SMS Magdeburg ("His Majesty's Ship Magdeburg") was the lead ship of the Magdeburg class of light cruisers in the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy). Her class included three other ships: Breslau, Strassburg, and Stralsund. Magdeburg was built at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen from 1910 to August 1912, when she was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet. The ship was armed with a main battery of twelve 10.5 cm SK L/45 guns and had a top speed of 27.5 knots (50.9 km/h; 31.6 mph). Magdeburg was used as a torpedo test ship after her commissioning until the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, when she was brought to active service and deployed to the Baltic. In the Baltic, Magdeburg fired the first shots of the war against the Russians on 2 August, when she shelled the port of Libau. She participated in a series of bombardments of Russian positions until late August. On the 26th, she participated in a sweep of the entrance to the Gulf of Finland; while steaming off the Estonian coast, she ran aground off the island of Odensholm and could not be freed. A pair of Russian cruisers appeared and seized the ship. Fifteen crew members were killed in the brief engagement. They recovered three intact German code books, one of which they passed to the British. The ability to decrypt German wireless signals provided the British with the ability to ambush German units on several occasions during the war, including the Battle of Jutland. The Russians partially scrapped Magdeburg while she remained grounded before completely destroying the wreck.
Design
The Magdeburg-class cruisers were designed in response to the development of the British Invincible-class battlecruisers, which were faster than all existing German light cruisers. As a result, speed of the new ships had to be increased. To accomplish this, more powerful engines were fitted and their hulls were lengthened to improve their hydrodynamic efficiency. These changes increased top speed from 25.5 to 27 knots (47.2 to 50.0 km/h; 29.3 to 31.1 mph) over the preceding Kolberg-class cruisers. To save weight, longitudinal framing was adopted for the first time in a major German warship design. In addition, the Magdeburgs were the first cruisers to carry belt armor, which was necessitated by the adoption of more powerful 6-inch (150 mm) guns in the latest British cruisers.
Magdeburg was 138.7 meters (455 ft 1 in) long overall and had a beam of 13.5 m (44 ft 3 in) and a draft of 4.4 m (14 ft 5 in) forward. She displaced 4,535 t (4,463 long tons) normally and up to 4,570 t (4,500 long tons) at full load. The ship had a short forecastle deck and a minimal superstructure that consisted primarily of a conning tower located on the forecastle. She was fitted with two pole masts with platforms for searchlights. Magdeburg had a crew of 18 officers and 336 enlisted men. Her propulsion system consisted of three sets of Bergmann steam turbines driving three screw propellers. They were designed to give 25,000 shaft horsepower (19,000 kW), but reached 29,904 shp (22,299 kW) in service. These were powered by sixteen coal-fired Marine-type water-tube boilers, although they were later altered to use fuel oil that was sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. The boilers were vented through four funnels located amidships. These gave the ship a top speed of 27.6 knots (51.1 km/h; 31.8 mph). Magdeburg carried 1,200 t (1,181 long tons) of coal, and an additional 106 t (104 long tons) of oil that gave her a range of approximately 5,820 nautical miles (10,780 km; 6,700 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph). The ship was armed with a main battery of twelve 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/45 guns in single pedestal mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle, eight were located on the broadside, four on either side, and two were side by side aft. The guns had a maximum elevation of 30 degrees, which allowed them to engage targets out to 12,700 m (13,900 yd). They were supplied with 1,800 rounds of ammunition, for 150 shells per gun. She was also equipped with a pair of 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes with five torpedoes; the tubes were submerged in the hull on the broadside. She could also carry 120 mines. Magdeburg was protected by a waterline armor belt and a curved armor deck. The deck was flat across most of the hull, but angled downward at the sides and connected to the bottom edge of the belt. The belt and deck were both 60 mm (2.4 in) thick. The conning tower had 100 mm (3.9 in) thick sides.
Service history
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