Kolberg - class cruiser The " Kolberg " class was a group of four light cruiser s built for the German Imperial Navy and used during the First World War . The class comprised four vessels : , the lead ship , , , and . The ships were built between 1908 and 1910 , and two , " Kolberg " and " Augsburg " , were modernized in 1916 – 1917 . The ships were armed with a main battery of twelve 10 . 5 cm SK L / 45 guns and had a design speed of . The first three ships were assigned to the reconnaissance forces of the High Seas Fleet ; " Augsburg " was instead used as a torpedo and gunnery training ship . At the outbreak of war in August 1914 , " Augsburg " was deployed to the Baltic , while " Kolberg " , " Mainz " , and " Cöln " remained in the North Sea . The three ships were assigned to patrol duty in the Heligoland Bight ; on 28 August 1914 , they were attacked during the Battle of Heligoland Bight . " Mainz " and " Cöln " were both sunk in the battle . " Kolberg " saw action at the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915 , and joined " Augsburg " for the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915 . Both ships also saw service during Operation Albion in October 1917 . Both ships survived the war ; " Kolberg " was ceded to France , where she was renamed " Colmar " and served in the French Navy until 1927 . " Augsburg " was surrendered to Japan and was then sold for scrap . Design . General characteristics . The ships of the " Kolberg " class were long at the waterline and long overall . They had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft . They displaced at designed displacement . " Kolberg " displaced at full combat load ; " Mainz " displaced , " Cöln " displaced , and " Augsburg " displaced . The ships ' were steel - built ; their hulls were constructed with longitudinal and transverse steel frames . The hulls contained thirteen watertight compartments and a double bottom that extended for fifty percent of the length of the keel . The ships were good sea boats , although they suffered from severe rolling and were fairly stiff . They were not very maneuverable and had a large turning radius . Steering was controlled by a single rudder . Their transverse metacentric height was . The ships had a standard crew of 18 officers and 349 enlisted men and carried a number of smaller vessels , including one picket boat , one barge , one cutter , two yawls , and two dinghies . Machinery . All four ships had slightly different propulsion systems in order to test engines from competing companies . " Kolberg " was equipped with two sets of Melms & Pfenniger steam turbines driving four three - bladed propellers in diameter . " Mainz " was powered by two AEG - Curtiss turbines driving a pair of three - bladed screws in diameter . " Cöln " initially had Zoelly turbines , though before sea trials , these were replaced with two sets of Germania turbines with four three - bladed screws ; two were in diameter , and two were wide . " Augsburg " was equipped with two sets of Parsons turbines with four 3 - bladed screws 2 . 25 m in diameter . All four ships were equipped with fifteen Marine type water - tube boilers , divided into four boiler rooms on the centerline . In 1916 , " Kolberg " and " Augsburg " were equipped with supplementary oil - firing to increase the burn rate of the coal - fired boilers ; " Mainz " and " Cöln " had been sunk by that time . The ships ' engines were designed to give , with the exception of " Mainz " s engines , which were rated at . These were powered by fifteen coal - fired Marine water - tube boilers , which were trunked into three evenly - spaced funnels . These gave the ships a top speed of ; " Mainz " s more powerful engines gave her a half - knot speed advantage . All four ships exceeded these figures on speed trials , however , and all four cruisers reached speeds in excess of . " Kolberg " carried of coal , and after 1916 , of oil . This gave her a maximum range of approximately at . " Mainz " carried of coal , which allowed her to steam for at the cruising speed . " Cöln " carried of coal for a cruising radius of . " Augsburg " carried , and had the same radius of action as " Cöln " . Armament and armor . The ships were armed with twelve 10 . 5 cm SK L / 45 guns in single pedestal mounts . Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle , eight were located amidships , four on either side , and two were side by side aft . For " Kolberg " and " Augsburg " , the 10 . 5 cm guns were replaced in 1916 – 1917 with six 15 cm SK L / 45 guns . They also carried four 5 . 2 cm SK L / 55 anti - aircraft guns , though these were replaced on the surviving ships with a pair of two 8 . 8 cm SK L / 45 anti - aircraft guns in 1918 . They were also equipped with a pair of torpedo tube s submerged in the hull . Two deck - mounted torpedo tube launchers were added to " Kolberg " and " Augsburg " in 1918 . All four ships could also carry 100 mines . The ships were protected with a combination of normal steel and Krupp cemented steel ; the armor consisted of a layer of Krupp steel backed with two layers of steel . From stern to stem , the deck was covered with thick armor aft , thick armor plate over the machinery spaces , 20 mm thick armor forward of the machinery spaces , and on the bow . The coaming s for the ships ' funnels were thick . The conning tower had 100 mm thick sides and a 20 mm thick roof . The main battery guns were equipped with shields that were thick . Construction . " Kolberg " was ordered under the contract name " Ersatz " and was laid down in early 1908 at the Schichau - Werke shipyard in Danzig under construction number 814 . She was launched on 14 November 1908 , after which fitting - out work commenced . She was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 21 June 1910 . For the modifications in 1916 – 1917 , " Kolberg " went into drydock at the " Kaiserliche Werft " in Kiel . " Mainz " was ordered as " Ersatz " and was laid down in 1907 at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin . Built under construction number 288 , she was launched on 23 January 1909 , and was commissioned into the fleet on 1 October 1909 . " Cöln " was ordered under the contract name " Ersatz " and was laid down in 1908 at the Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel . Her construction number was 191 . She was launched on 5 June 1909 , and after fitting - out was completed , she was commissioned into the fleet on 16 June 1911 . " Augsburg " was ordered as " Ersatz " from the " Kaiserliche Werft " shipyard in Kiel . Her keel was laid in 1908 under building number 34 . She was launched on 10 July 1909 and was commissioned into the fleet on 1 October 1910 . She returned to the " Kaiserliche Werft " shipyard in Kiel for her modernization in 1916 – 1917 . Service history . After their commissioning , " Kolberg " , " Mainz " , and " Cöln " were assigned to the II Scouting Group , part of the reconnaissance forces of the High Seas Fleet . " Augsburg " was instead used as a training ship for torpedo crews and gunnery . " Cöln " was assigned as the flagship of Rear Admiral Leberecht Maass . At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 , the II Scouting Group was deployed to a patrol line based on the island of Heligoland . " Augsburg " meanwhile was mobilized for active service and sent into the Baltic . There , she participated in an operation that saw the first shots of the war fired against the Russians , on 2 August . On the morning of 28 August , the British Harwich Force , supported by the battlecruiser s of Vice Admiral David Beatty ' s 1st Battlecruiser Squadron , broke into the Heligoland Bight and attacked the II Scouting Group patrols . In the confused action , " Mainz " and " Cöln " were sunk , by light cruisers and battlecruisers , respectively . The majority of crewmen from " Mainz " were picked up by the British ships , but " Cöln " was lost with only one survivor . " Kolberg " was stationed in port during the attack , and steamed out to support the beleaguered German forces , but the British had departed by the time she reached the scene . " Kolberg " continued to serve with the reconnaissance forces in the North Sea , including seeing action at the raid on Scarborough , Hartlepool and Whitby in December 1914 , where she laid a minefield off the British coast , and the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915 . At Dogger Bank , she fired the first shots — and scored the first hits — of the engagement , at the cruiser . " Augsburg " was meanwhile heavily engaged in the Baltic ; in June 1915 , she participated in a minelaying operation in the Gulf of Finland that saw the loss of the minelayer . " Kolberg " then joined her sister in the Baltic during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915 . During the operation , " Kolberg " and the battlecruiser bombarded Russian positions on Utö , while " Augsburg " steamed into the Gulf with the battleship , where they sank a Russian gunboat and damaged another . By 19 August , the danger of British and Russian submarines in the Gulf prompted the Germans to withdraw . " Augsburg " participated in another , unsuccessful attempt to force the Gulf in late 1916 . Both ships were present for Operation Albion , another large - scale assault on the Gulf of Riga , in October 1917 . The ships were involved in a variety of operations , including minesweeping , and screening for the battleships and while they destroyed Russian opposition in the Gulf . Men from " Kolberg " also landed on one of the islands to destroy a Russian gun battery . Both ships survived the war . As part of the Treaty of Versailles , which ended the war , the ships were awarded to the victorious powers as war prize s . " Kolberg " was allocated to France , where she was commissioned into the French Navy as " Colmar " . " Augsburg " was transferred to Japanese control ; having no use for her , they sold the ship for scrapping . " Colmar " saw one tour on colonial duty in Asia in 1924 , where she participated in a multinational operation to protect foreign nationals from Chinese unrest in Shanghai . She was subsequently stricken in 1927 and broken up for scrap in Brest , France . External links .