SMS Scharnhorst

Scharnhorst steaming at high speed, c. 1907–08
History
German Empire
Name:	Scharnhorst
Namesake:	Gerhard von Scharnhorst
Laid down:	22 March 1905
Launched:	23 March 1906
Commissioned:	24 October 1907
Fate:	Sunk in action, Battle of the Falkland Islands, 8 December 1914
General characteristics
Class and type:	Scharnhorst-class armored cruiser
Displacement:	12,985 t (12,780 long tons)
Length:	144.6 m (474 ft 5 in)
Beam:	21.6 m (70 ft 10 in)
Draft:	8.37 m (27 ft 6 in)
Installed power:	18 water-tube boilers 25,644 ihp (19,123 kW)
Propulsion:	3 shafts 3 × triple-expansion steam engines
Speed:	22.5 knots (41.7 km/h; 25.9 mph)
Crew:	52 officers 788 enlisted
Armament:	8 × 21 cm (8.3 in) guns 6 × 15 cm (5.9 in) guns 18 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) guns 4 × 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes
Armor:	Belt: 15 cm Turrets: 18 cm (7.1 in) Deck: 3.5 to 6 cm (1.4 to 2.4 in)

SMS Scharnhorst ("His Majesty's Ship Scharnhorst") was an armored cruiser of the Imperial German Navy, built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. She was the lead ship of her class, which also included her sister SMS Gneisenau. Scharnhorst and her sister were enlarged versions of the preceding Roon class; they were equipped with a greater number of main guns and were capable of a higher top speed. The ship was named after the Prussian military reformer General Gerhard von Scharnhorst and commissioned into service on 24 October 1907.

Scharnhorst served briefly with the High Seas Fleet in Germany in 1908, though most of this time was spent conducting sea trials. She was assigned to the German East Asia Squadron based in Tsingtao, China, in 1909. After arriving, she replaced the cruiser Fürst Bismarck as the squadron flagship, a position she would hold for the rest of her career. Over the next five years, she went on several tours of various Asian ports to for Germany. She frequently carried the squadron commanders to meet with Asian heads of state and was present in Japan for the coronation of the Taishō Emperor in 1912.

After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, accompanied by three light cruisers and several colliers, sailed across the Pacific Ocean—in the process evading the various Allied naval forces sent to intercept them—before arriving off the southern coast of South America. On 1 November 1914, Scharnhorst and the rest of the East Asia Squadron encountered and overpowered a British squadron at the Battle of Coronel. The stinging defeat prompted the British Admiralty to dispatch two battlecruisers to hunt down and destroy von Spee's flotilla, which they accomplished at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914.