SMS Natter (1860)

Adder

The identical fox

Ship data flag  Prussia North German Confederation German Empire     Ship type Gunboat class Hunter- class Shipyard Luebke , Wolgast building-costs 48,500 thalers Launch February 14, 1860 Commissioning March 1, 1864 Removal from the ship register September 7, 1880 Whereabouts Wrecked at an unknown time

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 350 m²

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

The SMS Natter 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 adder was commissioned from the Wolgast shipyard in Lübke in the middle of 1859 and was launched on February 14, 1860. During construction, the ship was given the name Blitz within the shipyard in order to comply with a provision of the Prussian customs authorities with regard to the components obtained from abroad. After completion, the adder was transferred to the base of the gunboats on Dänholm and slipped on there .

With the outbreak of the German-Danish War , the Natter was put into service for the first time on March 1, 1864 and assigned to the II  Flotilla Division. She probably took over the function of the flagship of the flotilla after a reclassification took place and the first class gunboats ( Camaeleon class ) were separated from the units. However, there are no clear sources for this. In mid-October 1864, the snake again mothballed on the Dänholm without that she had come in contact with the enemy in the previous war.

It was not until almost six years later that the ship was used again due to the Franco-German War . The snake was put into service on July 24, 1870 and moved through the Eider Canal into the North Sea , where it served to defend the mouth of the Ems . After the end of the war, the gunboat was decommissioned on April 12, 1871 in Wilhelmshaven . In the following year it was subjected to a major overhaul and modernized. The ship was last used from April 16 to September 15, 1873 as a tender for the artillery training ship Renown .

Whereabouts

The adder was removed from the list of warships on September 7, 1880. No information is available about their further use or when they were scrapped.

The torpedo boat Jäger , built in 1883, was officially listed as a replacement for the Natter .

Commanders

March 1864	Ensign to the sea Karl von Eisendecher
March to September 1864	Second Class Lieutenant Eduard Knorr
September to October 1864	Lieutenant Nürnberger
July 24, 1870 to April 12, 1871	Lieutenant to the sea Otto von Diederichs
April 16 to September 15, 1873	Lieutenant to the sea, Count of Schwerin-Schwerinsburg

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 6 : Ship biographies from Lützow to Prussia . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 139 .

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. ↑ The rank corresponds to a lieutenant at sea.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} The rank corresponds to a first lieutenant at sea.