SMS Scharnhorst[a] was an armored cruiser of the Imperial German Navy, built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. She was the lead ship of her class, which included SMS Gneisenau. Scharnhorst and her sister were enlarged versions of the preceding Roon class; they were equipped with a greater number of main guns and were capable of a higher top speed. The ship was named after the Prussian military reformer General Gerhard von Scharnhorst and commissioned into service on 24 October 1907.
Scharnhorst served briefly with the High Seas Fleet in Germany in 1908, though most of this time was spent conducting sea trials. She was assigned to the East Asia Squadron based in Qingdao, China, in 1909. After arriving, she replaced the cruiser Fürst Bismarck as the squadron flagship, a position she would hold for the rest of her career. Over the next five years, she went on several tours of various Asian ports to show the flag for Germany. She frequently carried the squadron commanders to meet Asian heads of state and was present in Japan for the coronation of the Taishō Emperor in 1912.
After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, accompanied by three light cruisers and several colliers, sailed across the Pacific Ocean to the southern coast of South America. On 1 November 1914, Scharnhorst and the rest of the East Asia Squadron encountered and overpowered a British squadron at the Battle of Coronel. The defeat prompted the British Admiralty to dispatch two battlecruisers to hunt down and destroy the German squadron, which they accomplished at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914. The discovery of the wreck was announced in December 2019 by Mensun Bound.
^Rüger, p. 160.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
SMSScharnhorst was an armored cruiser of the Imperial German Navy, built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. She was the lead ship of her...
commanding the German squadron of two armoured cruisers, SMSScharnhorst and Gneisenau, the light cruisers SMS Nürnberg, Dresden and Leipzig, and the colliers...
Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst (12 November 1755 – 28 June 1813) was a Hanoverian-born general in Prussian service from 1801. As the first Chief...
his flag on the armored cruiser Scharnhorst, and departed on a tour of the southwest Pacific along with Scharnhorst's sister ship Gneisenau, during which...
commanding the armoured cruisers SMS Gneisenau and SMSScharnhorst and three light cruisers SMS Emden, SMS Nürnberg, and SMS Leipzig won the battle by defeating...
SMS Gneisenau was an armored cruiser of the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy), part of the two-ship Scharnhorst class. Named for the earlier screw...
in suppressing the Boxer Uprising before being replaced in 1909 by SMSScharnhorst. Modernized upon arriving in Germany, she acted in a coast-defense...
22 September 1914, during World War I. The German armoured cruisers SMSScharnhorst and Gneisenau entered the port of Papeete on the island of Tahiti and...
to attack British and Allied shipping. He had with him SMSScharnhorst, SMS Gneisenau and SMS Emden and was quickly joined by Nurnberg and two auxiliary...
where Invincible and Inflexible sank the German armoured cruisers SMSScharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau almost without damage to themselves, despite numerous...
of five modern vessels (the armoured cruisers SMSScharnhorst and Gneisenau and the light cruisers SMS Dresden, Leipzig and Nürnberg), led by officers...
commissioned in 1905 and 1906, at costs around 17 million marks each. SMSScharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau followed, between 1904 and 1908, and cost an estimated...
2019, search teams from Seabed Constructor located the wreckage of SMSScharnhorst, the flagship of the German Empire's East Asia Squadron during World...
battleships of Germany for detailed listings H class Bismarck class Scharnhorst class L 20e α class Bayern class König class Kaiser class Helgoland class...
the occupation and hastened to Samoa with the armored cruisers SMSScharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau, arriving off Apia on 14 September 1914. He determined...
HMS Monmouth in the Battle of Coronel by the German armoured cruisers SMSScharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau. Her entire complement of 900 was lost. 900 Navy 1918...
needed] At the Battle of Coronel, the German armored cruisers SMSScharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau scored a resounding victory over British naval forces...
depths up to 6,000 m. He eventually located the squadron's flagship, SMSScharnhorst, in April 2019, 105 years after her sinking. Discovery Channel has...
the occupation, he hastened to Samoa with the armoured cruisers SMSScharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau. Arriving at Apia on 14 September, the approach of the...
Global Information
German Empire