page_title: Odin-class coastal defense ship
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Odin-class coastal defense ship / Design
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Seitenriss des deutschen Küstenpanzerschiffes SMS Siegfried im Zustand von 1890 mit der von 1878 bis 1895 gültigen Farbgebung von steuerbord.
context_page_description: The Odin class was a pair of coastal defense ships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the late 19th century. The class comprised two ships: Odin, named after the Norse god Odin, and Ägir, named after the Norse god of the same name. The ships were very similar to the preceding Siegfried-class coastal defense ships, and are sometimes considered to be one class of ships.
  Like the preceding Siegfried-class ships, Odin and Ägir were obsolete by the time World War I had started. Regardless, they were still used in their primary role until 1915, at which point they were withdrawn from active service. The ships performed a variety of secondary duties until the end of the war. On 17 June 1919, both ships were struck from the naval register and sold to the A. Bernstein Company in Hamburg. The shipping company had the ships rebuilt as freighters; Odin served in this capacity until she was scrapped in 1935, however Ägir accidentally grounded near the Karlsö lighthouse on the island of Gotland in 1929 and proved to be a total loss.
context_section_description: In the late 1880s, the German Kaiserliche Marine grappled with the problem of what type of capital ship to build in the face of limited naval budgets (owing to parliamentary objections to naval spending and the cost of dredging the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal). General Leo von Caprivi, the new Chef der Admiralität (Chief of the Admiralty), requested a series of design proposals, which ranged in size from small 2,500-long-ton (2,500 t) coastal defense ships armed with a battery of two 21 cm (8.3 in) guns to heavily-armed 9,800-long-ton (10,000 t) ocean-going battleships equipped with seven 30.5 cm (12 in) guns. Caprivi ordered ten coastal defense ships to guard the entrances to the canal, since even opponents of the navy in the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) agreed that such vessels were necessary. The initial design, the Siegfried class, was based on the smallest proposal but scaled up to add a third main battery gun, the caliber of which was increased from 21 cm to 24 cm (9.4 in). Two of these guns were carried in shielded barbettes side-by-side forward, as German naval theorists still favored ramming attacks that required a capability for end-on fire.
  By the time the next group of ships were to be ordered to complete Caprivi's program in 1892, naval theorists had shifted away from end-on attacks toward traditional line-ahead tactics that required a heavy broadside. At the same time, the German navy had begun building the Brandenburg-class battleships that reflected this evolution in naval thinking. Caprivi had resigned in 1889, and following a reorganization of the German naval command structure by Kaiser Wilhelm II, Friedrich von Hollmann, the State Secretary of the Reichsmarineamt (RMA), was now in control of naval construction. Hollmann considered proposals to redesign what was to become the Odin class into a more traditional pre-dreadnought arrangement: a fourth 24 cm gun would be added, but rather than the individual barbettes, the guns would be carried in a pair of twin-gun turrets, one forward and one aft. The full length belt armor would be reduced to a short belt capped with armored transverse bulkheads to offset the weight of the additional gun. New, more effective Krupp armor would be employed to save weight as well, since less steel could be used to achieve the same level of protection.
  The RMA initially planned to build four of the ships to complete the ten that the Reichstag had authorized. The proposal came to nothing, however, as the cost of the Brandenburgs proved to be twenty-five percent higher than expected. As a result, the seventh and eighth coastal defense ships—Odin and Ägir—were built to a modified version of the Siegfried design that incorporated the modified armor layout, along with other minor changes that included the installation of military masts and the omission of anti-torpedo nets. The ninth and tenth vessels, provisionally named W and X were slated for the 1893–1894 budget year but were rejected by the Reichstag.
caption: Illustration of Siegfried as originally configured
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