Bayern Class Battleship - Design

Design

The Bayern class ships were a result of the fourth Naval Law, which was passed in 1912. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz used public outcry over the British involvement in the Agadir Crisis of 1911 to pressure the Reichstag into appropriating additional funds for the Navy. The Fourth Naval Law secured funding for three new dreadnoughts, two light cruisers, and an increase of an additional 15,000 officers and men in the ranks of the Navy for 1912. The capital ships laid down in 1912 were the Derfflinger class battlecruisers; funding for Bayern and Baden was allocated the following year. Funding for Sachsen was allocated in the 1914 budget, while Württemberg was funded in the War Estimates. The last remaining Brandenburg class pre-dreadnought, Wörth, was to be replaced, as well as two elderly Kaiser Friedrich III class pre-dreadnoughts, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiser Friedrich III. Baden was ordered as Ersatz Wörth, Württemberg as Ersatz Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Sachsen as Ersatz Kaiser Friedrich III; Bayern was regarded as an addition to the fleet, and was ordered under the provisional name "T".

The design for the ships was drawn up between 1910 and 1912. Consideration was given to equipping the new ships with triple turrets mounting the 30.5 cm (12 in) guns of the preceding König class battleships, but after examining the gun turrets of the Austro-Hungarian dreadnoughts of the Tegetthoff class, it was determined that the triple gun turrets still had too many problems. Among these deficiencies were increased weight, reduced ammunition supply and rate of fire, and loss of fighting capability if one of the turrets was disabled. It was therefore decided to arm the new vessels with eight 38 cm guns instead of twelve 30.5 cm guns.