SMS Posen

Posen underway, 1910
History
German Empire
Namesake	Province of Posen[1]
Builder	Germaniawerft, Kiel
Laid down	11 June 1907
Launched	12 December 1908
Commissioned	31 May 1910
Decommissioned	16 December 1918
Stricken	5 November 1919
Fate	Ceded to Great Britain 1920. Scrapped 1922
General characteristics
Class and type	Nassau-class battleship
Displacement	Normal: 18,873 t (18,575 long tons) Full load: 21,000 t (21,000 long tons)
Length	146.1 m (479 ft 4 in)
Beam	26.9 m (88 ft 3 in)
Draft	8.9 m (29 ft 2 in)
Installed power	12 × water-tube boilers 22,000 PS (21,700 ihp; 16,180 kW)
Propulsion	3 × triple-expansion steam engines 3 × screw propellers
Speed	Designed: 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph) Maximum: 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Range	At 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph): 8,300 nmi (15,400 km; 9,600 mi)
Complement	Standard: 40 officers, 968 men Squadron flagship: 53 officers, 1,034 men 2nd command flagship: 42 officers, 991 men[a]
Armament	12 × 28 cm (11 in) SK L/45 guns 12 × 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns 16 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns 6 × 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes
Armor	Belt: 300 mm (11.8 in) Turrets: 280 mm (11 in) Deck: 80 mm (3.1 in) Conning Tower: 400 mm (15.7 in)

SMS Posen^[b] was one of four battleships in the Nassau class, the first dreadnoughts built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine). The ship was laid down at the Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel on 11 June 1907, launched on 12 December 1908, and commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 31 May 1910. She was equipped with a main battery of twelve 28 cm (11 in) guns in six twin turrets in an unusual hexagonal arrangement.

The ship served with her three sister ships for the majority of World War I. She saw extensive service in the North Sea, where she took part in several fleet sorties. These culminated in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, where Posen was heavily engaged in night-fighting against British light forces. In the confusion, the ship accidentally rammed the light cruiser SMS Elbing, which suffered serious damage and was scuttled later in the night.

The ship also conducted several deployments to the Baltic Sea against the Russian Navy. In the first of these, Posen supported a German naval assault in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga. The ship was sent back to the Baltic in 1918 to support the White Finns in the Finnish Civil War. At the end of the war, Posen remained in Germany while the majority of the fleet was interned in Scapa Flow. In 1919, following the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow, she was ceded to the British as a replacement for the ships that had been sunk. She was then sent to ship-breakers in the Netherlands and scrapped in 1922.

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