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} |} The ''Helgoland'' class was the second class of German dreadnought battleships. Constructed from 1908 to 1912, the class comprised four ships: , the lead ship; ; ; and . The design was a significant improvement over the previous ships; they had a larger main battery— main guns instead of the weapons mounted on the earlier vessels—and an improved propulsion system. The ''Helgoland''s were easily distinguished from the preceding ''Nassau''s by the three funnels that were closely arranged, compared to the two larger funnels of the previous class. The ships retained the hexagonal main battery layout of the ''Nassau'' class. The ships served as a unit in the I Division, I Battle Squadron alongside the ''Nassau''-class ships in the II Division of the I Battle Squadron. They saw combat during World War I, including the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea and the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in the Baltic. All four survived the war, but were not taken as part of the German fleet that was interned at Scapa Flow. When the German ships at Scapa Flow were scuttled, the four ''Helgoland''s were ceded as war reparations to the victorious Allied powers in the sunken ships' stead. ''Ostfriesland'' was taken by the US Navy and expended as a target during Billy Mitchell's air power demonstration in July 1921. ''Helgoland'' and ''Oldenburg'' were allotted to Britain and Japan respectively, and broken up in 1921. ''Thüringen'' was delivered to France in 1920, and was used as a target ship for the French navy. The ship was eventually broken up between 1923 and 1933. == Design == The Triple Entente between the United Kingdom, France, and Russia had been signed in 1907. Germany had become significantly isolated—on the Continent, Germany was hemmed in by France in the west and Russia in the east, and the UK, with her powerful navy, was capable of blocking German access to the world shipping lanes. Admiral von Tirpitz reacted to this development with the request for newer and stronger capital ships. His thoughts on the matter were, "The aim which I had to keep in view ... for technical and organizing reasons as well as reasons of political finance was to build as steadily as possible." His appeal came in the form of the proposed Second Amendment to the Naval Law, which was passed on 27 March 1908. For the second class of German dreadnoughts, there was considerable debate as to what changes would be made from the first design. In May 1906, the ''Reichsmarineamt'' (RMA, Imperial Navy Office) received word that the British were building battleships equipped with guns. As a result, the General Navy Department advocated increasing the caliber of the main battery from to . Admiral von Tirpitz was reluctant to agree to this change, as he wished to avoid escalating the arms race with Britain. Admiral von Tirpitz's hesitation at increasing the armament of the new ships was lost when it became known in early 1907 that the United States Navy was building battleships with 30.5 cm guns. In March 1907, von Tirpitz ordered the Construction Department to prepare a design with 30.5 cm guns and thick belt armor. Some dispute remained over the arrangement of the main battery. The two s being built for Brazil mounted the same number of guns, but in a more efficient arrangement. Superfiring turret pairs were placed on either end of the ship, with two wing turrets amidships. Admiral von Tirpitz favored adopting this arrangement for the ''Helgoland'' class, but the Construction Department felt two superfiring turrets could be easily disabled by a single hit. As a result, the hexagonal arrangement of the preceding ''Nassau''s was retained. The Naval Law stipulated that the lifespan of large warships was to be reduced from 25 years to 20 years; this was done in an effort to force the Reichstag to allocate funds for additional ships. The reduction necessitated the replacement of the coastal defense ships of the and classes as well as the s. The battleships that von Tirpitz had failed to secure in the First Amendment to the Naval Law of 1906 were now approved by the Reichstag. The Naval Law also increased the naval budget by an additional 1 billion marks. After the four s had been replaced by the four ''Nassau''s, three of the ''Siegfried''-class ships—, , —and the unique coastal defense ship were the next slated to be replaced. The ''Helgoland''-class ships—SMS ''Helgoland'', SMS ''Ostfriesland'', SMS ''Thüringen'', and SMS ''Oldenburg''—were ordered under the provisional names ''Ersatz Siegfried, Ersatz Oldenburg, Ersatz Beowulf,'' and ''Ersatz Frithjof'', respectively. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Helgoland-class battleship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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