1902 PRINZ ADALBERT. Leader of a small class of armoured cruisers constructed just after the turn of the twentieth century for the Imperial German Navy.
THE PRINZ ADAIJBERT CLASS
The German armoured cruisers formed a neat, evolutionary pattern, each new class of two ships being no more than a slight improvement on that which had gone before. The Prinz Adalberts (and the two Roons which came straight after) were thus little better than the Furst Bismarck and the Prinz Heinrich which preceded them, while the later Scharnhorsis were no great improvement. Five of the eight were sunk before the end of 1915. SMS Prinz Adalbert was constructed at Kiel naval dockyard. Laid down in 1900 as Heavy Cruiser B, she was launched on 22 June 1901 and commissioned on 12 January 1904. She was sunk in the Baltic by the British submarine E8 on
23 October 1914, with the loss of 672 men.
MACHINERY AND PROTECTION
All but one of the German armoured cruisers had three-shaft machinery, the centre shaft driving a smaller three-bladed propeller with four-bladed screws on the wing shafts. The three triple-expansion engines were fed by fourteen coal-fired boilers. The Prinz Adalberfs hull protection consisted of 100mm (4in) -thick Krupp armour laid over 50mm (2in) of teak in a belt covering the central citadel; torpedo protection was minimal double skinning, with cork-filled cofferdams.
TECHNICAL DATA
Type: Armoured cruiser
Machinery: 3-shoft, vertical triple-expansion engines producing 1 8,500ihp
Dimensions (overall): Length, 126.5ni (415.3ft); beam, 19.6m (64.3ft)
Displacement: 8900t standard; 9700t full load
Draught: 7.8m (25.5ft) full load
Complement: 586
Speed: 20.5 knots (38km/h)
