Armoured Cruisers: Roon Class

[Brian James]

Roon Class Armoured Cruiser SMS Yorck pictured fitting out at Blohm & Voss Shipyards,Hamburg on September 20th 1905.
She was laid down in 1903 and completed in November 1905, at the cost of 16,241,000 marks. She displaced up to 9,875 metric tons (9,719 long tons; 10,885 short tons) and was armed with a main battery of four 8.3 in guns. Her top speed was 20.4 knots.
She had a short career;serving with the fleet for the first seven years, after which she was decommissioned and placed in reserve. After the outbreak of World War I, she was reactivated and returned to front-line service. After returning from the raid on Yarmouth on 3–4 November 1914, she made a navigational error in heavy fog and accidentally sailed into a German defensive minefield. She sank quickly with heavy loss of life, though sources disagree on the exact number of fatalities. Her commander was court-martialled and imprisoned for disobedience and negligent homicide. Yorck was broken up incrementally, with work occurring in 1929–30, 1965, and finally completed in 1982.

[designeraccd]

Very interesting, Brian. Knew about her loss, but not the multiple stage breaking up!

Here is her sister in a well known location... DFO