page_title: Wittelsbach-class battleship
section_title: Service history
hierarchical_section_title: Wittelsbach-class battleship / Service history
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Linienschiff "SMS Wittelsbach" Linienschiff "S.M.S. Wittelsbach", Flaggschiff der Wittelsbach-Klasse in Fahrt auf See, Ansicht der Backbord-Seite
context_page_description: The Wittelsbach-class battleships were a group of five pre-dreadnought battleships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the early 1900s. They were the first battleships ordered under the Second Navy Law of 1898, part of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz's fleet expansion program. The class comprised the lead ship, Wittelsbach, and Wettin, Zähringen, Schwaben, and Mecklenburg. All five ships were laid down between 1899 and 1900 and were finished by 1904. The ships of the Wittelsbach class were similar in appearance to their predecessors in the Kaiser Friedrich III class, but had a more extensive armor belt and a flush main deck, as opposed to the lower quarterdeck of the previous class. Both classes carried a battery of four 24 cm guns in two twin-gun turrets.
  Wittelsbach, Wettin, Mecklenburg, and Zähringen served in I Squadron for the duration of their peacetime careers, where they were primarily occupied with training exercises and cruises abroad. Schwaben was used as a training ship to modernize the training unit of the German fleet.
caption: SMS Wittelsbach, c. 1902
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