The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Germany Battleship Ostfriesland

Laid down on October 19, 1908, launched on September 30, 1909 and commissioned on August 1, 1911, Ostfriesland carried a main armament of twelve of the new 12 inch main guns mounted two per turret; one centerline forward, one centerline aft and one wing turret on each side that could fire to the side and forward and one wing turret on each side that could fire to the side and aft. This was the same "hexagonal" turret layout, with the larger new gun, as in the previous Nassau class. Ostfriesland was a member of the four-ship Helgoland battleship class that was powered by coal-fired expansion engines that also had oil-fired supplementary burners installed after 1914. The German 12 inch gun, first used with the Helgoland class, was mounted in anticipation of the new 13.5" gun being mounted in the British Orion class. A superior weapon to the then-standard 12 inch gun mounted in contemporary British capital ships, the German 12 inch gun had a very high muzzle velocity which caused high gun wear and lower reliability compared to the British 13.5 inch gun. The Ostfriesland name commemorated a section of Germany that borders on the North Sea. During the war, Ostfriesland was involved in the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916, where she was not hit but was damaged by a mine during the return voyage on the next day. After the Armistice, she was deleted on November 5, 1919 and allotted to the United States as reparations and renamed Battleship H . The ship, referred to as "unsinkable" in the newspapers of the day, was expended as a bombing target off Virginia’s Cape Henry on July 20 and 21, 1921 to help General "Billy" Mitchell make his case for aircraft versus capital ships.

See other German battleships: Nassau, Friedrich der Grosse, Bibliography