SMS Mecklenburg SMS " Mecklenburg " ( " His Majesty ' s Ship " Mecklenburg " " ) was fifth ship of the of pre - dreadnought battleship s of the German Imperial Navy . Laid down in 1899 at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin , she was finished in May 1903 . Her sisters were , , , and ; they were the first capital ships built under the Navy Law of 1898 , brought about by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz . " Mecklenburg " spent the first period of her active duty career in the I Squadron of the German fleet . After the start of World War I in August 1914 , the ship was mobilized with her sisters as the IV Battle Squadron . She saw limited duty in the Baltic Sea against Russian forces , though the threat from British submarines forced the ship to withdraw in 1916 . For the remainder of her career , " Mecklenburg " served as a prison ship and as a barracks ship based in Kiel . The ship was stricken from the navy list in January 1920 and sold for scrapping in the following year Construction . " Mecklenburg " s keel was laid in 1899 , at the Schichau - Werke in Danzig , under construction number 676 . She was ordered under the contract name " D " , as a new unit for the fleet . The vessel was a member of the first class of battleships built under the direction of State Secretary Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz , according to the terms of the Navy Law of 1898 . " Mecklenburg " was launched on 9 November 1901 , the last ship of her class to be launched . Fitting out work proceeded faster on " Mecklenburg " than on her sister , and so the former was commissioned first , on 25 May 1903 , a full year before " Schwaben " . The ship ' s cost totaled 22 , 329 , 000 marks . The ship was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward . The ship was powered by three 3 - cylinder vertical triple expansion engines that drove three screws . Steam was provided by six naval and six cylindrical coal - fired boilers . " Mecklenburg " s powerplant was rated at , which gave her a top speed of . " Mecklenburg " s armament consisted of a main battery of four 24 cm ( 9 . 4 in ) SK L / 40 guns in twin gun turret s , one fore and one aft of the central superstructure . Her secondary armament consisted of eighteen 15 cm ( 5 . 9 inch ) SK L / 40 guns and twelve 8 . 8 cm ( 3 . 45 in ) SK L / 30 quick - firing guns . The armament system was rounded out with six torpedo tubes , all in above - water swivel mounts . Service history . Following her commissioning in 1903 , " Mecklenburg " was assigned to the II Division of the I Squadron , alongside the battleships and . By 1905 , the German Navy had been increased to four squadrons of three battleships each , with two squadrons per division . This was supported by a cruiser division , composed of two armored cruiser s and six protected cruiser s . In 1909 , " Mecklenburg " and the newer battleship won the annual Kaiser ' s Prize for accurate shooting . " Mecklenburg " had by this time been transferred to the I Division of the I Squadron . The latest s had entered service , which provided enough ships to increase the size of the fleet to four divisions of four vessels each . After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 , " Mecklenburg " and the rest of her class were mobilized to serve in the IV Battle Squadron , under the command of Vice Admiral Ehrhard Schmidt . Starting on 3 September , the IV Squadron , assisted by the armored cruiser , conducted a sweep into the Baltic . The operation lasted until 9 September and failed to bring Russian naval units to battle . In May 1915 , IV Squadron , including " Mecklenburg " , was transferred to support the German Army in the Baltic Sea area . " Mecklenburg " and her sisters were then based in Kiel . On 6 May , the IV Squadron ships were tasked with providing support to the assault on Libau . " Mecklenburg " and the other ships stood off Gotland in order to intercept any Russian cruisers that might try to intervene in the landings , which the Russians did not attempt . On 10 May , after the invasion force had entered Libau , the British submarines and spotted the IV Squadron , but were too far away to make an attack . " Mecklenburg " and her sisters were not included in the German fleet that assaulted the Gulf of Riga in August 1915 , due to the scarcity of escorts . The increasingly active British submarines forced the Germans to employ more destroyers to protect the capital ships . By 1916 , the increasing threat from British submarines in the Baltic convinced the German navy to withdraw the elderly " Wittelsbach " - class ships from active service . She and her sisters were subsequently disarmed and used in secondary roles . " Mecklenburg " was initially based in Kiel and used as a floating prison . In 1918 , she became a barracks ship for U - boat crews stationed in Kiel . The ship was briefly retained after the German defeat at the end of World War I , but on 25 January 1920 , " Mecklenburg " was stricken from the naval register . She was sold to Deutsche - Werke , a ship - breaking firm based in Kiel , on 16 August 1921 for 1 , 750 , 000 Marks . The ship was broken up for scrap metal that year in Kiel - Nordmole . Notes . Footnotes Citations References . Books Journals