page_title: Siegfried-class coastal defense ship
section_title: Armament
hierarchical_section_title: Siegfried-class coastal defense ship / Design / Armament
caption_attribution_description: Kaiserliche Marine HEIMDALL und SIEGFRIED in der Elbmündung , Chromo-Lithographie von C. Saltzmann 95, nr6 aus G. Wislicenus, Unsre Kriegsflotte.
context_page_description: The Siegfried class was a group of six coastal defense ships built by the German Kaiserliche Marine in the late 19th century. The ships were intended to protect the German coastline from naval attacks. The class comprised the lead ship Siegfried, along with her sisters Beowulf, Frithjof, Heimdall, Hildebrand, and Hagen. All six ships were named after Norse mythological figures. Two further vessels, the Odin class, were built to a similar design but were not identical.
  The Siegfried-class ships were obsolete by the outbreak of World War I, and saw only limited service in their intended role before they were withdrawn from active duty. The ships then served in a variety of secondary duties, including barracks ships, target ships, and in the case of Beowulf, an icebreaker in the Baltic Sea. All six ships were struck from the naval register on 17 June 1919, days before the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Five of the ships were sold for scrapping immediately after they were struck from the register, but Frithjof was purchased by a shipping company, and converted into a freighter. She served in this capacity until she too was scrapped in 1930.
context_section_description: The ships' primary armament consisted of three 24 cm K L/35 guns. In an arrangement very unusual for such large guns, two of which were mounted in a pair of MPL C/88 turrets forward side-by-side, while the third was mounted in a single turret aft. The guns could train 150 degrees to either side of the centerline, and depress to −4 degrees and elevate to 25 degrees. This enabled a maximum range of 13,000 m (43,000 ft). The guns had an ammunition storage of 204 rounds, or 68 shells per gun. The guns had a rate of fire of around 2 shells per minute. The 1895 design for the armor-piercing shell weighed 140 kg (310 lb).
  The ships also had a secondary battery of eight 8.8 SK L/30 guns with 1,500 rounds of ammunition, though Siegfried only had six of these guns. After the refit, this was increased to ten 8.8 cm guns, and the munition storage correspondingly increased to 2,500 rounds. The 8.8 cm gun fired a 10 kg (22 lb) projectile at a muzzle velocity of 590 m/s (1,936 m/s). The guns could sustain a rate of fire of approximately 15 rounds per minute. Six machine guns were temporarily fitted.
  The ships were also equipped with four 35 cm (14 in) torpedo tubes. One tube was mounted in the stern in an above-water swivel mount, two were placed laterally, also above water, and the fourth was in the bow. The torpedo tubes were supplied with a total of 10 torpedoes. After the refit, the stern and lateral tubes were replaced with 45 cm (18 in) weapons, but the lateral torpedo tubes were submerged. They had 8 torpedoes between them. The bow tube was retained, but also moved below the waterline; it had three torpedoes.
caption: Painting of Heimdall and Siegfried underway
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