Bismarck-class corvette

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

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. By the mid-1870s, the fleet of corvettes available to the German (Imperial Navy) was rapidly ageing, with several vessels already twenty years old. 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.

After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the 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 six ships of the class were ordered in the early 1870s as part of this program to modernize the fleet. The design for the class was prepared between 1873 and 1875, and it was similar to the that preceded it, although the s were smaller vessels.

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 with one layer of wood 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 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) and four coal-fired fire-tube boilers, which were ducted into a single, retractable funnel. 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 .

As built, the -class ships were equipped with a full ship rig to supplement their steam engines on overseas cruising missions, but this was later reduced, and had her rigging removed altogether. 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 22-caliber (cal.) breech-loading guns; carried sixteen of the guns, while and had ten, had twelve, had fourteen, and carried her main battery guns only briefly before she was converted into a training ship. carried 1660 shells for her 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. They also carried six Hotchkiss revolver cannon.

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. also had two torpedo tubes in her bow, above the waterline, though the rest of the class had no torpedo tubes.

Ships

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''

, named for (Field Marshal) Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher of the Napoleonic Wars, served as a torpedo training and testing ship in German waters for the entirety of her active career. This role was focused on two primary responsibilities, training crews in the operation of torpedoes and developing tactical employment of the weapons. To fulfill these tasks, the ship was heavily modified from her original configuration, having most of her guns removed in favor of a variety of torpedo weapons. Between the 1880s and early 1900s, most of the officers and crewmen in the German fleet received their torpedo training aboard the ship. By the early 1890s, the German torpedo-boat force had increased to the size that could no longer fill both roles, and so the task of developing tactics was given to the aviso . She was initially based in Kiel in the Baltic Sea, under the command of Alfred von Tirpitz, who at that time advocated for the use of small, cheap torpedo boats to defend Germany, rather than the expensive battleships he would later champion.

In the early 1900s, was transferred to the new Torpedo School in Flensburg- Mürwik, along with the old ironclad , which supported her training role. had badly deteriorated by 1906, at which point she was reduced to a stationary training vessel. In 1907, suffered a boiler explosion that badly damaged the ship and killed thirty men, though most of her crew were ashore at the time of the accident. Deemed too old to warrant repairing, was instead sold to a Dutch company that used her as a coal storage hulk in Vigo, Spain; her ultimate fate is unknown.

''Stosch''

embarked on a major overseas cruise from 1881 to 1885, first as the flagship of the East Asia Squadron and later as the flagship of the East and West Africa Squadrons. Most of this deployment was spent in East Asian waters, where she was involved with mediating disputes over Germany's growing colonial empire in the Pacific Ocean and securing trade agreements with foreign governments. In early 1885, she was transferred to the East Africa Squadron, where she also served as the flagship. While in East African waters, Carl Heinrich Theodor Paschen took to Zanzibar, where he negotiated a settlement with the Sultan of Zanzibar, paving the way for the founding of German East Africa. s stint lasted just six months, when she was transferred again, briefly, to the West African Squadron. The presence of the squadron proved to be unnecessary, and so the ships were recalled to Germany in December 1885, where the squadron was disbanded.

Beginning in early 1886, underwent an extensive modernization in preparation for her service as a training ship for naval cadets and later . The ship served in this capacity from 1888 to 1907, during which time her activity consisted primarily of fleet training exercises and overseas training cruises. These cruises frequently went to the West Indies and Mediterranean Sea, though she also made visits to South America and West Africa. also frequently visited foreign ports to show the flag