This article is about the WWI armored cruiser 'Gneisenau'; for the World War II battlecruiser of the same name, see German battlecruiser Gneisenau. World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons like the atom bomb World War II, also known as the Second World War, was by far the bloodiest, most expensive, and most significant war in... HMS Hood (left) and HMS Barham (right), in Malta, 1937. ... Gneisenau was a 31,100 ton Gneisenau class battlecruiser of the German Kriegsmarine, named to commemorate the World War I armored cruiser SMS Gneisenau, which was in turn named after the Prussian general August von Gneisenau. ...

Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	December 1904
Launched:	14 June 1906
Commissioned:	6 March 1908
Fate:	sunk 8 December 1914, First Battle of the Falkland Islands
General characteristics
Displacement:	12, 781 tons
Length:	144.6 meters (474.75 ft) overall 143.8 meters (472 ft) waterline
Beam:	21.6 metres (71 ft)
Draft:	8.4 metres (27.5 ft)
Propulsion:	3 shaft Triple expansion engines, 26,000 ihp
Speed:	23.5 knots
Range:	5120 nautical miles at 12 knots 4800 nm at 14 knots
Fuel capacity:	2000 tons of coal, 800 tons of oil
Complement:	764 men
Armament:	8-21 cm (8.2in) (2x2, 4x1) 6-150mm (5.9in) (6x1) 18 x 88mm/35 cal (3.45in) (18 x 1) 4 x 450mm (17.7in) Torpedo Tubes
Armor:	Belt: 80-150mm Deck:41-61mm Conning Tower: 150mm

SMS Gneisenau was an armored cruiser of the German navy. Launched on 14 June 1906, together with her sister ship SMS Scharnhorst, they were improvements on the previous Yorck class armored cruiser. After commissioning, these 2 ships formed the core of the German East Asia cruiser squadron based at Qingdao (then Romanised as Tsingtao) in China under Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee. On the outbreak of the First World War, the squadron left Qingdao after Japan entered the war on the Allied side, and engaged in a period of commerce raiding before encountering and defeating a weaker British force and sinking the British armoured cruisers HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth under Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock at the Battle of Coronel off the coast of Chile on 1 November 1914. Download high resolution version (988x586, 67 KB)SMS Gneisenau{{{PD-GWPDA}}Downloaded from [1] File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... The Kaiserliche Kriegsflagge (the War Ensign of the Kaiserliche Marine, the Imperial Germany Navy, 1903–1919) Downloaded from Flags of the World File links The following pages link to this file: SMS Ostfriesland SMS Scharnhorst SMS Gneisenau Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships SMS Lützow SMS Friedrich der Grosse SMS Kaiser SMS Königsberg... 1904 is a leap year starting on a Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... June 14 is the 165th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (166th in leap years), with 200 days remaining. ... 1906 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... March 6 is the 65th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (66th in Leap years). ... 1908 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... December 8 is the 342nd day (343rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1914 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a naval engagement of the First World War, fought between units of the Royal Navy and the Kaiserliche Marine on 8 December 1914. ... Armored cruiser General-Admiral (1873) Armored cruiser USS Brooklyn (1898) Armored cruiser HMS Good Hope (1901) Armored cruiser SMS Blücher (1908) The armored cruiser was a naval cruiser protected by armor on its sides as well as on the decks and gun positions. ... June 14 is the 165th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (166th in leap years), with 200 days remaining. ... 1906 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... This article is about the World War I armored cruiser Scharnhorst; for the World War II battlecruiser of the same name, see German battlecruiser Scharnhorst. ... Qingdao   listen? (Simplified Chinese: 青岛; Traditional Chinese: 青島; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Ching-tao; Postal System Pinyin: Tsingtao) is a port sub-provincial city in the Shandong province of China, a naval base, and a major industrial city located at the southern tip of the Shandong Peninsula, in Jiaozhou Bay, facing the... Maximilian von Spee Count (Graf) Maximilian Johannes Maria Hubert von Spee (22 June 1861 – 8 December 1914) was a German naval officer, born in Copenhagen, Denmark, who joined the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy) in 1878. ... World War I was primarily a European conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, stalemate trench warfare, and the use of new, devastating weapons - tanks, aircraft, machineguns, and poison gas. ... Commerce raiding or guerre de course is a naval strategy of attacking an opponents commercial shipping rather than contending for control of the seas with its naval forces. ... HMS Good Hope was a 14,100-ton Drake-class armored cruiser of the Royal Navy; she was originally planned to be named Africa, but was renamed before she was launched. ... The sixth HMS Monmouth of the British Royal Navy was the name ship of her class of armored cruiser of 9,800 tons displacement. ... Christopher Cradock Sir Christopher George Francis Maurice Cradock (2 July 1862–1 November 1914), was a British admiral. ... The Battle of Coronel was a World War I naval battle fought off the coast of central Chile on 1 November 1914. ... November 1 is the 305th day of the year (306th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 60 days remaining. ... 1914 is a common year starting on Thursday. ...

On 8 December 1914, after passing into the South Atlantic through the Straits of Magellan, the squadron launched an attack on the Falkland Islands in an attempt to get coal for the ship's bunkers. However, they encountered a much more powerful British force, which included the battlecruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible, which proceeded to destroy the German ships in the first Battle of the Falkland Islands. Gneisenau was lost with most of its crew, although some survivors were picked up by the British. December 8 is the 342nd day (343rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Atlantic (disambiguation) The Atlantic Ocean is Earths second-largest ocean, covering approximately one-fifth of its surface. ... The Strait of Magellan, near Punta Arenas The Strait of Magellan is a navigable route immediately south of mainland South America. ... HMS Hood (left) and HMS Barham (right), in Malta, 1937. ... Six ships of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Invincible. ... Several ships of the Royal Navy have been called HMS Inflexible. ... The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a naval engagement of the First World War, fought between units of the Royal Navy and the Kaiserliche Marine on 8 December 1914. ...

References

• Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I (Jane's Publishing, London, 1919)
• Robert Gardiner, ed., Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905 (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1979)
• Hanson W. Baldwin, World War I: An Outline History (Harper and Row, New York, 1962)