SMS Loreley (1859)

SMS was an aviso of the Prussian Navy built in the late 1850s. Built as a paddle steamer, since the Prussian naval command was not convinced of the reliability of screw propellers, she was the first Prussian warship to be fitted with a domestically-produced marine steam engine. The ship carried a light armament of two 12-pound guns and had a top speed of . was intended to serve as the flagship of the gunboat flotillas that formed the bulk of the Prussian fleet in the 1850s.

After entering service, the ship was sent to the Italian Peninsula in 1861 to protect Prussians and other German nationals during the Second Italian War of Independence, part of the unification of Italy. She thereafter went to Greece, the Ottoman Empire, and then to Romania before being recalled to Prussia in 1862. She served in her intended role during the Second Schleswig War, serving as the command ship for five flotillas of gunboats based in the Baltic Sea. She saw action against the Danish Navy during the war at the Battle of Jasmund, where she received a single hit that killed one man. After the war, she was decommissioned and saw little activity for the rest of the decade, by which time she was in poor condition.

was extensively rebuilt between 1869 and 1873, thereafter serving in the North Sea until 1879, when she was sent to the Ottoman Empire to serve as Germany's station ship in Constantinople. She remained there for nearly two decades to protect German interests during periods of unrest in the country. Worn out by 1896, she was struck from the naval register in August and sold in September. Her ultimate fate is unknown.

Design

Following the sale of the two s in 1855, the Prussian Navy had no smaller steam-driven warships; the aviso , built the following year, was initially intended to serve as a royal yacht and carried no armament. The navy decided it needed a vessel that could serve as a flagship and scout for the small gunboats that formed the bulk of Prussia's small fleet. The Technical Department of the Admiralty drew up plans in 1857 for a paddle steamer that could serve in that role. At the time, naval designers had not settled on the use of screw propellers on warships, and the Prussian designers still had reservations about adopting the new technology. They also eschewed iron for the hull in favor of traditional wood planking.

General characteristics

was long at the waterline and long overall. She had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft. As designed, she displaced and at full load, her displacement increased to . Her hull was constructed with transverse wooden frames and was carvel-built; to protect from biofouling, the wooden hull planks were sheathed in copper. The hull was divided into seven watertight compartments. Her freeboard amounted to .

was thoroughly rebuilt between 1869 and 1873; the reconstruction was so extensive, she is sometimes considered a different vessel. Her original wooden hull was rebuilt with iron frames, though she retained the wooden outer planking, still sheathed in copper. Displacement fell slightly, to as designed and at full load. She was also shortened slightly, with a waterline length of and an overall length of . Beam remained the same, but her draft increased slightly to forward and aft.

Steering was controlled with a single rudder; was a mediocre sea boat and she was difficult to turn. She lost little speed in a head sea, though a beam sea caused considerable loss of speed. The ship had a crew of four officers and sixty-one enlisted men, though the latter figure was later reduced to fifty-three after the reconstruction. She carried two small boats of unrecorded type.

Machinery

was propelled by a single oscillating, 2-cylinder marine steam engine manufactured by the machine shop operated by the , the royal merchant shipping organization. This made her the first Prussian warship to be fitted with a domestically-produced engine, as all previous vessels, including those built in Prussia, used British propulsion systems. The engine drove a pair of paddle wheels, one on either side of the ship, that were in diameter and were fitted with twenty-four paddles per wheel. Steam for the engine was provided by a single coal-fired trunk boiler that was ducted into a single funnel just aft of the wheels. The boiler was built by AG Vulcan, Stettin. Her propulsion system was rated to produce , for a top speed of ; steaming endurance figures have not survived for her original configuration. To supplement the steam engine, she was fitted as a gaff-rigged schooner, though they contributed little to her performance. Her sailing rig had a total area of , though this was later reduced to .

The ship initially retained her original propulsion system during her reconstruction, but in 1879, she received new boilers that were built by the (Imperial Shipyard) in Wilhelmshaven. As reconstructed, her top speed fell to . She carried of coal, which provided a cruising radius of at a speed of 9 knots.

Armament

carried an initial armament of two long-barreled 12-pounder guns in individual carriages. These were supplied with a total of 240 shells. After emerging from her refit in 1873, she carried a single 23-caliber (cal.) breechloading hoop gun that was supplied with 142 shells. It had a range of . In addition, she received a pair of 23-cal. breechloading guns with a total of 190 shells.

Service history

The keel for was laid down at the (Royal Shipyard) in Danzig on 1 February 1858. She was launched on 20 May 1859, and was christened for the Loreley rock formation on the Rhine at Sankt Goar. She was commissioned for sea trials on 28 September, with (''LzS''—Lieutenant at Sea) Heinrich Köhler as her first commander; the trials revealed that her engine was too weak to meet the design requirements, but no improvements were made. The ship entered active service in 1860; she was sent to the Mediterranean Sea to protect Prussian and German interests and evacuate civilians in the Italian Peninsula, then in the midst of the Second Italian War of Independence that led to the unification of Italy. The ship still had not received her intended armament, so she received a pair of guns that had been fitted to in 1848. Since would be incapable of carrying the number of passengers that would be required, the navy chartered the steamship to accompany . The aviso's commander for the operation was (''KK''—Corvette Captain) Hans Kuhn.

left Danzig on 31 July 1860 and ''Ida'' followed on 9 August; the two ships rendezvoused off Naples, then in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, on 31 August. Giuseppe Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand had forced King Francis II to flee to Gaeta, so embarked the Prussian and Austrian ambassadors, along with a pair of representatives from the Papal States, and carried them to Gaeta. She then returned to Naples, where she and ''Ida'' embarked civilians from the German states fleeing the fighting there. A senior Sicilian officer was also evacuated aboard ''Ida'', which drew protests from the Kingdom of Sardinia. was sent first to Greece in October to show the flag