NAVYPEDIA

Ships

Name	No	Yard No	Builder	Laid down	Launched	Comp	Fate
Mackensen		240	Blohm & Voss, Hamburg	30.1.1915	21.4.1917	---	sold incomplete 11.1919
Graf Spee		958	Schichau, Danzig	30.11.1915	15.9.1917	---	sold incomplete 11.1919
Ersatz Freya (planned Prinz Eitel Friedrich)		241	Blohm & Voss, Hamburg	1.5.1915	13.3.1920	---	BU 1921
Ersatz A (planned Fürst Bismarck)		35	Wilhelmshaven KW	3.11.1915	---	---	sold incomplete 11.1919

Technical data

Displacement normal, t	31000
Displacement full, t	35300
Length, m	223.0
Breadth, m	30.4
Draught, m	8.40 mean 9.30 deep load
No of shafts	4
Machinery	Mackensen, Graf Spee, Ersatz Freya: 4 Marine steam turbines, 32 Marine boilers Ersatz A: 4 sets Marine geared steam turbines, 32 Marine boilers
Power, h. p.	90000
Max speed, kts	28
Fuel, t	coal 4000 + oil 2000
Endurance, nm(kts)	8000(14)
Armour, mm	belt: 300 - 100, bulkheads: 250 - 100, deck: 80, turrets: 320 - 110, barbettes: 290 - 90, casemates: 150, CT: 350 - 100
Armament	4 x 2 - 350/42 SK L/45 C/14, 14 x 1 - 149/42 SK L/45 C/09, 8 x 1 - 88/45 FlaK L/45 C/13, 5 - 600 TT (1 bow, 4 beam)
Complement	1186

Standard scale images

Project history

These ships would have differed from previous bait lee misers in having a full length forecastle deck and a return was made to twin instead of tandem rudders. They would have been handsome ships with tripod foremast and 2 funnels. Mackensen was laid down under the 1914-15 programme, Ersatz Freya under the War estimates and the others were ordered in April 1915. It was originally hoped to complete them from the summer of 1917 to the autumn of 1918, and their 35cm guns would have made them formidable antagonists. Ersatz Freya was to have been named Prinz Eitel Friedrich; Ersatz A, later known as Ersatz Friedrich Carl, was to have been named Fürst Bismarck.

The main armament was arranged as in Hindenburg and the Drh LC/14 mountings allowed 20° elevation, while the 15cm were in a long upper deck battery extending from the forward turret to the after super-firing one. The 5 TT would have been arranged with one in the bows and two on either broadside forward and aft of the torpedo bulkhead.

The boilers comprised 24 single-ended coal-fired and 8 double-ended oil-fired, and were smaller than in the previous ships. Leak pumps were increased to 8 from 5 in Hindenburg.

Ship protection

The 300mm main belt ran from 3m forward of the fore turret to 3m abaft the after one and tapered to 150mm at the lower edge and 240mm at the upper deck. Forward and aft the armour stopped short of the ends and was respectively 120mm and 100mm. The barbettes were reduced to 120mm (Ersatz A 150mm) behind the battery armour and lo 90mm behind the main belt, while the turrets had 320mm faces, 200mm sides, 220mm rears, 180-110mm roofs except that in Graf Spee the figures were 300mm, 200mm, 210mm, 150-100mm. The armour deck did not extend outboard of the torpedo bulkhead amidships where it was 60-30mm with 50mm forward and 110-80mm aft. The upper deck was 25mm over the main belt and the forecastle deck 50-25mm over the battery. The torpedo bulkhead was 50mm increased to 60mm by the turrets, and continued as a 30mm splinter bulkhead to the upper deck.