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Nassau-class battleships

Initial design work on a follow-on class to the Deutschlands predated knowledge of HMS Dreadnought's existence. The first sketches showed transitional designs with 4 280mm and 8 240mm guns, but soon grew to an all big-gun type with 12 280mm guns; a medium battery of 12 150mm guns was retained however, because the Germans expected to fight in foggy weather conditions at relatively short ranges against an enemy with swarms of light craft. The final design of the Nassau-class suffered from its bulky VTE machinery, which necessitated grouping the turrets hexagonally around the engines, having only four out of six turrets available for broadside fire. Top speed was only marginally less than Dreadnought's at 20kts, but could only be sustained for a short time. They also had cramped accomodation and were heavy rollers, so bilge keels had to be retrofitted at the earliest opportunity. On the plus side, they were well protected (not against plunging shells, but these were not seen as a major threat by anyone in 1906) and very hard to sink due to much tighter internal compartmentalization than found on other ships of that era.

All four were laid down in 1907, when HMS Dreadnought was already in service. The first pair - Nassau and Westfalen - commissioned in 1910, the other two - Rheinland and Posen - in 1910. Posen was fitted as flagship, but that could not be told from the outside. This is how they looked in 1909/10:





All four ships differed only slightly. The most marked difference was the huge w/t rig on Nassau and Westfalen, which was less pronounced on the other two; Westfalen could be further distinguished by her sister on account of the additional storey of the deckhouse abaft the forefunnel, while Nassau had a somewhat more complex type of steam crane. Further differences existed in the shape of the forward 88mm gun positions in the hull and under the bridge, which were not alike on any of the four ships. Posen and Rheinland had differently shaped masts with the signals rig fitted lower than on the other two. They were particularly hard to distinguish from each other. Although they had identical lower hulls, they were considered better seaboats than their sisters; the reason for this eludes me. The prewar funnel bands are based on existing photographs, although sources are somewhat conflicting. This might result from mislabeled photos, a common occurrence in this era.

All received bilge keels soon after completion; the big w/t rig was removed from Westfalen in 1911 and from Nassau in 1915 (although one source says it was the other way around). All received torpedo nets before the war.


The class took part in the battle of Jutland, where they remained mostly unscathed. Posen sunk two RN destroyers and accidentally rammed the German light cruiser Elbing, sinking her. Rheinland took part in the sinking of HMS Black Prince, but was hit back by her two times. Together with Westfalen, she accounted for another British destroyer; Westfalen and Nassau together sank another one. This is how the class looked at Jutland:





Afterwards, the class saw much less action. Rheinland and Westfalen ferried troops to Finland to aid the Finnish Whites in the local civil war in late February 1918; on the return leg, Rheinland ran aground and had to have her entire side armour and all heavy guns removed before salvage was possible. Her hull was badly damaged, and she was eventually treated as a constructive total loss. The other three survived the war and were ceded to the Allies by the Treaty of Versailles. Being clearly obsolete, they were scrapped forthwith. Irritatingly, I have not been able to locate a photograph of any of these ships which is reliably dated to 1918; by that time, they are reported to have all but two 88mm guns and the torpedo nets landed, but other modifications are not known (at least to me); in particular, I can't say whether they received life rafts like the other German dreadnoughts. The last drawing is therefore somewhat conjectural.


Anyone with better information step forward and be assured of my eternal gratitude!

Greetings
GD

Sir, you are awesome.

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Epic! The gold lettering of your name is well-deserved indeed!

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A lot of detail around main mast & aft mast need to be corrected

Excellent series GD

Wow! Fantastic series!

This is a truly fantastic series, these look really great.

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Here's a link to the description of the truly dreadful fate of HMS Black Prince: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5336&start=20 Aside from being simply and absolutely terrific drawings regardless of what Mike says in his dreary comments, GD, your Jutland versions would really benefit from having the Colors hoisted. But I know we differ on this subject so...

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nice work, love them

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Martin

~~Normerr~~FD stuff~~

Hello again and thanks everybody

Especially Mike for the late-war pix. I have altered Westfalen's 1918 guise (obseration post forward moved up, another one aft added, life rafts added), so that drawing should no longer be provisional.

Greetings
GD