SMS Brandenburg

Lithograph of SMS Brandenburg in 1902
History
German Empire
Name	Brandenburg
Namesake	Province of Brandenburg
Builder	AG Vulcan Stettin
Laid down	May 1890
Launched	21 September 1891
Commissioned	19 November 1893
Fate	Scrapped in 1920
General characteristics
Class and type	Brandenburg-class battleship
Displacement	Normal: 10,013 t (9,855 long tons) Full load: 10,670 t (10,500 long tons)
Length	115.7 m (379 ft 7 in) loa
Beam	19.5 m (64 ft)
Draft	7.6 m (24 ft 11 in)
Installed power	12 × Scotch marine boilers 10,000 metric horsepower (9,900 ihp)
Propulsion	2 × screw propellers 2 × triple-expansion steam engines
Speed	16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph)
Range	4,300 nautical miles (8,000 km; 4,900 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	38 officers 530 enlisted men
Armament	4 × 28 cm (11 in) MRK L/40 caliber guns 2 × 28 cm (11 in) MRK L/35 caliber guns 8 × 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/35 guns 8 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/30 guns 3 × 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes
Armor	Belt: 400 mm (15.7 in) Barbettes: 300 mm (11.8 in) Deck: 60 mm (2.4 in)

SMS Brandenburg^[a] was the lead ship of the Brandenburg-class pre-dreadnought battleships, which included Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, Weissenburg, and Wörth, built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the early 1890s. She was the first pre-dreadnought built for the German Navy; earlier, the navy had only built coastal defense ships and armored frigates. The ship was laid down at the AG Vulcan dockyard in 1890, launched on 21 September 1891, and commissioned into the German Navy on 19 November 1893. Brandenburg and her three sisters were unique for their time in that they carried six heavy guns instead of the four that were standard in other navies. She was named after the Province of Brandenburg.

Brandenburg served with I Division during the first decade of her service with the fleet. This period was generally limited to training exercises and goodwill visits to foreign ports. These training maneuvers were nevertheless very important to developing German naval tactical doctrine in the two decades before World War I, especially under the direction of Alfred von Tirpitz. The ship saw her first major deployment in 1900, when she and her three sister ships were deployed to China to suppress the Boxer Uprising. In the early 1900s, all four ships were heavily rebuilt. She was obsolete by the start of World War I and only served in a limited capacity, initially as a coastal defense ship. In December 1915, she was withdrawn from active service and converted into a barracks ship. Brandenburg was scrapped in Danzig, after the war, in 1920.
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