ZAHRINGEN

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Zahringen was one of five Mecklenburg Class battleships built starting in 1899. Like the German pre-dreadnoughts that came before them, and unlike the ones that came after them, they compared poorly to foreign contemporaries. Their main guns were small compared to British ships of the same period, so they had short active careers. Unsuitable even for coast defense or secondary roles, they had all been relegated to subsidiary duties as stationary harbor craft after only about 10 years.

Zahringen was used as a drill ship at Kiel from 1914 to 1916, and as a stroker's training ship until 1918. At war's end she was not one of the 6 obsolete pre-dreadnought battleships assigned to the German Navy as coast defense vessels, but because of her age and condition Germany was allowed to retain her anyway. Obsolete even before the war, Zahringen was much more a liability to the fleet than an asset. Expensive to operate, crew intensive, and dangerously outdated, she was retained only as a stationary hulk, continuing her job training boiler operators and firemen. On March 11, 1920, the money-starved German Navy struck her from the Navy List. She languished in Kiel harbor for years, one step away from the breaker's torch. But in 1926, she was selected for reactivation- not as a fighting unit, but for conversion into a target vessel.

Zahringen's main turrets were removed, as were all weapons, and almost all of the superstructure. The armor protection on her decks was increased, cork filled unused compartments, and internal subdivision was improved. Many of her boilers were removed, necessitating the retention of only one funnel. Rudder and machinery controls were converted to radio control. Her center propeller, shaft, and engine were removed, and the boilers were replaced by two oil-fired Marine-type. The complete conversion took almost a year and a half, and in late 1927 the ship returned to service, with a crew of 67 officers and men, a displacement reduced to 11,800 tons, and a speed of 13.5 knots.

With her retained main armor belts and reinforced decks, Zahringen was able to resist practice bombs dropped from level and dive bombers, and live shells from small guns up to 6" in caliber fired from shore batteries and other ships. Practice torpedoes were also fired directly at her, while larger caliber shells were aimed at towed sleds. In either case, Zahringen was remotely controlled via radio from another ship, and would perform evasive maneuvers, vary her speed, and even generate smokescreens, giving gunners, pilots, and torpedo men a realistic training opportunity.

The old battleship served in this role for 17 years, until being struck by British bombers at Gdynia on December 18, 1944. The old ship burned out and sank in shallow water. The hulk was refloated, and scuttled at the harbor entrance on March 26, 1945. The ship was broken up in place 1949-50.

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