The ''Bussard'' class of
unprotected cruiser
An unprotected cruiser was a type of naval warship in use during the early 1870s Victorian or pre-dreadnought era (about 1880 to 1905). The name was meant to distinguish these ships from “protected cruisers”, which had become accepted in ...
s were built for the German ''
Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy) in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The class comprised six ships: , the
lead ship, , , , , and . Designed for service in Germany's colonial empire, the class emphasized a long-range cruising radius and relatively heavy armament; they were also the last cruisers in the ''Kaiserliche Marine'' to be equipped with an auxiliary sailing rig. The ships were equipped with eight guns.
All six ships served abroad for the majority of their careers, primarily in Africa and the south Pacific, where they assisted in the suppression of uprisings such as the
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by ...
in China and the
Sokehs Rebellion in the
Caroline Islands. ''Cormoran'' participated in the seizure of the
Kiautschou Bay concession
The Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory was a German leased territory in Imperial and Early Republican China from 1898 to 1914. Covering an area of , it centered on Jiaozhou ("Kiautschou") Bay on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula (g ...
in China in 1897, and ''Falke'' was involved in the
Venezuela Crisis of 1902–03
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
. ''Bussard'' and ''Falke'' were broken up for scrap in 1912, but the remaining four ships were still in service following the outbreak of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
in August 1914.
''Cormoran'' was based in
Tsingtao with unusable engines; she was scuttled in the harbor since she was no longer operational. ''Geier'' briefly operated against British shipping in the Pacific before having to put into
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
for internment by the then-neutral United States. After the United States entered the war in April 1917, she was seized and commissioned into the
US Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...
as USS ''Schurz''; she served as an escort until she was accidentally sunk following a collision with a freighter in June 1918. ''Seeadler'' and ''Condor'', meanwhile, had been converted into mine storage
hulks after the start of the war. ''Seeadler'' was destroyed by an accidental explosion in 1917. ''Condor'' was the only member of the class to survive the war, and she was scrapped in 1921.
Design
Through the 1870s and early 1880s,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
built two types of cruising vessels: small, fast
avisos suitable for service as fleet scouts and larger, long-ranged
screw corvette
Steam frigates (including screw frigates) and the smaller steam corvettes, steam sloops, steam gunboats and steam schooners, were steam-powered warships that were not meant to stand in the line of battle. There were some exceptions like for exam ...
s capable of patrolling the
German colonial empire
The German colonial empire (german: Deutsches Kolonialreich) constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies and territories of the German Empire. Unified in the early 1870s, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-li ...
. A pair of new cruisers was authorized under the 1886–1887 fiscal year, intended for the latter purpose. General
Leo von Caprivi
Georg Leo Graf von Caprivi de Caprara de Montecuccoli (English: ''Count George Leo of Caprivi, Caprara, and Montecuccoli''; born Georg Leo von Caprivi; 24 February 1831 – 6 February 1899) was a German general and statesman who served as the cha ...
, the
Chief of the Imperial Admiralty, sought to modernize Germany's cruiser force. The first step in the program, the two s
unprotected cruiser
An unprotected cruiser was a type of naval warship in use during the early 1870s Victorian or pre-dreadnought era (about 1880 to 1905). The name was meant to distinguish these ships from “protected cruisers”, which had become accepted in ...
s, provided the basis for the larger ''Bussard'' class.
The ''Bussard'' class was designed for service abroad and the design for the ''Bussard'' class was prepared in 1888. The ships were significantly larger and faster than the ''Schwalbe'' class, but mounted the same battery of guns—though only ''Bussard'' carried the same type of guns—the rest carried a newer,
quick-firing model. They were also the last cruiser class in the German ''
Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy) to be equipped with a sailing rig; the subsequent unprotected cruiser was entirely steam-powered.
General characteristics
![StateLibQld 1 142447 Cormoran (ship)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/StateLibQld_1_142447_Cormoran_%28ship%29.jpg)
The ships of the ''Bussard'' class all differed slightly in their characteristics. The first two ships, and , were
long at the waterline
A vessel's length at the waterline (abbreviated to L.W.L)Note: originally Load Waterline Length is the length of a ship or boat at the level where it sits in the water (the ''waterline''). The LWL will be shorter than the length of the boat over ...
and
long overall
__NOTOC__
Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and ...
. They had a
beam
Beam may refer to:
Streams of particles or energy
*Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy
**Laser beam
*Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles
**Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...
of and a
draft of forward and aft. They
displaced as designed and up to at
full load. The next three ships, , , and , were long at the waterline and had the same overall length as their earlier
sister ship
A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...
s. They had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft. They displaced as designed and at full load. The last ship, ''Geier'', was 79.62 m long at the waterline and long overall. She had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft.
The cruisers' hulls were constructed with transverse steel frames with yellow pine planking up to the upper deck. A layer of
Muntz metal sheathing covered the hull to protect the wood from
shipworm
The shipworms are marine bivalve molluscs in the family Teredinidae: a group of saltwater clams with long, soft, naked bodies. They are notorious for boring into (and commonly eventually destroying) wood that is immersed in sea water, including ...
. The stem and sternposts were constructed with steel and timber. A bronze
naval ram
A ram was a weapon fitted to varied types of ships, dating back to antiquity. The weapon comprised an underwater prolongation of the bow of the ship to form an armoured beak, usually between 2 and 4 meters (6–12 ft) in length. This would be dri ...
was fitted at the bow. The hull was divided into ten
watertight compartments, and a
double bottom
A double hull is a ship Hull (watercraft), hull design and construction method where the bottom and sides of the ship have two complete layers of watertight hull surface: one outer layer forming the normal hull of the ship, and a second inner hull ...
was installed below the boiler rooms. The ships were good sea boats, but they rolled badly and the
sponson
Sponsons are projections extending from the sides of land vehicles, aircraft or watercraft to provide protection, stability, storage locations, mounting points for weapons or other devices, or equipment housing.
Watercraft
On watercraft, a spon ...
s for the main guns caused severe vibration. Since ''Geier'' was laid down after the other five ships entered service, she was redesigned slightly to discard the sponsons, and so she did not suffer from bad vibration. They were very maneuverable, except for turns into the wind when steaming at low speed. The ships had a crew of 9 officers and 152 enlisted men. They carried a number of smaller boats, including one picket boat, one
cutter, two
yawl
A yawl is a type of boat. The term has several meanings. It can apply to the rig (or sailplan), to the hull type or to the use which the vessel is put.
As a rig, a yawl is a two masted, fore and aft rigged sailing vessel with the mizzen mast p ...
s, and two
dinghies.
Propulsion
Their propulsion system consisted of two horizontal 3-cylinder
triple-expansion steam engine
A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages.
A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure ''(HP)'' cylinder, then having given up he ...
s powered by four coal-fired cylindrical
fire-tube boiler
A fire-tube boiler is a type of boiler in which hot gases pass from a fire through one or more tubes running through a sealed container of water. The heat of the gases is transferred through the walls of the tubes by thermal conduction, heating t ...
s; the engines were rated at and were placed in their own
engine rooms. The engines drove a pair of 3-bladed
screw propeller
A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...
s that were wide in diameter. The boilers were divided into two
boiler rooms and were trunked into a single funnel. The ships were fitted with an auxiliary
schooner barque rig with a total surface area of . Steering was controlled by a single
rudder
A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...
. Each ship was equipped with a pair of electricity generators with a combined output of at 67
volt
The volt (symbol: V) is the unit of electric potential, electric potential difference (voltage), and electromotive force in the International System of Units (SI). It is named after the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745–1827).
Defi ...
s.
The propulsion system provided a top speed of , though all six ships exceeded their design speeds while on
sea trials, reaching between . The ships carried between of coal as designed, and they could accommodate up to of coal using additional storage spaces. This provided a range of between at .
Armament
The first ship was armed with a
main battery of eight
10.5 cm K L/35 guns in single pedestal mounts, supplied with 800 rounds of ammunition in total. They had a range of . The five subsequent ships were equipped with newer quick-firing SK L/35 versions of the 10.5 cm guns. These newer guns also had a longer range, of . Two guns were placed side by side on the
forecastle
The forecastle ( ; contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le) is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase " be ...
, two on each
broadside
Broadside or broadsides may refer to:
Naval
* Broadside (naval), terminology for the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their near simultaneous fire on naval warfare
Printing and literature
* Broadside (comic ...
—one in a sponson and the other in a
gun port—and two side by side on the
quarterdeck
The quarterdeck is a raised deck behind the main mast of a sailing ship. Traditionally it was where the captain commanded his vessel and where the ship's colours were kept. This led to its use as the main ceremonial and reception area on bo ...
. ''Geier'' did not use sponsons for the second pair of guns, instead simply mounting them on the upper deck. The gun armament was rounded out by five
Hotchkiss revolver cannon
The Hotchkiss gun can refer to different products of the Hotchkiss arms company starting in the late 19th century. It usually refers to the 1.65-inch (42 mm) light mountain gun; there were also a navy (47 mm) and a 3-inch (76&nbs ...
for defense against torpedo boats. The first five ships were also equipped with two
torpedo tube
A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes.
There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...
s, both of which were mounted on the deck. ''Geier'' instead had larger torpedo tubes. Each ship carried five
torpedo
A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, su ...
es.
Ships
Service history
All six ships of the class spent the majority of their careers abroad, primarily in Germany's colonial possessions in Africa and the Pacific. ''Seeadler'' visited the United States in March 1893, along with the
protected cruiser , for the belated celebrations for the 400th anniversary of
Columbus
Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to:
* Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer
* Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio
Columbus may also refer to:
Places ...
's crossing of the Atlantic. In July of that year, while assigned to the
East Asia Division, ''Bussard'' and ''Falke'' assisted in the suppression of
Mata'afa Iosefo
Mata'afa Iosefo (1832 – 6 February 1912) was a Paramount Chief of Samoa who was one of the three rival candidates for the kingship of Samoa during colonialism. He was also referred to as Tupua Malietoa To'oa Mata'afa Iosefo. He was crowned the K ...
's revolt in
Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...
, along with a British
corvette
A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the slo ...
. Throughout the 1890s, ''Seeadler'' was assigned to Germany's colonies in
East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa:
Due to the historical ...
and
Southwest Africa
South West Africa ( af, Suidwes-Afrika; german: Südwestafrika; nl, Zuidwest-Afrika) was a territory under South African administration from 1915 to 1990, after which it became modern-day Namibia. It bordered Angola (Portuguese colony before 1 ...
, where she suppressed local uprisings.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 134-C0105, SMS](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Bundesarchiv_Bild_134-C0105%2C_SMS_%22Geier%22%2C_Kleiner_Kreuzer.jpg)
In November 1897, ''Cormoran'' took part in the seizure of the
Kiautschou Bay concession
The Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory was a German leased territory in Imperial and Early Republican China from 1898 to 1914. Covering an area of , it centered on Jiaozhou ("Kiautschou") Bay on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula (g ...
in the
Shandong Peninsula in
Qing China
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu people, Manchu-led Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin (1616–1636), La ...
. ''Geier'' was present in the Caribbean during the
Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (clock ...
in 1898, though she took no active role in the conflict. Between 1898 and 1900, ''Bussard'' and ''Seeadler'' were modernized in Germany. In 1900, ''Seeadler'' participated in the suppression of the
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by ...
in China, including a blockade of the Chinese coast. In December 1902, ''Falke'' and the protected cruiser joined British forces in the
Venezuela Crisis of 1902–03
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
after Venezuelan forces seized a British merchant ship. The two cruisers helped British warships bombard Venezuelan coastal fortifications and blockade the coast.
''Cormoran'' and ''Geier'' were modernized between 1907 and 1909; only ''Falke'' and ''Condor'' never returned for major dockyard work. ''Condor'' and ''Cormoran'' suppressed the
Sokehs Rebellion in the
Caroline Islands in January 1911, along with the
light cruiser . In 1912, when the
Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 ( O.S.) / 29 (N.S.) June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies r ...
broke out, ''Geier'' was stationed in the eastern
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
to observe the hostilities. Both ''Bussard'' and ''Falke'' were stricken from the naval register on 25 October 1912 and broken up the following year, at Hamburg and the ''Kaiserliche Werft'' in Danzig, respectively.
After the outbreak of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
in August 1914, ''Seeadler'' was converted into a mine storage
hulk
The Hulk is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in the debut issue of ''The Incredible Hulk (comic book), The Incredible Hulk' ...
in Wilhelmshaven. An accidental explosion in April 1917 destroyed the ship, and her wreck was never raised. ''Condor'' was used for the same purpose in Kiel; she survived the war and was broken up for scrap in 1921 in Hamburg. ''Cormoran'', still stationed in Tsingtao, was scuttled in the harbor because her engines were in poor condition. ''Geier'' meanwhile operated against British merchant shipping in the Pacific following the onset of hostilities. By October, she was running low on coal and had been isolated from any sources of support; she therefore steamed to
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
, where she was interned by the
US Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...
. After the United States declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917, she was seized and commissioned as USS ''Schurz'' for use as an escort vessel. She was sunk after colliding with a merchant ship in June 1918.
Notes
References
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Further reading
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{{German unprotected cruisers