German battleship Schlesien

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Career

Ordered:
Laid down:	1905
Launched:	1906
Commissioned:	1908
Fate:	Blown up by her crew at Swinemünde in 1945 or sunk by Soviet bombers
General Characteristics
Displacement:	13,200t standard; 14,218t full load
Dimensions:	127.6 m x 22.2 m x 7.7 m
Armament (in 1939):	Four 280 mm (2×2) Twelve 150 mm Four 88 mm Four 37 mm (2×2) Three 20 mm cannon Four machine guns
Aircraft:	No
Propulsion:	19,330 hp = 19.1 kts
Crew:	743

SMS Schlesien was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Deutschland class, commissioned in 1908 into the German Imperial Navy. Her sisters were SMS Deutschland, SMS Hannover, SMS Pommern and SMS Schleswig-Holstein. Being thoroughly obsolete, she was one of three old ships of the line, along with Schleswig-Holstein and Hessen, that Germany was permitted to retain after the end of World War I, under the terms of Versailles Treaty. She was used thereafter mainly as a training ship, but did see some action in World War II providing artillery support to German land forces in the Baltic. She took part in the attack against Poland on 1 September 1939, along with her sister Schleswig-Holstein. She was mined and scuttled at the end of World War II, used as a target by the Soviets after the war, and finally broken up between 1949-56, although remnants of her were still visible till the 1980s.