German cruiser Emden
| Career | ||
|---|---|---|
| Ordered: | 1921 | |
| Laid down: | December 1921 | |
| Launched: | January 1925 | |
| Commissioned: | October 1925 | |
| Decommissioned: | April 1945 | |
| Fate: | Scuttled May 1945 | |
| General Characteristics | ||
| Displacement: | 5400 tons | |
| Length: | 156 meters | |
| Beam: | 14,30 meters | |
| Draught: | 5,80 meters | |
| Propulsion: | Steam turbines, 2 shafts, 4 boilers, 46,500 shp /34,000 kW (after refit in 1934) | |
| Speed: | 29 knots | |
| Range: | 5,200 nautical miles at 18 knots | |
| Complement: | 630 | |
| Armament (1934): | 8 x 6-in guns
2 x 88mm AA-Guns 4 x 37mm AA-Guns 8 X 20mm AA-Guns 2 x 2 533mm Torpedo-Tubes | |
The German light cruiser DKM Emden was the only ship of it's class. The 3rd cruiser to bear the name Emden was the first new Warship build in Germany after World War I.
Ordered in 1921 the construction was delayed first by allied objections to the design and then by the German hyperinflation in 1923.
The original design had the 8 6-inch guns installed in four twin-turrets and would have made Emden one of the most advanced cruisers of it's time. But the Treaty of Versailles forbid the developement of new weapons, including new turrets. Like most navys the German Navy had never before used twin-turrets for such small guns, all previous designs were made for 8-inch guns or larger and were to heavy for a 6000-tons cruiser as allowed by the Treaty. This forced a redesign of the ship to the less effective single-gun turrets, making Emden look a lot like her predecessors.
On January 6th 1925 the ship was finally launched and commisioned October 15th 1925.
Used primarily as a training vessel Emden made several cruises into the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean between 1926 and 1939.
On September 4th 1939 the ship was damaged in a british air-raid on Wilhelmshafen,as a Bristol Blenheim bomber attacking the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer was hit by AA-Fire and crashed into the foreship, killing the first 9 german sailors of World War II.
After repairs Emden participated in laying minefields in the North Sea for the rest of 1939. In invasion of Norway (Operation Weserübung) it was part of the ill-fated Kriegsschiffgruppe 5, tasked with taking Oslo. It was the only cruiser of the group still operational at the end of the campaign, as the flagship Blücher had been sunk by coastal batteries and the pocket battleship Lützow (ex-Deutschland) had been torpedoed by a british submarine.
Emden spent the rest of the War in the baltic, mostly doing training-cruises. From January 1945 on it helped evacuating german troops and civillians from the cut-off East Prussia to northern-germany and Denmark, including the coffins of Paul von Hindenburg and his wife.
In the night from April 9th to April 10th Emden was severely damaged in an air-attack at Kiel. It was towed with 15°-list into the Heikendorfer Bucht and beached on April 14th.
Decommissioned on April 26th the ship was scuttled with explosives on May 3rd. The remnants were broken up after the War
External links
In german:
Categories: World War II German cruisers