Wiesbaden-class cruiser
The Wiesbaden class of light cruisers was a class of ships built by the German Kaiserliche Marine shortly before the outbreak of World War I. Two ships were built in this class, and. They were very similar to the preceding design, the, though they were armed with eight 15 cm SK L/45 guns instead of the twelve 10.5 cm SK L/45 guns on the earlier vessels. The ships had a top speed of.
Wiesbaden saw only one major action, the Battle of Jutland, on 31 May - 1 June 1916. She was badly damaged and immobilized during the battle and became the center of a melee as both sides fought over the crippled ship. She eventually sank in the early morning hours of 1 June, with only one survivor. Frankfurt was only lightly damaged at Jutland and saw extensive service with the II Scouting Group, including during Operation Albion against the Russians in the Baltic and at the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight, both in 1917. She was interned with the rest of the fleet at the end of the war and scuttled at Scapa Flow, though British sailors prevented her from sinking. Frankfurt was ceded to the US Navy as a war prize and eventually expended as a target in July 1921.
Design
Dimensions and machinery
The ships were long at the waterline and long overall. They had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft. They displaced as designed and at full load. The hull were built with longitudinal steel frames and contained seventeen watertight compartments and a double bottom that extended for forty-seven percent of the length of the keel. Steering was controlled by a single rudder. Wiesbaden and Frankfurt had a crew of 17 officers and 457 enlisted men. They carried a number of smaller craft, including one picket boat, one barge, one cutter, two yawls, and two dinghies.Their propulsion systems consisted of two sets of Marine steam turbines driving two screw propellers. They were designed to give. These were powered by ten coal-fired Marine-type water-tube boilers and two oil-fired double-ended boilers. These gave the ship a top speed of. The ships of the class carried of coal, and an additional of oil that gave them a range of at. At, the cruising radius dropped significantly, to. Wiesbaden was equipped with a pair of turbo generators and one diesel generator rated at a combined at 220 Volts. Frankfurt only had the two turbo generators, which provided.
Armament and armor
The ships of the Wiesbaden class were armed with a main battery of eight SK L/45 guns in single pedestal mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle, four were located amidships, two on either side, and two were placed in a superfiring pair aft. The guns could engage targets out to. They were supplied with 1,024 rounds of ammunition, for 128 shells per gun. The ships' antiaircraft armament initially consisted of four L/55 guns, though these were replaced with a pair of SK L/45 anti-aircraft guns. The ships were also equipped with four torpedo tubes with eight torpedoes. Two were submerged in the hull on the broadside and two were mounted on the upper deck amidships. They could also carry 120 mines.Wiesbaden and Frankfurt were protected by a waterline armored belt that was thick amidships; the belt was reduced to forward. The stern was not armored. The conning tower had thick sides and a thick roof. The rangefinder atop the conning tower had worth of armor protection. The deck was covered with 60 mm thick armor plate forward, amidships, and 20 mm aft. Sloped armor 40 mm thick connected the deck to the belt armor. The main battery gun shields were thick.