page_title: SMS Odin
section_title: Service history
hierarchical_section_title: SMS Odin / Service history
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: ODIN (German coast defense battleship, 1894-1919) Caption: Photo by Arthur Renard, Kiel, 1899, taken before reconstruction of 1901-1903.
context_page_description: SMS Odin was the lead ship of her class of coastal defense ships built for the Imperial German Navy. She had one sister ship, Ägir. Odin, named for the eponymous Norse god, was built by the Kaiserliche Werft Danzig shipyard between 1893 and 1896, and was armed with a main battery of three 24-centimeter guns. She served in the German fleet throughout the 1890s and was rebuilt in 1901–1903. She served in the VI Battle Squadron after the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, but saw no action. Odin was demobilized in 1915 and used as a tender thereafter. After the war, she was rebuilt as a merchant ship and served in this capacity until 1935, when she was broken up for scrap.
context_section_description: Odin was laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft shipyard in Danzig in 1893, launched on 3 November 1894, and completed on 7 July 1896, after which sea trials commenced. She was commissioned into the German fleet on 22 September 1896. She served in the fleet for her entire peacetime career. Odin participated in the 1900 summer fleet exercises, where she served in the squadron that simulated the German navy, alongside the recently-commissioned battleship Kaiser Friedrich III and the coastal defense ship Frithjof.
  In 1901, Odin was taken in hand at the Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig for an extensive reconstruction. Her old boilers were replaced with eight new Marine type boilers and her length was increased to 86.15 m (282.6 ft). This increased her displacement to 4,376 t (4,307 long tons; 4,824 short tons) at full load. The lengthened hull, which improved her hydrodynamic shape, and the improved boilers increased her speed by a full knot, to 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph). Her coal storage was increased to 580 t (570 long tons; 640 short tons), which allowed her to steam for an additional 800 nmi (1,500 km; 920 mi). The modernization work was completed by 1903, at which point she returned to active service.
  At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Odin was assigned to VI Battle Squadron, along with her sister Ägir and the six Siegfried-class coastal defense ships. The squadron was disbanded on 31 August 1915 to free up the ships' crews for more important tasks. Odin was thereafter used as a tender in Wilhelmshaven through to the end of the war. She was stricken from the naval register on 6 December 1919 and sold. In 1922, she was rebuilt as a merchant ship at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Rüstringen. She was operated by A. Bernstein Co., out of Hamburg. She continued in this role until 1935, when she was broken up for scrap.
caption: Odin in 1899 before her reconstruction
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