Ultimately, both ships were lost in action by early 1942. The three ships had originally been ordered as additions to the Mackensen class, but developments abroad, particularly the British Renown -class battlecruisers, led to the navy re-designing the ships. The first heavy cruiser of the German line, Yorck is a radical change from her predecessors at Tiers V and VI... so much so that she is often a badly maligned and misunderstood ship. With fuel stores topped off, the ships were estimated to have been able to steam for 5,500 nautical miles (10,200 km; 6,300 mi) at a cruising speed of 14 kn (26 km/h; 16 mph). As the preceding County class cruisers had virtually no armour, protection was added into the design and included a 3-inch-thick (76 mm), 8-foot-deep (2 m) main belt and an armoured lower deck joining at its top edge. The Ersatz Yorck class was a group of three battlecruisers ordered but not completed for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in 1916. The Construction Department accordingly rushed to redesign the vessels to equip them with 38 cm guns, but the work was hampered by the fact that the navy had already ordered the machinery and armor plate for the ships, and work on the materials had already begun. By this time, much of the construction resources of the German Navy had been redirected to the U-boat fleet, so the new ships could not be completed before 1920; as a result, the Mackensens would be inferior to the latest American and British designs. The guns had to be returned to 2.5 degrees to reload them. Compared to the County's, the Yorks saved 1,750 tons in net weight, but the reductions in cost of £250,000 and manpower of 50 was something of an uneconomical saving. Their slightly greater size reduced their speed somewhat, from 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph) in the Mackensen-class ships to 27.3 knots (50.6 km/h; 31.4 mph) for the new vessels. New Yorck captains will immediately notice the change in the main battery. The Royal Navy had a need for smaller cruisers than the County class, the largest design possible under the Washington limits, in order that more could be built under the strict defence economies of 1920s Britain. Another meeting on 24 August concluded that all seven ships of the Mackensen class would be built as designed, the General Navy Department noting that they would "still undoubtedly represent a very valuable addition to the fleet in 1919. [8], The Ersatz Yorck-class battlecruisers were to be armed with a main battery of eight 38 cm (15 in) SK L/45 guns in four Drh LC/1913 twin-gun turrets;[b] this was identical to the main armament carried by the Bayern-class battleships. [16], The contracts for the ships had originally been allocated while still members of the Mackensen class. The torpedoes were the H8 type, which were 9 m (30 ft) long and carried a 210 kg (463 lb) hexanite warhead. The two cruisers turn tail and run, screaming for help. No work was done on Ersatz Scharnhorst before the ships were cancelled. On 19 April, the Construction Department submitted several design proposals, including GK1, GK2, and GK3. The guns were placed in MPL C/13 mountings, which allowed depression to −10 degrees and elevation to 70 degrees. The torpedoes had a range of 8,000 m (8,700 yd) when set at a speed of 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph); at a reduced speed of 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph), the range increased significantly to 15,000 m (16,000 yd). The Ersatz Yorck-class ships' hulls were to have been constructed with longitudinal steel frames with the outer plating riveted on. The transmitting station was also covered by 1in armour. She was designed in the interwar period for the Reichsmarine (which later became the Kriegsmarine) as one of the possible heavy cruiser designs that would later become the Deutschland Class Cruisers. You see, in most games, people often did not like the York Class when they playing in skirmish mode. [2], See also: List of ships of the Imperial German Navy. Warning: Display title "York class cruiser" overrides earlier display title "York-class cruiser". [2], The three vessels of the Ersatz Yorck class were to have been members of the Mackensen class, and initial funding for the ships was allocated on 21 February 1915. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. These included a significant reduction in smoke interference with the spotting tops and additional room to move the tripod mast further aft, which reduced the risk of the mast falling on the conning tower in the event of battle damage and increased the field of view from the spotting top. The Yorck is a paper ship that was never built. 14 new cruisers. Intended ammunition stowage for the Ersatz Yorck class was 720 shells or 90 rounds per gun; these were 750-kilogram (1,650 lb) shells that were light for guns of their caliber. York used the Mark II mounting, which was intended to be 20 tons lighter than the Mark I mounting used on the earlier County class ships; however, in fact it turned out to be heavier. In both designs the turrets were arranged in two superfiring pairs, one forward and the other aft. A 45 mm (1.8 in) torpedo bulkhead ran the length of the hull, several meters behind the main belt. Scrapped February 1952. This marked a significant increase over the Mackensen design, which displaced 31,000 t (31,000 long tons) as designed; the bulk of the displacement growth was accounted by the heavier main battery, larger, more powerful engines, and additional boilers that provided a speed increase of 1.5 to 2 knots (2.8 to 3.7 km/h; 1.7 to 2.3 mph) over the Mackensens. From 1925 the Royal Navy planned a "Class B" cruiser (as against the 10,000-ton cruisers of Class A, such as the Counties. The RMA initially believed the war would be over quickly, but by early 1915, it had become clear that it would not be the case. [2], The economies in size allowed for a 50-foot (15 m) reduction in length and 9 feet (3 m) in beam over the Counties. Crew 633. [2][5], The ships were never completed, primarily because by 1917, the shipbuilding industry had largely been diverted to support the U-boat Campaign, which had become the priority of the Navy. The so-called "grosskampfschiff" (large combat ship) would simplify construction and design work, but Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Georg Hebbinghaus, the head of the General Navy Department, pointed out that under the German Naval Laws, such a change would not be permitted and that the laws would need to be rewritten to allow the new type. Mainz — German premium Tier VIII cruiser. Both ships served in vigorously in the first few years of World War II. The design speed was 32.5 knots (60.2 km/h), one knot faster than the County class.[3]. Laid down 16th May 1927, launched 17th February 1928, completed 6th June 1930. The rear conning tower was less well armored; its sides were only 200 mm (7.9 in) and the roof was covered with 50 mm (2 in) of armor plate. The Roon class was a pair of armored cruisers built for the German Imperial Navy after the turn of the 20th century. Hebbinghaus pushed for the battlecruisers to be armed with at least 38 cm guns, but preferably 40 cm or even 43 cm (16.9 in) guns. The shells were 45.3 kg (100 lb), and were loaded with a 13.7 kg (30 lb) RPC/12 propellant charge in a brass cartridge. The design studies ultimately demonstrated that the type of ship that Scheer desired was impractical owing to the size limitations imposed by the German Navy's infrastructure, specifically the existing dry docks and the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. The hulls were divided into eighteen watertight compartments. In Imperial German Navy gun nomenclature, "SK" (, The figures listed here are those for the, List of ships of the Imperial German Navy, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ersatz_Yorck-class_battlecruiser&oldid=1000199321, Battlecruisers of the Imperial German Navy, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 14 January 2021, at 02:22. Some consideration was given to the idea that the new battlecruiser design should represent a merging of the battleship and battlecruiser types—what was later termed a "fast battleship"—a concept Wilhelm II had been pushing for years. [2][7], The power plant was rated 90,000 shaft horsepower (67,000 kW; 91,000 PS) and 295 revolutions per minute, the same as the preceding Mackensen-class ships. These guns were intended for defense against torpedo boats, and were supplied with a total of 2,240 shells. Owing to her well-balanced characteristics, the ship surpassed the first generation cruisers of her time, that were subject to the Washington Naval Treaty, in terms of protection, and light cruisers in terms of artillery power. The Reichsmarineamt (RMA – Imperial Naval Office) decided that to meet the requirements set in the 1912 law, the Navy should construct one battleship and one battlecruiser every year between 1913 and 1917, with an additional unit of both types in 1913 and 1916. She augmented the forces assigned to the I Scouting Group , which primarily consisted of the battlecruisers Seydlitz , Moltke , and Von der Tann and the large armored cruiser … [16][c] They had an armor belt that was 300 mm (11.8 in) thick in the central citadel of the ship, where the most important parts of the ship were located. Yorck 20,031 ihp = 21.4 knots Armour: 6in belt, 7in turret faces, 2.5-1.5in decks Armament: 4 x 8.2in 40cal (2 x 2), 10 x 5.9in 40 cal (10 x 1), 14 x 3.45in 35 cal (14 x 1), 4 x 17.7in TT. British naval ship classes of the Second World War, Articles incorporating text from Wikipedia, 0.5 inch Mk.III Vickers (12.7 mm, L/50) machine guns, Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy, https://military.wikia.org/wiki/York-class_cruiser?oldid=2623255, Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls, 8,250 tons standard / 10,350 tons full load, Eight Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers, 1,900 tons oil fuel; 10,000 nmi (20,000 km) at 14 knots (26 km/h), 8,390 tons standard / 10,410 tons full load, Rammed and crippled by two Italian explosive motor boats at. [1] As they were considered replacements for old ships, rather than as new additions to the fleet, they were ordered under provisional names as "ersatz (replacement) [name of the ship to be replaced]". The Panzerschiffe are a special case, as they are not really battleships. The three ships had originally been ordered as additions to the Mackensen class, but developments abroad, particularly the British Renown-class battlecruisers, led to the navy re-designing the ships. German Große Kreuzer SMS Yorck fitting out at Blohm & Voss, Hamburg, on 20 September 1905. These ships provided the transition from the class of battleship to the big cruiser. The big cruiser SMS Yorck belonged to the Roon class, which consisted of only two ships and were built shortly after the turn of the century. The class comprised Roon and Yorck, which closely resembled the earlier Prinz Adalbert-class ships, but incorporated slight incremental improvements. In 1935 she sailed to the Mediterranean, patrolling during the second Italo-Abyssinian War, and in 1939 she was back on the American station. The project of a cruiser with 150 mm guns (cruiser K), which was developed in the mid-1930s on the basis of the Admiral Hipper-class ships, shortly after the construction of the latter began. [2][5], As with all German battlecruisers that had been built, the Ersatz Yorck-class ships would have been equipped with four sets of Parsons steam turbines,[7] each of which drove a 3-bladed screw that was 4.2 m (13 ft 9 in) in diameter. The length and draft were also increased to keep the ships' speed from falling too much. [12][13], As was standard for warships of the period, the Ersatz Yorcks were to be equipped with submerged torpedo tubes. Exeter was ordered two years later and the bridge was redesigned in light of this, being lower, further forward and fully enclosed, as later seen in the Leander and Arethusa classes. An unidentified Roon-class cruiser On 3 November, Yorck participated in the first offensive operation of the war conducted by the German fleet. Kaiser Wilhelm II wanted the next group of battlecruisers to be equipped with 38-centimeter (15 in) guns instead of the 35 cm (14 in) pieces carried by the Mackensens. The second ship of the Roon class, Yorck was built by a private firm instead of a government dockyard like the eponymous ship, and as a result Yorck was commissioned just two months after this photo, whereas Roon was not done until April 1906. The York class was the second and final class of 8-inch (203 mm)–gunned heavy cruisers built for the Royal Navy under the terms of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. Here comes the battlecruiser SMS Yorck of 1920, just after trials and ready for commissioning. They were essentially a reduced version of the preceding County class, scaled down to enable more cruisers to be built from the limited defence budgets of the late 1920s. Admiral Eduard von Capelle replaced Grossadmiral (Grand Admiral) Alfred von Tirpitz as the State Secretary of the RMA on 16 March 1916, which led to questions in the RMA over the three ships. Work on the first ship had already begun by the … [2][5], During the re-design process, Scheer requested that the new ships have increased armament, armor, and speed compared to the first four Mackensens, but owing to the constraints imposed, only the armament could be increased, and the deck armor and speed had to be reduced slightly to keep displacement in check. They were essentially a reduced version of the preceding County class, scaled down to enable more cruisers to be built from the limited defence budgets of the late 1920s. This was primarily due to shifting wartime construction priorities; U-boats were deemed more important to Germany's war effort later in the war, and so work on other types of ships was slowed or halted outright. 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