SMS König Wilhelm
SMS König Wilhelm (King William) was an armored frigate of the Prussian and later the German Imperial Navy. The ship was laid down in 1865 at the Thames Ironworks shipyard in London, originally under the name Fatih for the Ottoman Empire. She was purchased by Prussia in February 1867, launched in April 1868, and commissioned into the Prussian Navy in February 1869. The ship was the fifth ironclad ordered by the Prussian Navy, after Arminius, Prinz Adalbert, Friedrich Carl, and Kronprinz. She was built as an armored frigate, armed with a main battery of sixteen 24 cm (9.4 in) and five 21 cm (8.3 in) guns; several smaller guns and torpedo tubes were added later in her career.
König Wilhelm in Gravesend, England | |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Operators | |
| Preceded by | Kronprinz |
| Succeeded by | Hansa |
| History | |
| Prussia; Germany | |
| Name | SMS König Wilhelm |
| Namesake | Wilhelm I, King of Prussia |
| Builder | Thames Iron Works, Leamouth, London |
| Laid down | 1865 |
| Launched | 25 April 1868 |
| Commissioned | 20 February 1869 |
| Stricken | 4 January 1921 |
| Fate | Broken up, 1921 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Type | Armored frigate |
| Displacement | |
| Length | 112.2 m (368 ft 1 in) |
| Beam | 18.3 m (60 ft) |
| Draft | 8.56 m (28 ft 1 in) |
| Installed power | list error: mixed text and list (help) 8,000ihp |
| Propulsion | |
| Sail plan | 2,600 m2 (28,000 sq ft) |
| Speed | 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) |
| Range | 1,300 nmi (2,400 km; 1,500 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Crew |
|
| Armament |
|
| Armor |
|
The ship was for a time the largest and most powerful warship in the German navy; she served as its flagship during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871, though engine troubles prevented the ship from seeing action. In 1878, the ship accidentally rammed and sank the ironclad Grosser Kurfürst, with great loss of life. König Wilhelm was converted into an armored cruiser in 1895–1896; by early 1904, however, she had been superseded by newer vessels. In May of that year, she was placed out of active service and used as a floating barracks and training ship, a role she held through World War I. In 1921, the ship was ultimately broken up for scrap, after a career spanning 52 years and three German states.