guns arranged in five twin gun turrets: two superfiring turrets each fore and aft and one turret amidships between the two funnels. König was the first German battleship to mount all of her main battery artillery on the centerline. Like the earlier Kaiser-class battleships, König could bring all of her main guns to bear on either side, but the newer vessel enjoyed a wider arc of fire due to the all-centerline arrangement. Her secondary armament consisted of fourteen SK L/45 quick-firing guns and six SK L/45 quick-firing guns, all mounted singly in casemates. As was customary for capital ships of the period, she was also armed with five underwater torpedo tubes, one in the bow and two on each beam. The ship's armored belt consisted of Krupp cemented steel that was thick in the central citadel that protected the propulsion machinery spaces and the ammunition magazines, and was reduced to forward and aft. In the central portion of the ship, horizontal protection consisted of a deck, which was reduced to on the bow and stern. The main battery turrets had of armor plate on the sides and on the roofs, while the casemate guns had of armor protection. The sides of the forward conning tower were also 30 cm thick. Service König was ordered under the provisional name "S" and built at the Kaiserliche Werft dockyards in Wilhelmshaven, under construction number 33. Her keel was laid in October 1911 and she was launched on 1 March 1913 by the King's cousin, Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg. Fitting-out work was completed by 9 August 1914, the day she was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet. Directly after commissioning, König conducted sea trials, which were completed by 23 November 1914. Her crew consisted of 41 officers and 1,095 enlisted men. Afterward, the ship was attached to V Division of III Battle Squadron of the German High Seas Fleet, where she would later be joined by her sister ships. On 9 December, König ran aground in the Wilhelmshaven roadstead. Her sister ship Grosser Kurfürst, following right behind, rammed her stern and caused some minor damage. König was then freed from the bottom and taken back to Wilhelmshaven; repair work lasted until 2 January 1915. Operations in the North Sea König took part in several fleet sorties in support of Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's battlecruisers of I Scouting Group; however, due to her grounding