The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Germany Battleship Grosser Kurfurst

Laid down in October 1911, launched on May 5, 1913 and commissioned on July 30, 1914 (one day before the Great War started), Grosser Kurfurst carried a main armament of ten 12 inch main guns mounted two per turret; two superfiring centerline forward, two superfiring centerline aft and one amidships turret that could fire to both sides. Grosser Kurfurst was a member of the four-ship Konig battleship class that was powered by advanced coal-fired turbine engines with oil-fired supplementary burners. Without the wing turrets of earlier classes, the ships had room for a double torpedo bulkhead, greatly increasing their ability to absorb underwater hits. The name refers to the "Great Elector" of the Holy Roman Empire. At the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916, she suffered eight hits from the mighty 15 inch guns of Warspite and Malaya but continued in action with 15 casualties, requiring six weeks for her repairs after the battle. On a November 5, 1916 sortie to the west coast of Denmark, she and her sister ship Kronprinz were torpedoed by the British submarine J-1 and both survived. On March 5, 1917, she collided with her sister ship Kronprinz (later renamed Kronprinz Wilhelm on January 27, 1918). In October 1917, she struck a mine off the Baltic Islands but again got home under her own power, despite serious damage. After the Armistice, she was interned at Scapa Flow from November 26, 1918. In common with most of the rest of the German ships interned there, her own crew scuttled Grosser Kurfurst on June 21, 1919. Raised in 1935, she was scrapped at Rosyth.

See other German battleships: Friedrich der Grosse, Kaiser, Markgraf