The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Germany Battleship Westfalen

Laid down on August 12, 1907, launched on July 1, 1908 and commissioned on November 16, 1909, Westfalen carried a main armament of twelve 11 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. Westfalen was a member of the four-ship Nassau battleship class that was powered by coal-fired expansion engines because the more modern steam turbines were not yet available in Germany. The ships in this class were the first German "dreadnoughts." The Germans decided that their 11 inch gun was a match for the British 12 inch gun (which it really was not, although it did have a higher rate of fire) and settled on the smaller weapon for their earliest "dreadnoughts." The ship’s name is the German version of "Westphalia," one of the German states that make up modern Germany. During the war, Westfalen was involved in a number of sorties including the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916, where she was involved in a confused night action after the main battle and slightly damaged by one cruiser shell hit. On August 19, 1916, she was torpedoed by the British submarine E-23 and required two months of repairs. In February 1918, she participated in the liberation of Finland from the disintegrating Russian Empire. In September, she was withdrawn from the High Seas Fleet to serve as a gunnery training ship. After the Armistice, she was deleted on November 5, 1919 and the hulk was scrapped in Great Britain during 1924.

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