lasted until early 1905, and the second for a major modernization, which began immediately after the conclusion of repair work in 1905 and lasted until late 1907. She returned to service for another two years, before being decommissioned in 1909 and placed in the Reserve Division. She continued to participate in fleet training exercises for the next three years.

Following the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Kaiser Barbarossa and her sisters were mobilized as coastal defense ships in V Battle Squadron and assigned to the North and Baltic Seas. She saw no combat during the war and, due to a shortage of crews, the ships were withdrawn from active duty in February 1915 and relegated to secondary duties. Kaiser Barbarossa was briefly used as a torpedo target ship for most of 1915 and thereafter spent the remainder of the war as a prison ship in Wilhelmshaven. Following the end of the war in 1918, Kaiser Barbarossa was decommissioned and sold for scrap metal. The ship was broken up in 1919–20.
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