Scharnhorst steaming at high speed, c. 1907–08
|Namesake:||Gerhard von Scharnhorst|
|Laid down:||22 March 1905|
|Launched:||23 March 1906|
|Commissioned:||24 October 1907|
|Fate:||Sunk in action, Battle of the Falkland Islands, 8 December 1914|
|Class and type:||Scharnhorst-class armored cruiser|
|Displacement:||12,985 t (12,780 long tons)|
|Length:||144.6 m (474 ft 5 in)|
|Beam:||21.6 m (70 ft 10 in)|
|Draft:||8.37 m (27 ft 6 in)|
|Speed:||22.5 knots (41.7 km/h; 25.9 mph)|
SMS Scharnhorst ("His Majesty's Ship Scharnhorst")[a] was an armored cruiser of the Imperial German Navy, built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. She was the lead ship of her class, which included SMS Gneisenau. Scharnhorst and her sister were enlarged versions of the preceding Roon class; they were equipped with a greater number of main guns and were capable of a higher top speed. The ship was named after the Prussian military reformer General Gerhard von Scharnhorst and commissioned into service on 24 October 1907.
Scharnhorst served briefly with the High Seas Fleet in Germany in 1908, though most of this time was spent conducting sea trials. She was assigned to the German East Asia Squadron based in Tsingtao, China, in 1909. After arriving, she replaced the cruiser Fürst Bismarck as the squadron flagship, a position she would hold for the rest of her career. Over the next five years, she went on several tours of various Asian ports to show the flag for Germany. She frequently carried the squadron commanders to meet with Asian heads of state and was present in Japan for the coronation of the Taishō Emperor in 1912.
After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, accompanied by three light cruisers and several colliers, sailed across the Pacific Ocean, to arriving off the southern coast of South America. On 1 November 1914, Scharnhorst and the rest of the East Asia Squadron encountered and overpowered a British squadron at the Battle of Coronel. The defeat prompted the British Admiralty to dispatch two battlecruisers to hunt down and destroy von Spee's squadron, accomplished at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914.
Scharnhorst was 144.6 meters (474 ft 5 in) long overall and had a beam of 21.6 m (70 ft 10 in) and a draft of 8.37 m (27 ft 6 in). The ship displaced 11,616 tonnes (11,433 long tons) as designed and 12,985 t (12,780 long tons) at deep load. She was powered by three triple-expansion steam engines with eighteen coal-fired water-tube boilers. Her engines were rated at 25,644 indicated horsepower (19,123 kW), for a top speed of 22.5 knots (41.7 km/h; 25.9 mph). Scharnhorst's crew consisted of 52 officers and 788 enlisted men; of these, 14 officers and 62 enlisted men were assigned to the squadron commander's staff and were additional to the standard complement.
Scharnhorst's primary armament consisted of eight 21 cm (8.2 inch) SK L/40 guns,[b] four in twin gun turrets, one fore and one aft of the main superstructure, the other four mounted in single-gun wing turrets. Secondary armament included six 15 cm (5.9 inch) SK L/40 guns in casemates and eighteen 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/35 guns mounted in casemates. She was also equipped with four 45 cm (18 in) submerged torpedo tubes. One was mounted in the bow, one on each broadside, and the fourth was placed in the stern. The ship's armored belt was 15 cm thick and the gun turrets had 18 cm (7.1 in) thick faces. Her deck was 3.5 to 6 cm (1.4 to 2.4 in) thick, with the heavier armor protecting the ship's engine and boiler rooms and ammunition magazines.
Named for Generalleutnant (Lieutenant General) Gerhard von Scharnhorst, a Prussian military reformer during the Napoleonic Wars, Scharnhorst was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany on 22 March 1905, with the construction number 175. She was launched on 23 March 1906, and Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) Gottlieb Graf von Haeseler gave a speech and christened the ship at her launching ceremony. She was commissioned into the fleet a year and a half later on 24 October 1