SMS Fuchs (1860)

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SMS Fuchs

Ship data flag  Prussia North German Confederation German Empire     Ship type Gunboat class Hunter- class Shipyard JW Klawitter , Danzig building-costs 49,000 thalers Launch February 14, 1860 Commissioning Fall 1860 Removal from the ship register November 14, 1882 Whereabouts Used up as a cream

Ship dimensions and crew length 41.2 m ( Lüa ) 38.0 m ( KWL ) width 6.69 m Draft Max. 2.2 m displacement Construction: 237 t Maximum: 283 t   crew 40 men

Machine system machine 4 transversely stationary suitcase boiler 2 horizontal 1-cyl steam engines 1 Rowing Machine performance 220 hp (162 kW) Top speed 9.0 kn (17 km / h) propeller 1 three-leaf, ø 1.88 m

Rigging and rigging Rigging More beautiful Number of masts 3 Sail area 300 m²

Armament 1 pulled 24-pounder (= 15 cm) 2 pulled 12 pounders (= 12 cm)

The SMS Fuchs was a Jäger class ship , a class of fifteen steam cannon boats, 2nd class of the Royal Prussian Navy , the Navy of the North German Confederation and the Imperial Navy .

Construction and service time

The Fuchs was commissioned from the Danzig shipyard J. W. Klawitter in the summer of 1859 and was launched on February 14, 1860. The ship's propulsion system was supplied by the Berlin company Borsig . After completion, the first test drives and the transfer to the base of the gunboats on the Dänholm took place in the autumn of 1860 , although the exact dates are not known. After the gunboat was not kept in service during the winter, tests were continued from June 25, 1861. Then was Fuchs in August and September together with her sister ships hunters , salamanders and Scorpion , the schooner Hela , the gunboats First Class CAMäleon and Comet and the as flagship acting Amazone used on a trip to the North Sea, in Hamburg and Bremen started were. On October 12, 1861, the Fuchs was decommissioned and mothballed on the Dänholm.

When the German-Danish War broke out , the Fuchs was reactivated and put back into service on March 1, 1864. In June the ship took part in a fleet parade in front of King Wilhelm I and went to the shipyard in Swinoujscie the following month , with the chimney being lengthened. On October 18, the Fuchs was decommissioned and slipped back onto the Dänholm .

Only after more than five years did the Franco-German War bring it back to life. The Fuchs was put back into service on July 24, 1870 and moved together with five sister ships through the Eider Canal to Wilhelmshaven . There she was used in the outpost service on the Jade . Damage suffered in the process forced a repair stay in Bremerhaven . After the Fuchs had spent the winter in the port basin of Wilhelmshaven, she was deployed in the outpost service on the Elbe until the end of the war in 1871 , but without getting into battle with opposing ships. After the war it was used to remove mine barriers in the Jade fairway and then to serve as a tender for the North Sea naval station . From August until it was decommissioned on December 8, 1871, the ship was assigned to the newly established torpedo department.

The Fuchs was overhauled in 1872 by the Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven . The rigging was removed except for the main mast , which remained on board as a signal mast, and the 24-pounder gun was exchanged for a more modern ring cannon caliber 15 cm  L / 22 . The two smaller guns were expanded. Until the next commissioning, which took place on April 1, 1878, instead of the 15 cm cannon, an 8.7 cm L / 24 cannon had come on board. The Fuchs was used periodically in the following five years as an artillery school boat and tender for the school ships Renown and Mars , always being activated on April 1st, but decommissioned at different times. Their armament was changed again in 1880 and the 8.7 cm ring cannon was replaced by a 3.7 cm caliber revolver cannon .

Whereabouts

After the Fuchs was taken out of service for the last time on June 27, 1882, she was deleted from the list of warships on November 14 of the same year. Her hull was used as a mine in Wilhelmshaven for a few years and was finally broken up .

The torpedo boat Flink , built in 1882, was officially listed as a replacement for the Fuchs .

Commanders

Fall 1860	Lieutenant 1st class growing
June 25 to September 1861	Lieutenant 1st class Rubarth
September 12th to October 12th 1861	Lieutenant II class of Saint Paul
March 1864	Lieutenant 1st class Franz von Waldersee
March to October 18, 1864	Unterleutnant zur See Lüdecke (deputy)
July 24 to August 1870	Lieutnant zur See Günther von Zitzewitz
August 1870 to December 8, 1871	Lieutenant of the Sea Koppen
April 1 to October 2, 1878	unknown
April 1 to September 27, 1879	Lieutenant to the Sea Landfermann
April 1 to July 28, 1880	Lieutenant Goecke
April 1 to August 27, 1881	Lieutenant to the sea Friedrich Graf von Moltke
April 1 to June 27, 1882	Lieutenant at sea Hans Meyer

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 Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 160 f .
• Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 3 : Ship biographies from the Elbe to Graudenz . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 162 f . (Approved licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).

Footnotes

1. ↑ The designation of the lower officer ranks was set or changed in the years 1849, 1854 and 1864. On January 1, 1900, the names Fähnrich zur See, Leutnant zur See, Oberleutnant zur See and Kapitänleutnant, which are still in use today, were introduced.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} The rank corresponds to a lieutenant commander.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} The rank corresponds to a first lieutenant at sea.
4. ↑ The rank corresponds to a lieutenant at sea.