SMS Baden SMS " Baden " was a dreadnought battleship of the German Imperial Navy built during World War I . Launched in October 1915 and completed in March 1917 , she was the last battleship completed for use in the war ; two of her sisters — " Sachsen " and " Württemberg " — were incomplete when the war ended . The ship mounted eight guns in four twin turrets , displaced at full combat load , and had a top speed of . Along with her sister , " Baden " was the largest and most powerfully armed battleship built by the Imperial Navy . Upon commissioning into the High Seas Fleet , " Baden " was made the fleet flagship , replacing . " Baden " saw little action during her short career ; the only major sortie in April 1918 ended without any combat . Following the German collapse in November 1918 , " Baden " was interned with the majority of the High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow by the British Royal Navy . On 21 June 1919 , Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter ordered the scuttling of the fleet . However , British sailors in the harbor managed to board " Baden " and beach her to prevent her sinking . The ship was refloated , thoroughly examined , and eventually sunk in extensive gunnery testing by the Royal Navy in 1921 . Construction . " Baden " was ordered under the provisional name " Ersatz Wörth " in 1912 , under the fourth and final Naval Law , which was passed that year . Construction began at the Schichau - Werke dockyard in Danzig under construction number 913 . The ship was laid down on 20 December 1913 and launched on 30 October 1915 . After fitting - out , sea trials were conducted ; the ship was commissioned into service on 14 March 1917 . She had cost the Imperial German Government 49 million Goldmarks . " Baden " s two sisterships , " Sachsen " and " Württemberg " , both lay incomplete at the end of World War I and were subsequently scrapped , leaving " Baden " the last battleship built for the Imperial Navy . " Baden " was long at the waterline , and long overall . She had a draft of between 9 . 3 and 9 . 4 m ( 30 . 5 and 30 . 8 ft ) . " Baden " displaced at her designed displacement , which did not include a full load of combat supplies , fuel , and other operational necessities ; at full combat load , she displaced up to . " Baden " s displacement was more than greater than that of the preceding ships , making her the largest battleship built by the Imperial Navy . " Baden " was powered by three sets of Schichau steam turbines , which were rated at 35 , 000 shaft horsepower , and produced a maximum of . Designed speed was , but " Baden " achieved a maximum speed of . She was armed with eight 38 cm ( 15 in ) guns arranged in four twin gun turret s : two superfiring turret pairs fore and aft of the superstructure . " Baden " and her sister " Bayern " were the first German warships to feature guns of this caliber ; earlier battleships carried either 28 or 30 . 5 cm ( 11 or 12 inch ) guns . Her secondary armament consisted of sixteen 15 cm ( 5 . 9 in ) guns , six 8 . 8 cm ( 3 . 45 in ) guns and five 60 cm ( 23 . 6 in ) underwater torpedo tubes , one in the bow and two on each beam . Upon commissioning , she carried a crew of 42 officers and 1 , 129 enlisted men . Service history . After her commissioning into the High Seas Fleet , " Baden " was placed in the role of flagship for the commander of the fleet , Admiral Franz von Hipper , a position she held until the end of the war . At the end of August 1917 , " Baden " took Kaiser Wilhelm II to visit the fortified island of Helgoland ; the ship was escorted by the battlecruiser and the light cruisers and . After the conclusion of the visit , " Baden " returned the Kaiser to Cuxhaven . The ship struck the sea bottom outside Cuxhaven , though no major damage was done . Advance of 23 April 1918 . In late 1917 , light forces of the High Seas Fleet began interdicting British convoys to Norway . On 17 October the light cruisers and intercepted one of the convoys , sinking nine of the twelve cargo ships and the two escorting destroyers before turning back to Germany . On 12 December , four German destroyers ambushed a second British convoy of five cargo vessels and two British destroyers . All five transports were sunk , as was one of the destroyers . Following these two raids , Admiral David Beatty , the commander of the Grand Fleet , detached battleships from the battle fleet to protect the convoys . The German Imperial Navy ( " Kaiserliche Marine " ) was now presented with an opportunity for which it had been waiting the entire war : a portion of the numerically stronger Grand Fleet was separated and could be isolated and destroyed . Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper planned the operation : the battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group , along with light cruisers and destroyers , would attack one of the large convoys , while the rest of the High Seas Fleet would stand by , ready to attack the British dreadnought battleship squadron . At 05 : 00 on 23 April 1918 , the German fleet departed from the Schillig roadstead . Hipper , aboard " Baden " , ordered wireless transmissions be kept to a minimum , to prevent radio intercepts by British intelligence . At 06 : 10 the German battlecruisers had reached a position approximately southwest of Bergen when the battlecruiser lost her inner starboard propeller , which severely damaged the ship ' s engines . The crew effected temporary repairs that allowed the ship to steam at , but it was decided to take the ship under tow . Despite this setback , Hipper continued northward . By 14 : 00 , Hipper ' s force had crossed the convoy route several times but had found nothing . At 14 : 10 , Hipper turned his ships southward . By 18 : 37 , the German fleet had made it back to the defensive minefields surrounding their bases . It was later discovered that the convoy had left port a day later than expected by the German planning staff . On 24 May , " Baden " again steamed to Helgoland , this time to take the commander in chief of the fleet , Admiral Reinhard Scheer , and Grand Duke Friedrich von Baden to visit the island . Only " Karlsruhe " joined the ship on this voyage . Wilhelmshaven mutiny . As the fleet flagship , " Baden " was to have taken part in a final fleet action days before the Armistice , an operation which envisioned the bulk of the High Seas Fleet sortieing from their base in Wilhelmshaven to engage the British Grand Fleet . In order to obtain a better bargaining position for Germany , Admirals Hipper and Scheer intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy , whatever the cost to the fleet . Consequently on 29 October 1918 , the order was given to depart from Wilhelmshaven to consolidate the fleet in the Jade roadstead , with the intention of departing the following morning . However , starting on the night of 29 October , sailors on mutinied . Early on the 30th , the crew of " Helgoland " , which was directly behind " Thüringen " , joined in the mutiny . Both ships surrendered after two torpedo boat s arrived and threatened to open fire , and the battleships ' crews were taken ashore and incarcerated . The mood of " Baden " s crew was reported as " dangerous " . The rebellion then spread ashore ; on 3 November , an estimated 20 , 000 sailors , dock workers , and civilians fought a battle against the authorities in Kiel in an attempt to secure the release of the jailed mutineers . Meanwhile , on 9 November , the Socialists ' red flag was hoisted aboard " Baden " , which finally convinced Hipper and Scheer to abandon the plan . Scapa Flow . " Baden " was not originally intended to be surrendered under the terms of the Armistice , but was substituted for the battlecruiser " Mackensen " , which lay incomplete and could not put to sea . As a result , instead of joining the High Seas Fleet when it departed for Scapa Flow on 21 November 1918 , " Baden " left Germany on 7 January 1919 . The Royal Navy inspected the ship on 9 January , but many of the technical instruments , including gunnery equipment , had been removed before the ship left Germany . The fleet remained in captivity during the negotiations in Versailles that ultimately produced the treaty that ended the war . A copy of " The Times " informed Rear Admiral von Reuter that the Armistice was to expire at noon on 21 June 1919 , the deadline by which Germany was to have signed the peace treaty . Von Reuter came to the conclusion that the British intended to seize the German ships after the Armistice expired . To prevent this , he decided to scuttle his ships at the first opportunity . On the morning of 21 June , the British fleet left Scapa Flow to conduct training maneuvers ; at 11 : 20 Reuter transmitted the order to his ships . " Baden " was the last major warship to begin the scuttling process , and British forces in the harbor managed to secure the ship and run it aground before it could sink in deeper water . She was the only capital ship not successfully sunk in the scuttling . The ship was refloated in July , after which she was towed to the British naval base at Invergordon . British service . After the ship arrived in Invergordon , " Baden " was carefully examined by Royal Navy technicians . Naval engineers inspected the hull , including the screws , bilge keels , and rudders , to determine the water resistance of the hull form . The ship was found to have been approximately as efficient as the British s . The ship ' s armor system was extensively investigated ; the British team concluded that the ship had not been modified to incorporate the lessons from the Battle of Jutland of 31 May – 1 June 1916 . The main battery turrets and ammunition magazines were also the subject of intense scrutiny ; among the tests conducted was a trial to see how fast the magazines could be flooded — the result was 12 minutes . The gunnery school HMS " Excellent " ran loading trials on the main battery guns . It was found that the guns could be prepared to fire in 23 seconds , 13 seconds faster than in the s . The ship ' s watertight bulkhead and underwater protection systems also particularly interested the inspection team ; they paid close attention to the ship ' s pumping and counter - flooding equipment . Commander W M Phipps Hornby , who lived on board " Baden " for weeks during the examination , wrote to the naval historian Arthur Marder in 1969 that it was his " considered opinion — which I know coincided with that of others engaged on the same job — that , " considered as a fighting machine " , anyhow on balance the " Baden " was markedly in advance of any comparable ship of the Royal Navy " . After the inspection was concluded , it was determined to expend " Baden " as a gunnery target . In January 1921 the first round of gunnery tests was ordered . The gunners at HMS " Excellent " fired the new armor - piercing ( AP ) shells that had been introduced after the Battle of Jutland . This round of tests was used to determine the most efficient ratio of explosives in the detonator caps ; the shells fired at Jutland had a tendency to fragment when striking heavy armor rather than penetrate . The monitor moored some away from " Baden " to fire her guns from point - blank range . " Baden " was made to list to starboard by the removal of coal and armor from the port side , to simulate the effect of a shell striking armor from a plunging angle . The forward - most gun turret had by this time been removed . " Terror " fired 17 shells of various types into the ship . The Royal Navy concluded after these tests that the new shells were sufficiently powerful to penetrate heavy armor , and were much more effective than the previous versions that had been employed at Jutland . Following the tests , heavy seas caused the ship to sink in the shallow water ; after three months she was again raised and docked for repairs . The ship was readied for a second round of testing by August 1921 . The second series of tests was scheduled for 16 August 1921 . The monitor fired a mix of shell types into " Baden " with her 15 in guns . This time , the shells did not perform as well against " Baden " s heavy armor ; one of the AP shells failed to explode and two semi - AP shells appear to have broken up on impact . Six aerial bombs were also detonated on the ship , though they had been placed on board and were detonated remotely . The bombs did not perform as well as had been expected . Immediately following the second round of gunnery trials , " Baden " was scuttled . The ship sank in Hurd Deep in a depth of approximately 180 m ( 600 ft ) . The most important finding of the trials on " Baden " was that the thick medium armor was completely useless against large - caliber shells . As a result , the British navy adopted the " all or nothing " armor pioneered by the United States Navy . The " all or nothing " armor theory consisted of protecting the ship ' s vitals with extremely heavy armor , while leaving the rest of the ship completely unprotected . This system was used on Britain ' s first post - war class of battleships , the . Notes . Footnotes Citations