BADEN

Sister ships:  BAYERN

Notes:  An improvement on the preceding KÖNIG class, with a direct jump from 12" to 15" main battery guns (without the intervening 13.8" guns as had occurred in the battlecruisers), due to the German staff learning of the British plans for the 15"-gunned QUEEN ELIZABETH class.  Actually, the BAYERN class most closely resembles the ROYAL SOVEREIGN class, with the same caliber and layout of guns and very similar standards of protection.  As with most German ships of the period, they had a relatively low freeboard; adequate for operations in the North Sea, but they would have been very wet ships if they had ventured into the Atlantic.  They were the first German capital ships to be fitted with tripod masts.  A combination of coal-fired and oil-fired boilers were used (11 and three, respectively), and the coal-fired boilers also had the ability to use oil sprays.  Both ships achieved 22 knots on trials.  Upon acceptance, BADEN replaced FRIEDRICH DER GROSSE as fleet flagship.  Following World War I, BADEN was not among the ships to be surrendered under terms of the Armistice, but was substituted for the incomplete battlecruiser MACKENSEN, and arrived at Scapa Flow on 14 December 1918.  Scuttling with the rest of the High Seas Fleet was unsuccessful on 21 June 1919, as British boarding parties managed to beach her; following repairs, BADEN was towed to Portsmouth.  Following extensive tests of her armor and guns, BADEN was used as a target ship by the Royal Navy, and sunk as a target for battleships on 16 August 1921.

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