Construction
Bayern was ordered by the Imperial Navy under the contract name "A," which denoted that the vessel was a new addition to the fleet. She was built at the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven; her keel was laid in 1874 under construction number 3. The ship was launched on 13 May 1878 and commissioned into the German fleet on 4 August 1881. Along with her three sisters, Bayern was the first large, armored warship built for the German navy that relied entirely on engines for propulsion.
The ship was 98.2 meters (322 ft) long overall and had a beam of 18.4 m (60 ft) and a draft of 6.32 m (20.7 ft) forward. Bayern was powered by two 3-cylinder triple expansion engines, which were supplied with steam by eight coal-fired Dürr boilers. The ship's top speed was 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph), at 5,600 indicated horsepower (4,200 kW) Her standard complement consisted of 32 officers and 285 enlisted men, though while serving as a squadron flagship this was augmented by another 7 officers and 34 men.
She was armed with six 26 cm (10 in) guns, two of which were single-mounted in an open barbette forward of the conning tower and the remaining four mounted amidships, also on single mounts in an open barbette. As built, the ship was also equipped with six 8.7 cm (3.4 in) L/24 guns and eight 3.7 cm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolver cannons. Bayern's armor was made of wrought iron, and was concentrated in an armored citadel amidships. The armor ranged from 203 to 254 mm (8.0 to 10.0 in) on the armored citadel, and between 50–75 mm (2.0–3.0 in) on the deck. The barbette armor was 254 mm of wrought iron backed by 250 mm of teak.
Read more about this topic: SMS Bayern (1878)
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