The -class corvettes were a class of six corvettes built for the German (Imperial Navy) in the 1870s. The six ships were , , , , , and . The -class corvettes were ordered as part of a major naval construction program in the early 1870s, and they were designed to serve as fleet scouts and on extended tours in Germany's colonial empire. The ships were armed with a battery of between ten and sixteen guns and they had a full ship rig to supplement their steam engine on long cruises abroad. One ship, , was converted into a torpedo testing and training ship shortly after she was completed, having her guns replaced with a variety of torpedo launchers.
Most of the members of the class were sent on extended foreign cruises throughout their careers, frequently to support the expansion of Germany's colonial empire through the 1880s. supported one of the German expeditions for the International Polar Year in 1882. was involved in the seizure of the colony of Kamerun in 1884, and she, , and were used to secure the protectorate of Wituland in 1885–1886, which later became German East Africa. Members of the class also cruised off South America to protect German interests, particularly during the War of the Pacific.
and served their entire careers as training ships, with the former training most German torpedo crews between the 1880s and 1900s and the latter being used to train naval cadets and apprentice seamen. , , and were also used as training ships later in their careers. In this role, they were used for long-range training cruises, primarily to the West Indies and the Mediterranean Sea. was the first member of the class to be disposed of, being converted into a barracks ship in 1891. was wrecked off Málaga in a gale. was badly damaged by a boiler explosion in 1907 and sold thereafter. was sold for scrap the same year, and in 1908, was also converted into a barracks ship. continued in service until 1910, when she was decommissioned; the next year, she too was converted into a barracks ship and renamed . The surviving members of the class were broken up in 1920 after the end of World War I.
Design Following the German victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the northern and southern German states unified into the German Empire in January 1871; at the same time, the (Imperial Navy) came into being, almost entirely from the North German Federal Navy, which was itself dominated by the old Prussian Navy. Kaiser Wilhelm I created the (Imperial Admiralty) to govern the navy on 30 November 1871, and placed General Albrecht von Stosch as its head as the admiralty chief. At the same time, the (Imperial Diet) requested an update on the progress of the fleet plan thus far. By then, the navy had completed nine of the corvettes and another four were under construction, leaving another seven due to be built by 1877. As German commercial interests began to expand to overseas markets in Asia and the Pacific in the 1870s, the need for long-range cruising warships became increasingly severe, particularly as other European powers started to exclude German businesses from activity abroad.
The was displeased with the state of the fleet, and on 28 May 1872, ordered a revision of the plan. One of the chief issues that confronted Stosch as the new head of the navy was the strategic purpose of his fleet. He believed the primary purposes of the fleet were to defend the German coast and to protect German merchant shipping abroad. The large and expensive capital ships that had already been acquired in the late 1860s were sufficient to accomplish the former task, and so Stosch preferred focusing on a fleet of cruising vessels for the commerce protection mission. The need for cruisers was particularly greater because some of the corvettes counted in the fleet's active list were already twenty years old. Accordingly, he retained the number of corvettes as originally prescribed in the fleet plan that was ultimately approved in April 1873.
Thereafter, began an expansion program to strengthen the fleet to meet the demands imposed by Germany's increased economic activities abroad and to prepare it for a potential future conflict with France. The naval command determined that modern screw corvettes were necessary for scouting purposes, as well as overseas cruising duties to protect German interests abroad. The first two ships begun under the plan became the , but these proved to be very expensive, and they were too slow to serve as effective fleet scouts. The naval leadership accepted that scouting could not be performed without building even costlier vessels; the perpetually underfunded navy therefore decided to develop a smaller, cheaper design between 1873 and 1875 for its next class. These became the six ships of the class; they were effectively a scaled down version of the class, although the s featured some minor changes, including an altered hull shape. They also experimented with zinc instead of the traditional copper sheathing, in the hope that the resulting electrolysis would prevent biofouling, but it proved to be a failure in service.
Characteristics The ships of the class varied slightly in dimensions. At the waterline, the ships were long, and long overall. They had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft. They displaced normally and up to at full load. The ships' hulls were constructed with transverse iron frames, to which the iron hull plating was riveted. It was then covered with one layer of teak planks, which were sheathed with zinc to prevent biofouling on extended cruises abroad, where shipyard facilities were not readily available. They had a double bottom below the engine room. The ships had a straight stem.
The ship's crew consisted of 18 officers and 386 enlisted men, though this varied widely later in their careers when they were used as training ships. Their typical complement in that role was 20 officers and 449 sailors, of whom 50 were naval cadets and 210 were (apprentice seamen), though typically had 17 officers and 443 sailors, of whom 20 were cadets and 220 were . , which spent her entire career as a torpedo training ship, varied in crew size between 14 and 34 officers and 287 and 494 sailors. Each ship carried a variety of small boats, including one picket boat, two (later six) cutters, two yawls, and two dinghies. instead had six picket boats, two launches, one pinnace, two yawls, and two dinghies, the last of which were later removed.
Machinery
The ships were powered by a single 3-cylinder marine steam engine that drove one 2-bladed screw propeller ( had a three-bladed screw) that could be retracted while the ship was under sail. Steam was provided by four coal-fired fire-tube boilers, which were ducted into a single, funnel that could be retracted to reduce interference with the sailing rig. The ships had a top speed of at . Coal storage amounted to . They had a cruising radius of at a speed of , though this fell to at .
At the time, the world's navies were grappling with the development of steam power, which had already replaced sails in large ironclad warships. Cruising vessels required a much longer radius of action than the ironclads, and steam engines were not yet reliable or efficient enough to rely on them alone, necessitating the retention of traditional sailing rigs. As built, the -class ships were equipped with a full ship rig to supplement their steam engines on overseas cruising missions. The total sail area amounted to . The ships' rig was later reduced, and had her rigging removed altogether shortly after entering service. Steering was controlled with a single rudder. The vessels were good sea boats, but they made bad leeway in even mild winds and they were difficult to maneuver. They lost a significant amount of speed in a head sea, and they had limited performance under sail.
Armament The ships of the class were armed with a battery of sixteen 22-caliber (cal.) breech-loading guns, though the number of guns on many of the ships varied throughout their careers. carried her main battery guns only briefly before she was converted into a training ship. In their original configuration, the ships carried fourteen of the guns in a broadside battery, seven guns per side. The remaining guns were placed on the upper deck and they could be moved between broadside and chase gun positions. The ships carried 1660 shells for the original complement of guns, though the allotment for those ships with fewer guns is not known. They also had two 30-cal. guns, though had four such guns. was also equipped with a pair of torpedo tubes, both in her bow, above the waterline, though the rest of the class had no torpedo tubes.
was armed with a variety of torpedo tubes throughout her career, ranging in number from four to seven. These were all tubes, and they were placed in various positions in the ship, above and below the waterline. In addition, she was equipped with a pair of L/25 guns to be used for saluting purposes. Plans were made to add another pair of the guns and thirteen Hotchkiss revolver cannon in the event of a conflict, though this never occurred.
By 1890, all members of the class save had had their primary battery reduced to ten guns, and they had six of the 3.7 Hotchkiss guns installed. In the 1890s, the ships' armament diverged; was unaltered, but the other cruising vessels received a pair of guns and four guns. had her original complement of 15 cm guns restored, while had her battery increased to fourteen guns and was refitted with twelve of the 15 cm guns. In the early 1900s, the surviving ships had their weaponry significantly reduced to two guns, ten 8.8 cm guns, and the four 3.7 cm revolvers.
Ships
+ Construction data Ship Builder Laid down Launched Completed , Kiel November 1875 25 July 1877 27 August 1878 March 1876 20 March 1877 21 December 1878 AG Vulcan, Stettin November 1875 8 October 1877 10 March 1878 , Danzig July 1875 18 October 1877 16 April 1878 June 1877 4 September 1879 3 October 1880 AG Vulcan, Stettin 1878 14 September 1879 3 October 1880
Service history Bismarck
went on two major overseas cruises, the first in late 1878 to late 1880, which saw the ship visit South American ports and patrol the Central Pacific, where Germany had economic interests but no formal colonies at that time. During this cruise, her captain signed a friendship treaty with the ruler of the Society Islands, and she interfered with Samoan internal affairs before being recalled to Germany. Storm damage while on the way back forced her to seek repairs in Australia, and from there she was diverted to South American waters, where she protected German interests in the region during the War of the Pacific between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. After returning to Germany, she was overhauled and received a new gun battery.
was reactivated in 1883 as Germany prepared to embark on the scramble for Africa. The second deployment lasted from 1884 to 1888; during this period, Germany began to seize colonies in Africa and the Pacific; was closely involved in the acquisition of Kamerun in 1884, sending men ashore to suppress revolts against German economic activities in the country. She was also involved in the settlement of borders for German East Africa in 1885 and 1886 and German intervention in the Samoan Civil War in 1887. For the entirety of this tour abroad, served as the flagship of the German overseas cruiser squadron commanded by Eduard von Knorr and later Karl Eduard Heusner.
After returning to Germany in 1888, the ship was decommissioned and stricken from the naval register in 1891, which historians Hans Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, and Hans-Otto Steinmetz interpret as a deliberate insult to the ship's namesake, Otto von Bismarck, with whom Kaiser Wilhelm II had significant personal disagreements. thereafter saw use as a barracks ship until 1920, when she was broken up.
Blücher