This book is the first to tell the full story of the capital ships of the Imperial German Navy (1871–1918), which began its history with a handful of foreign-built ironclads, and ended it with the second largest battlefleet in the world, a fleet that would be all but vanished a year later. Covering both battleships and what would be classified in Germany as ‘large cruisers’ (armoured- or battle-cruisers in British parlance), it weaves an illustrated history of the technical evolution and modification of these ships into that of the Imperial Navy itself, including overviews of operations involving capital ships and the damage suffered by them. It concludes with the demise of the Imperial battlefleet, examining its dissolution by scuttling and scrapping, and traces the careers of its handful of survivors until the very last one departed for the scrap yard in 1973, two years after what would have been the Imperial Navy’s centenary.
This narrative is supplemented by an extensive summary of the technical details, careers and fates of the ships in question, accompanied by sketches showing the arrangements of armour and machinery spaces, and the evolution of ships’ external appearances, thus providing the most comprehensive account of these vessels ever attempted in the English language.
To buy a copy of The Kaiser’s Battlefleet, please go to https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Kaisers-Battlefleet-ePub/p/12844 or
Please click on image of front cover below to download a PDF of corrections and additions.
