Armoured Cruiser Blücher

German Armored Cruiser Blücher from World War One, which sunk in the battle of the Dogger Bank 1915.
History, development, service, specifications and pictures

Armoured cruiser Blücher
The design of the armored cruiser ‘Blücher’ stemmed from a clever deception by the British, who gave out that the new ‘Invincible’ class were to be conventional cruisers mounting 9.2-inch guns. The Germans built ‘Blücher’ with a much superior armament.

SMS Blücher affords a prime example of a misfit warship produced rapidly to meet a mistakenly perceived threat from a rival power.

History

The British built their first battle-cruisers in great secrecy, referring to them (deliberate­ly misleadingly) as ‘armored cruis­ers’.
Of the latter, true current examples were displacing upwards of 13,500 tons, with a mix of 233.7- and 190.5-mm (9.2- and 7.5-in) guns, and it was easy to make the Germans accept the idea of a 16,000-tonner with eight 233.7-mm guns when, in fact, the ‘In­vincibles’ were to be 17,230-tonners with eight 304.8-mm (12-in) guns.

Committed to ‘reply’, the uncertain Germans prudently laid down a ‘one­-off’, the Blücher. By adopting a 12-gun main battery, set in a six-turret hex­agonal layout similar to that of the con­temporary ‘Nassau’ class battleships, her designers expected a broadside advantage: not only did their 210-mm (8.27-in) gun out range the British 233.7­mm guns, but the available eight-gun broadside weighed nearly 1,134 kg (2,500 lb) against the 862 kg (1,900 lb) of the five 233,7-mm guns expected to bear in a single-gun layout.

On their part the British, stimulated by their own devoutness, credited the Blücher with more than she had. As late as 1908 the authoritative Brassey’s Naval Annual, though properly report­ing six turrets, listed them as being four twin and two single 280-mm (l1.02-in) mountings, tempering this with the observation that eight guns of this size ‘at most’ should be expected on the displacement.

Even when the true nature of the ‘Invincibles’ was known, the Germans had little choice but to complete the ship a super armored cruiser with full length belt, two protective decks and a speed of 26 kts. Unfortunately, the Blücher‘s size found her tied to Hip­per’s battle-cruiser force despite the fact that her speed and armament were inferior to those of her com­panies. At the Dogger Bank in 1915 she was placed at the tail of the fleeing German line, slowing it down. As Beat­ty’s ships came into range their 304.8­-mm shells, impacting at steep angles, drilled through both protective decks to guarantee her destruction.


Specifications Armored Cruiser Blücher

Specification:

Blücherspecification
Displacement 15,500 tons standard
Dimensions length 161,61 m (530,22 ft)
Dimensions beam 24,52 m (80.45 ft)
Dimensions draught 8,07 m (26,48 ft)
Propulsion 3 sets of triple­expansion steam engines delivering 32,811 kW (44,000 ihp) to three shafts
Speed26 kts
Main Armament 12 x 21O-mm (8.27-in) guns
Secondary Armament 8 x 150-mm (5.91-in), 16 x 88-mm (3.46­-in) guns
Torpedo tubes 3 x 450-mm (17.72-in)
Armour belt 185 mm (7.28 in) tapering to 90 mm (3.54 in)
Armour upper protective deck 36 mm (1.38 in)
Armour lower protective deck 50 mm (1.97 in)
Armour barbettes 150 mm (5.91 in)
Complement850


References and literature

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War I (Chris Bishop)
An Illustrated History of the Weapons of World War One (Ian Westwell)
Jane’s Fighting Ships of Word War I
The Illustrated Directory of Warships from 1860 to the present day (David Miller)
Atlas zur Seefahrts-Geschichte (Christopher Loyd)
Seemacht – eine Seekriegsgeschichte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Elmar B. Potter, Admiral Chester W.Nimitz)


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