Magdeburg-class cruisers

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The Magdeburg-class of 1910 - SMS Magdeburg, SMS Breslau, SMS Stralsund and SMS Strassburg - were the world's first light cruisers to be completed with side armour (60mm KC in their case; they narrowly beat the similarly protected British Chatham-class into service). They were also faster than their british contemporaries and considered good sea boats, being the first german cruisers without ram bows. The poop, which featured on all earlier German cruiser classes, was omitted in favour of minelaying rails, making accomodation somewhat more cramped as on the previous Kolberg-class. The four units of the class mounted three different kinds of turbines: Twin shaft Navy (parsons) turbines on Strassburg, triple shaft Bergmann Turbines on Magdeburg and Stralsund, and four shaft Vulcan turbines on Breslau. They entered the war with an armament of 12 105mm guns and two 500mm submerged torpedo tubes, which proved hopelessly inadequate against British 152mm gun armed cruisers. Two units of the class - Stralsund and Strassburg - were refitted with seven 150mm guns, two 88mm flaks and 500mm deck torpedo tubes during the war; Breslau first replaced four of her 105mm guns with two 150mm pieces and later received eight 150mm guns, but no flak and also retained her submerged TT.

SMS Magdeburg was lost in November 1914, when she stranded in the baltic during a mining operation, then was shelled by the Russians and abandoned without destroying the code books, which the Russians later retrieved and gave to the British. Unbelievably, the Germans never changed their encoding system throughout the war, contributing massively to their ultimate defeat.
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This is was SMS Breslau looked upon completion, still with her pre-war funnel identification bands. I found three different photographs labeled 'Breslau' with three different numbers of funnel bands however, so don't take that as gospel; when searching for pictures of WWI-era german ships, you find more wrongly labeled ones as such who got it right. If anyone wonders about Breslau's badge: I tried, really, but failed. I could not do that one justice if my life depended on it. Maybe some of our Heraldics specialists step in...?
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SMS Breslau was caught in the Mediterranean in 1914 together with the battlecruiser SMS Goeben with no hope of returning home; as the British anticipated a German attempt to reach Austria-Hungary, the two german ships sailed for Constantinople and officially sold to the Ottoman Empire in compensation for Britain's confiscation of the Battleships Reshadieh and Sultan Osman i-Evvel (becoming HMS Erin and Agincourt). Once there, they immediately attacked Russia, flying the Turkish flag, although the Ottomans had not declared war on the Russians. Breslau was renamed Midilli (after Mytilini, capital of the island of Lesvos) and took part in a multitude of missions in the Black Sea for the next three years, most of which included fleeing headlong from superior Russian forces who somehow always knew where the German/Ottoman fleet would appear (see Magdeburg above for a possible explanation...). She was repeatedly damaged; early in 1916, she was partly rearmed, swapping her forward and aft pair of 105mm guns for single 150mm pieces.
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During 1917, when Turkey became more easily accessible from Germany after the conquest of Rumania, Midilli received a full complement of eight 150mm guns, but was sunk in January 1918 after striking no less than five mines off Imbros during one of the very few Ottoman advances into the Aegean. She was apparently not repainted in the typical Ottoman Khaki.
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SMS Stralsund took part in most fleet actions early in the war (Helgoland Bight and Doggerbank) and got lucky in both instances, suffering no losses (although she did not accomplish anything either). This is what she looked like at the Dogger Bank.
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The lesson that their armament was hopelessly weak had been learned by the Germans late in 1915, and Stralsund was refitted with seven 150mm guns in mid-1916, causing her to miss Jutland. Her forecastle was extended aft, and she received deck torpedo tubes and flak. Also, her bridge was massively increased in size, her searchlights rearranged and additional deckhouses aft added. Her submerged TTs were removed. Owing to heavy damage to the center turbines, the entire center shaft was removed in 1917, but she was still credited with 27 knots speed afterwards. Drawings show her with the wing shafts lengthened considerably; I have however found no photographic evidence to back this up. After the war, she was ceded to France and commissioned as the Mulhouse. She was stricken in the mid-thirties, but still available as a hulk when the Germans conquered France in 1940; she was scuttled as a blockship in 1944.
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SMS Strassburg was the only unit of the class which spent some time in the Colonies in 1913, and the only one to be painted white-buff; by 1914, she was back in Germany.
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Like Stralsund, she was very active in the North Sea in 1914 and 1915. In 1916, she was refitted in a more austere fashion than Stralsund, receiving the same armament additions and alterations to the forecastle, but retaining her old bridge. She also retained her submerged TT, giving her a total of four 500mm tubes. After her modernization, she belonged to the Baltic fleet and took part in several successful actions against the Russians (numbers and ship quality were so heavily in Germany's favour that superior Russian signals intelligence could not compensate). Like Stralsund, she avoided taking major damage. After the war, she was ceded to Italy and renamed Taranto. She mostly served in Italy's colonies and was still active when the second world war started, although she was only good for 21 knots by that time and no more actively employed. Like many Italian ships, she was scuttled in 1943 by the Italians, salvaged and repaired by the Germans, bombed and sunk again by the Allies, and salvaged again and scrapped.
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As always, further input is appreciated.

Greetings
GD

Shipbucket

Magdeburg-class cruisers

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