About Battlecruiser TCG Yavuz

Yavuz began life in 1912 as the  first  generation German  battlecruiser Goeben
and she was  basically similar  to  the first German  battlecruiser  SMS Von der
Tann, although  somewhat  bigger. Unlike  contemporary  British  battlecruisers
the German warships were  well  protected  from  the starting  point. Very good
quality armor, good design and powerful machinery.

Yavuz would look very strange to new eyes. She had a very low  freeboard, with
her first twin turret forecast, then her conning tower and a small bridge structure
with a tall, vertical, pole  foremast. She had  two vertical  funnels, with two more
twin turrets in echelon in  the wing positions. Then  came  her rudimentary  after
superstructure, surmounted  by another  tall pole  mainmast. On  her  after deck
were her last  two, superimposed  main  turrets. This sort  of arrangement  was
very  common  with both British and German main battle ships before the WWI.
For Yavuz, it  was  possible  to  fire  a  full broadside with this layout, but one of
the wing turrets must fire accross the deck.

During 1926-1930, she was refurbished  and  modernized  by  Chantiers de St.
Nazaire, whose floating dry dock  proved unequal  to her weight. On  trials after
the 1930  refit, she  steamed 27.3 knots  for  4 hours. She was again refitted in
1938. By WWII  she  was  carrying  8 X 3.5 in.AA, 12 X 40mm AA and 4 X MG
in addition to her 10 X 28 cm main battery & 10 X 15 cm secondary guns.

She remained the flagship of  the Turkish Navy  for many years  after  the WWII,
becoming  by  far the  longest  lived  battlecruiser  in  history, a  record  that will
never be broken. She had finished her days as an active warship in 1971.