SMS ''Eber'' was the last of the six
gunboats of the of the German
Imperial Navy prior to and during
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 ...
. Other ships of the class are
SMS Iltis
SMS ''Iltis'' was the lead ship of the of gunboats built for the German ''Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy) in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Other ships of the class are , , , , and .
Design
''Iltis'' was long overall and had a beam of ...
,
SMS Luchs,
SMS Tiger
SMS ''Tiger'' was the third member of the of gunboats built for the German ''Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy) in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Other ships of the class were , , , and .
Design
''Tiger'' was length overall, long overall ...
,
SMS Jaguar
SMS ''Jaguar'' was the second member of the of gunboats built for the German ''Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy) in the late 1890s and early 1900s, for overseas service in the German colonial empire. Other ships of the class are SMS Iltis, SMS ...
and
SMS Panther. They were built between 1898 and 1903. All of them served primarily overseas, in the German colonies. ''Eber'' had a crew of 9 officers and 121 men.
Design
''Eber'' was
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 ...
and 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. She
displaced at
full load. Her propulsion system consisted of a pair of vertical
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 each driving a single
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 ...
, with steam supplied by four coal-fired
Thornycroft boiler
Three-drum boilers are a class of water-tube boiler used to generate steam, typically to power ships. They are compact and of high evaporative power, factors that encourage this use. Other boiler designs may be more efficient, although bulkier, an ...
s. ''Eber'' could steam at a top speed of at . The ship had a cruising radius of about at a speed of . She had a crew of 9 officers and 121 enlisted men. ''Eber'' was armed with a
main battery of two
SK L/40 guns, with 482 rounds of ammunition. She also carried six
machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...
s.
Service history
The
keel
The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...
for ''Eber'' was laid down at the
AG Vulcan in
Stettin
Szczecin (, , german: Stettin ; sv, Stettin ; Latin language, Latin: ''Sedinum'' or ''Stetinum'') is the capital city, capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the Po ...
in 1902, much later than her five
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. She was launched on 6 June 1902 and commissioned into the German fleet on 15 September that year to begin
sea trials. Following the completion of her initial testing, ''Eber'' remained out of service for the next seven years. The lengthy period in the reserve for a brand new vessel prompted an official inquiry from the ''
Reichstag'' (Imperial Diet). The ''
Reichsmarineamt
The Imperial Naval Office (german: Reichsmarineamt) was a government agency of the German Empire. It was established in April 1889, when the German Imperial Admiralty was abolished and its duties divided among three new entities: the Imperial Na ...
'' (Imperial Navy Office) reported that ''Eber'' had been intended to serve as a reserve vessel that could be activated to respond to a crisis or to replace a damaged or lost vessel; this response generated laughter during the ''Reichstag'' session when the navy's representative read it.
''Eber'' was activated for her first period of active service in early 1910, to join her sister ship on the western coast of Africa. She departed
Wilhelmshaven, Germany, on 14 April and arrived in
Douala, the capital of the German colony of
Kamerun, on 14 July. The ship's activity during the deployment was characterized by routine visits to ports along the western coast of Africa to