Covered corvette

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Covered Corvette SMS Arcona

Covered corvette was from 1858 to 1884 in the Prussian Navy and the German Imperial Navy the official name for a type of warship that was located between the smaller smooth-deck corvettes and the larger ironclads . Covered corvettes were unarmored steamships with screw drives that were rigged as full ships and were therefore also referred to as screw corvettes. Its sail rigging enabled it to be used worldwide without being dependent on steam propulsion. This was usually only used sparingly, for example during port maneuvers, when there was no wind or in combat.

Classification

In the terminology of the early 19th century, corvettes differed from frigates in that corvettes had only one battery deck , while frigates had two. In the case of the rigged steam warships, however, the characteristics of the ship classes were blurred.

In the Prussian Navy, the term "frigate" was only used for the wooden sailing ships without steam drive. However, since the introduction of steam propulsion from around 1855, these were no longer considered suitable for combat use and therefore no longer played a role in the classification of the newer steamships.

The more modern, non-armored steam-powered ship types were given the names "covered" or "smooth-deck corvettes". The covered corvettes differed from the smooth-deck corvettes in that their battery deck was completely covered by an upper deck and thus protected, while the cannons of the smooth-deck corvettes were open on the upper deck. In addition to the cannon deck, the covered corvettes also had hunting cannons, which were rotatably mounted on the bow and stern of the upper deck. In terms of size and armament, they practically did not differ from the sailing frigates still in existence at the time.

Compared to the armored ships (also with steam drive), the covered corvettes were smaller and lighter than these, as they only had a battery deck and were not armored.

In 1884 the covered corvettes were reclassified to " cruiser frigates", which means that the classification of the "frigate" was taken up again. The term “ cruiser corvette ” was used for the smooth-deck corvette .

history

development

In the 19th century, shipbuilding was revolutionized in every respect. In terms of propulsion, the sails were gradually replaced by steam propulsion. When building the fuselage, the original wooden construction was first replaced by composite construction (iron and wood), and later by cast iron and steel. This development first started in the civil sector. Only later were the new types of propulsion and hull construction adopted by the military. The covered corvettes from the second half of the 19th century fall during this transitional period in shipbuilding.

The first screw-propelled warships were introduced in the United States in 1840 . France built screw warships from 1842, England experimented with a prototype of a screw warship from 1843. The first German screw warship was the gunboat Von der Tann of the Schleswig-Holstein Navy in 1849 , which was used in the Schleswig-Holstein fight for independence against Denmark .

The Prussian fleet building program of 1853 envisaged the construction of three screw frigates with 40 cannons and six screw corvettes with 24 cannons. In 1855 the Prussian Navy acquired the English sailing frigate HMS Thetis , which was built from 1844 to 1846 and was considered an excellent sailor. This ship was used as a template for the construction of the first Prussian covered corvettes of the Arcona class . These ships were still built entirely of wood, while all subsequent ships of this type were riveted structures made of rolled iron plates with iron frames as well. The iron hulls were also provided with wooden planking from the keel to above the waterline , which in turn was covered with plates made of copper or muntz metal .

The covered corvettes of the Prussian Navy each had a propeller . In order not to impair the speed due to the drag of the stationary propeller when sailing under sail, the propeller could be lifted out of the water in a screw shaft in some ships during sailing operation after disengaging the screw shaft (nautical: called).

The ships usually had a chimney. During modernizations during the current working hours, the rigging was usually reduced and the steam engine reinforced, which in some cases made the installation of a second chimney necessary.

tasks

The covered corvettes were designed for use overseas. They served to assert and enforce the economic, diplomatic and colonial interests of Prussia , the North German Confederation and later the German Empire internationally. In addition to some smaller military actions, which are often referred to as gunboat policy, this was carried out through numerous circumnavigations, for which the new covered corvettes were ideally suited. This also included scientific expeditions, such as the observation of the passage of Venus on the Kerguelen in 1874 during the circumnavigation of the SMS Gazelle under the command of Captain Georg von Schleinitz .

Since wooden warships quickly lost their military value after the Crimean War , the wooden covered corvettes were later mainly used as sailing training ships or for representative purposes, for example at the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, when Prussia was represented by three covered corvettes.

Classes

Prussia or the North German Confederation and the German Reich put a total of three classes of covered corvettes into service:

Single ships

The Imperial Navy also put another covered corvette or cruiser frigate into service as a single ship:

See also

literature

  • Reinhold Werner : Atlas of the sea. Reprint-Verlag, Leipzig, new edition of the original edition from 1871, ISBN 3-826-22311-X
  • Hermann-Joachim Greven: Covered corvette Elisabeth. Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 1991, ISBN 3-356-00427-1
  • Keyword: covered corvette. Maritime dictionary. Compiled by Jürgen Gebauer and Egon Krenz. Military publishing house of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-327-00679-2 , pp. 73–74.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Keyword: frigate. Maritime dictionary. Compiled by Jürgen Gebauer and Egon Krenz. Military publishing house of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-327-00679-2 , pp. 69–70.