NAVYPEDIA

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  Baden 1889  

Ships

Name	No	Yard No	Builder	Laid down	Launched	Comp	Fate
Sachsen		74	Vulcan, Stettin	1875	21.7.1877	20.10.1878	discarded 2.1910
Bayern		3	Kiel KW	1874	13.5.1878	4.8.1881	discarded 2.1910
Württemberg		78	Vulcan, Stettin	1876	9.11.1878	9.5.1881	torpedo training and test ship 1906
Baden		4	Kiel KW	1876	28.7.1880	24.9.1883	discarded 10.1910

Technical data

Displacement normal, t	7677
Displacement full, t	Sachsen: 7935 Bayern: 7742 Württemberg: 7877 Baden: 7938
Length, m	98.2 oa 93.0 wl
Breadth, m	18.4
Draught, m	6.53
No of shafts	2
Machinery	2 HSE, 8 rectangular boilers
Power, h. p.	5000
Max speed, kts	13.5
Fuel, t	coal 700
Endurance, nm(kts)	1940(10)
Armour, mm	wrought iron; citadel: 254 - 203 sides, 152 transverse bulkheads, deck: 75 - 50, barbettes: 254, CT: 140
Armament	6 x 1 - 263/20 RKL/22 C/76, 6 x 1 - 87/22 RKL/24 C/82, 8 x 1 - 37/37 SK L/40
Complement	317

Standard scale images

Graphics

Project history

The Sachsens, classed as armoured corvettes, had a somewhat unusual main armament layout. Two guns were mounted side by side on the forecastle, in a pear-shaped barbette, and the others were mounted in the corners of a square barbette occupying the space just behind the four funnels, also arranged in a square. The patent sandwich wrought iron armour protected the citadel and barbettes.

Ship protection

There was used patented wrought iron sandwich armour. Citadel expanded from underwater hull part till the upper deck and consisted from 254mm (tapered to 203mm near transverse bulkheads) side armour backed by 200mm wood and 152mm transverse bulkheads backed by 230mm wood. Armour deck had 75-50mm thickness. CT had 140mm sides. Barbettes were protected by 254mm iron armour backed by 250mm wood.

Modernizations

1886, all: + 3 - 350 TT (2 bow, 1 stern)

(1896-1897, Germaniawerft, Kiel), Baden; (1895 - 1898, Schichau, Danzig), Bayern; (1897-1899, Kiel KW), Sachsen; (1898-1899, Kiel KW), Württemberg : all wrought iron armour was replaced by Krupp armour, fore CT was replaced by new, with 200mm sides and 50mm roof, new aft CT was mounted, with 15mm sides and 12mm roof. 3-cyl single expansion engines were replaced by 4-cyl compound engines (HCE), rectangular boilers were replaced by 8 Dürr boilers (8 Thornycroft on Württemberg), 6201-6454hp, 14.2-15.7kts, 576-615t of coal, 3000(10)nm. + 8 x 1 - 88/27 SKL/30 C/89, 2 - 450 TT (beam)

Naval service

  All four ships were rebuilt in the second half of the 1890s with Krupp armour replacing the original, the funnels being reduced to one, compound engines fitted to increase the speed by at least a knot and the secondary armament changed to eight 88mm.

In 1906 Württemberg became an experimental and instructional ship for torpedo warfare, with only four 88mm guns but seven 450mm torpedo tubes (1 bow, 4 beam sm and aw, 2 stern). Sachsen and Bayern became target ships in 1911 and were broken up in 1919, while Baden was used as a hulk for boom defence from 1912, relegated to a target ship in 1920, but not scrapped until 1939. Württemberg was broken up in 1920.