SMS Odin SMS " Odin " was the lead ship of her class of coastal defense ship s ( " Küstenpanzerschiffe " ) built for the German Imperial Navy . She had one sister ship , . " 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 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 . Design . " Odin " was long overall and had a beam of and a maximum draft of . She displaced at full combat load . Her propulsion system consisted of two vertical 3 - cylinder triple expansion engines . Steam for the engines was provided by four coal - fired boilers . The ship ' s propulsion system provided a top speed of . She carried of coal , which gave her a range of approximately at . " Odin " had a crew of 20 officers and 256 enlisted men . The ship was armed with three 24 cm K L / 35 guns mounted in three single gun turret s . Two were placed side by side forward , and the third was located aft of the main superstructure . They were supplied with a total of 204 rounds of ammunition . The ship was also equipped with ten 8 . 8 cm SK L / 30 guns in single mounts . " Odin " also carried three torpedo tube s , two in swivel mounts on the deck amidships and one in the bow , submerged below the waterline . The ship was protected by an armored belt that was thick amidships , and an armored deck that was thick . The conning tower had thick sides . Service history . " 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 and the coastal defense ship . 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 . This increased her displacement to at full load . The lengthened hull , which improved her hydrodynamic shape , and the improved boilers increased her speed by a full knot , to . Her coal storage was increased to , which allowed her to steam for an additional . 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 the VI Battle Squadron , along with her sister and the six s . 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 . Footnotes . Notes