Leipzig class (1875)
 Illustration of SMS Leipzig by Fritz Stoltenberg
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The Leipzig- class was a class of two covered corvettes that were built for the German Imperial Navy in the 1870s . The ships were SMS Leipzig and SMS Prinz Adalbert . Originally, the ships should be named after major battles. So that was Leipzig after the Battle of Leipzig named, and the Prince Adalbert was after the Battle of Sedan in accordance Sedan are called. But in order not to upset France , the ship was renamed shortly after taking up service. The Leipzig class was actually supposed to be based on the Ariadne class , but ultimately their ships were built significantly larger, had stronger armament and, in contrast to the wooden construction of the Ariadne class corvettes, an iron hull construction. This made the ships the first corvettes of the Imperial Navy to be built with iron hulls.
The corvettes of the class were ordered in the early 1870s as part of a large naval construction program and were intended to serve on extended missions in the overseas areas of interest of the German Empire and within the fleet. However, the British experience during the naval battle of Pacocha in 1877 convinced the German admiralty that unarmored warships were useless against the fleets of ironclad ships built mainly by the European navies . For example, Leipzig and Prince Adalbert were only deployed on the stations abroad , often also to protect German interests by projecting power in the sense of a gunboat policy and to promote the expansion of the German colonial empire from the 1880s onwards.
The ships had a battery of two 17 cm ring cannons with a caliber length of L / 25 and ten 17 cm ring cannons with a caliber length of L / 20 as their main armament, and they had full sailing equipment to supplement the steam engine that was also available on long missions overseas . In 1884 the ships were reclassified as cruiser frigates.
The ships made two long overseas voyages each in the late 1870s and early 1880s, mainly to East Asia. In 1878 Leipzig was involved in a diplomatic dispute with Nicaragua, the so-called Eisenstuck affair . Prince Adalbert was used to secure the growing German colonial empire in Africa . In the mid-1880s, Leipzig was heavily rebuilt in order to be able to use it as a squadron flagship on foreign stations. In this function, she served as the flagship of the permanent cruiser squadron from 1888 to 1893 . During this period of service she took part in the campaign against the uprising of the East African coastal population in German East Africa in the years 1888–1890. She then moved between East Africa, China and Chile , where she protected German nationals during the Chilean civil war of 1891. In the meantime, Prinz Adalbert was used as a training ship in 1886 and had served in this capacity for three years. before being converted into a barge in May 1890 . In 1907 it was sold for scrapping. At this point in time, Leipzig was already a stationary living and training ship in 1895. In 1919 it sank in an accident. In 1921 the ship was lifted and also sold for scrapping.
design
The development of the Leipzig class goes back to the fleet plan of 1867, which was drawn up by Eduard von Jachmann . The plan included an expansion program to strengthen the Prussian navy after the German War and provided for a total of twenty screw corvettes. When the design work for the Leipzig class began in 1871, the German states under Prussian leadership had won the Franco-Prussian War and founded the German Empire . General Albrecht von Stosch , the new head of the Imperial Admiralty , included Jachmann's plan for unarmored corvettes in his fleet plan of 1873. At the same time, the use of iron to build the hulls of large warships instead of the traditional timber construction was debated within the Imperial Navy. The Prussian class , the first class of German iron-hulled warships that had been started in 1868, proved a success, as did the British screw frigate HMS Inconstant , the world's first iron warship that was intended for use on long journeys. As a result, the construction department decided to use an iron hull for the new corvette design.
Leipzig was originally ordered under the name Thusnelda as an improved corvette of the Ariadne class , which was identical to SMS Freya . Before the work began, however, it was redesigned into a much larger design. The new design was prepared in 1871–1872 and work began two years later. The designers had intended to use the ships in addition to the normal cruiser tasks such as representation , the protection of German merchant shipping and the safeguarding of German economic interests abroad, and as reconnaissance ships for the main fleet. But shortly before the work on the two corvettes was completed, the British frigate HMS Shah and the corvette HMS Amethyst fought against the Peruvian ironclad Huáscar in the naval battle of Pacocha . This skirmish showed that unarmored warships were practically useless against modern armored warships. For Leipzig and Prince Adalbert , therefore, they refrained from using the fleet and the ships were only used on the overseas stations, where an encounter with enemy armored units was considered unlikely. Carl Paschen , who later commanded both ships during his career, described them as "liveable ships" and praised their spacious hulls, which proved to be well suited for long missions abroad.
properties
The ships of the Leipzig class were 87 meters (m) long at the waterline and a total of 87.5 m long. They were 14 m wide and had a draft of 6.2 m forward and 6.9 m aft. They usually displaced 3980 t and up to 4626 t at full load.
The hulls were constructed with iron frames in the transverse and longitudinal direction with two layers of wooden planks and a copper cladding to prevent bio-corrosion during longer missions overseas, where shipyard facilities were not readily available. The hulls were divided into seven watertight compartments. Leipzig was heavily rebuilt in the mid-1880s and its hull was divided into nine and later ten compartments. To protect the engine room, the ships were also equipped with a double floor underneath. The ships were designed with a foredeck , but instead finished with a flush deck.
Leipzig and Prince Adalbert were stiff vessels poorly rolled and tended , especially when their fuel bunkers were full. They had limited performance under sail. The ship's crew consisted of 39 officers and 386 men. Each ship carried a number of smaller boats, including a guard boat, two launch boats , a pinasse , a cutter , two dinghies, and a dinghy .
drive
The ships were propelled by a single horizontal 3-cylinder ship steam engine, which propelled a 2-blade screw propeller with a diameter of 6 m. For steam attended ten coal-fired Case Boiler for Leipzig and six boilers for Prinz Adalbert . These were housed in a single boiler room. The exhaust gases were directed into a single retractable chimney. Leipzig had a planned speed of 14 knots (26 km / h), but reached 15.8 knots (29.3 km / h) at 6050 hp (5970 ihp) in speed tests. Prince Adalbert had a similar feat. The ships had a cruising radius of 4320 km (2330 nautical miles ) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km / h) and at a speed of 14 knots their range dropped to 2930 km (1580 SM). Leipzig and Prince Adalbert were equipped with a complete sailing rig to supplement their steam engines on long-distance journeys.
When it was modernized in the mid-1880s, Leipzig received new boilers, which required the installation of a second chimney, which, unlike its original chimney, was not retractable. Your original screw was replaced by a four-bladed propeller with a diameter of 5.8 m. An electric generator was installed that produced 9.1 kilowatts (12.2 horsepower) at 55 volts .
Armament
The ships of the Leipzig class were armed with a battery of Rk 17.0 cm ring cannons, two of which had a caliber length of L / 25. The other ten had caliber length L / 20 and were therefore a little shorter. Two of the cannons were mounted in the bow for chases, while the rest were on the broadside . The cannons had a range of 5000 m and the ships carried a total of 1226 shells. In later service the ships were retrofitted with four Hotchkiss 3.7 cm revolver cannons and four 35 cm (13.8 inch) torpedo tubes. The torpedo tubes were installed two in the bow and one on each side above the waterline. The ships carried a total of ten torpedoes.
Remarks
- ↑ The caliber length describes the length of the weapon in relation to the caliber. A 22 caliber weapon is 22 times its diameter, so, for example, a 26 cm L / 22 weapon is 572 cm long.
literature
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 70 f .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . 10 volumes. Mundus Verlag, Ratingen (licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
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