The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Germany Battleship Markgraf

Laid down in November 1911, launched on June 4, 1913 and commissioned on October 1, 1914, Markgraf 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 centerline turret that could fire to both sides. Markgraf was a member of the four-ship Konig battleship class that was the first to be powered by advanced coal-fired turbine engines with oil-fired supplementary burners. Lacking the wing turrets of earlier classes, the ships of this class had room for a double torpedo bulkhead on both sides for superior underwater protection. The name was a title in the old Holy Roman Empire that had once covered most of the territory of the German Empire. At the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916, she suffered four hits from the 15 inch guns of Warspite and Malaya and a 12 inch shell hit from Agincourt but remained in action with eleven casualties, requiring only seven weeks for her repairs after the action. Following the Armistice, she was interned at Scapa Flow from November 26, 1918. In common with most of the German ships interned there, Markgraf was scuttled by her own crew on June 21, 1919. She remained in Scapa Flow, basically undisturbed for many years, until salvage rights were acquired by a Scottish company in 1962.

See other battleships: Grosser Kurfurst, Friedrich der Grosse, Bibliography