 Lithograph of Mecklenburg from 1902
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| History | |
|---|---|
 German Empire | |
| Name | Mecklenburg |
| Namesake | House of Mecklenburg |
| Builder | AG Vulcan Stettin |
| Laid down | 15 May 1900 |
| Launched | 9 November 1901 |
| Commissioned | 25 June 1903 |
| Decommissioned | 24 January 1916 |
| Stricken | 25 January 1920 |
| Fate | Scrapped in 1921 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Wittelsbach-class pre-dreadnought battleship |
| Displacement | |
| Length | 126.80 m (416 ft) |
| Beam | 22.80 m (74 ft 10 in) |
| Draft | 7.95 m (26 ft 1 in) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion |
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| Speed | 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) |
| Range | 5,000 nautical miles (9,300 km; 5,800 mi); 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement |
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| Armament |
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| Armor | |
SMS Mecklenburg ("His Majesty's Ship Mecklenburg")[a] was the fifth ship of the Wittelsbach class of pre-dreadnought battleships of the German Imperial Navy. Laid down in May 1900 at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland), she was finished in May 1903. Her sister ships were Wittelsbach, Zähringen, Wettin, and Schwaben; they were the first capital ships built under the Navy Law of 1898, championed by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Mecklenburg was armed with a main battery of four 24-centimeter (9.4 in) guns and had a top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph).
Mecklenburg spent the early period of her career in I Squadron of the German fleet, participating in the peacetime routine of training cruises and exercises. After World War I began in August 1914, the ship was mobilized with her sisters as IV Battle Squadron. She saw limited duty in the Baltic Sea against Russian naval forces, and as a guard ship in the North Sea. The German High Command withdrew the ship from active service in January 1916 due to a threat from submarines and naval mines, together with severe shortages in personnel. For the remainder of her career, Mecklenburg served as a prison ship and as a barracks ship based in Kiel. She was stricken from the navy list in January 1920 and sold for scrapping the following year.
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