Swallow class
 The swallow
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The Schwalbe class was a class of two small cruisers of the Imperial Navy . It was created as the first German cruiser class specifically intended for foreign service. Originally referred to as IV class vehicles, the ships were operated as IV class cruisers from 1893 and as small cruisers from 1899.
development
Due to the increased German economic interests in overseas territories and the acquisition of own colonial possessions, the need arose for modern warships that were able to represent and safeguard German interests appropriately. The ships should cover the greatest possible distance under steam and be able to sail in shallow waters with the lowest possible draft. Overall, the cruisers should be relatively small in order to keep construction costs low. At the same time, however, they also had to be spacious enough to make the climatic conditions of the tropics bearable for the crew. However, the ships were not intended for war use, which is why armor was not required. The draft for the new cruisers A , later called Schwalbe , and B , later Sperber , was drawn up in 1886 and 1887 by the Imperial Navy in accordance with these specifications.
technology
The cruisers were designed as transverse frames. The main building materials used were steel and wood, but also copper. With a planned design displacement of 1,111 t , the maximum displacement was 1,359 t. The ships were 66.9 m long overall, with the construction waterline encompassing a length of 62.59 m. The maximum width was 9.36 m, the draft at maximum displacement was 4.40 m forward and 4.72 m stern. The hull was divided into a total of eleven watertight compartments in order to increase safety from sinking. However, the ships did not have a double floor.
During a conversion, the Schwalbe received electrical equipment. This was fed by a generator that generated a voltage of 67 V and an output of 5 kW .
The standard crew of the ships consisted of 9 officers and 108 crews and thus comprised a nominal strength of 117 men.
The ships of the class were considered to be very good seagoing ships. But they were very greedy under sail and also rolled strongly at Dwarssee . At Gegensee, however, they lost very little speed. Both cruisers were also very easy to maneuver and steer.
Propulsion system
The engine system of the cruiser consisted of two horizontally arranged two-cylinder composite steam engines , which were housed in two engine rooms one behind the other. The steam required was generated by four cylinder boilers with a total of eight furnaces and a heating surface of 464 m². The boilers were housed in pairs in two boiler rooms and generated a steam pressure of 7 atmospheres . The calculated power of the machine system should be 1,500 PSi . This value was slightly exceeded on both ships. Each of the machines acted on a screw 2.8 m in diameter. The maximum possible speed under steam should be 13.5 kn , which both cruisers clearly exceeded with 14.1 kn and 14.3 kn respectively. The entrained carbon stock of 240 t enabled ships a steam distance of 3,290 nm at a cruising speed of 10 kn. The ships had a rudder.
To support the steam engines and to enlarge the sailing area, the ships of the Schwalbe class were additionally equipped with rigging . Both ships were rigged as schooner barges and had a sail area of 729 m².
Armament
The ships of the Schwalbe class had eight 10.5 cm L / 35 ring cannons . The guns, which were mounted on single mounts, had a maximum range of 8.2 km. A total of 765 rounds of ammunition were carried for them. In addition, there were five revolver cannons of 3.7 cm caliber on board. At times the Schwalbe also had two torpedo tubes with a diameter of 35 cm.
commitment
According to their design specifications, the cruisers were used exclusively abroad. The two ships were used at almost all foreign stations of the Imperial Navy. The focus was on East and West Africa, East Asia and the South Seas.
Schwalbe- class ships
- Schwalbe : Launched on August 16, 1887. The ship was first used for test drives in the summer of 1888. From November 1888 the cruiser was deployed abroad. The swallow was stationed in East Africauntil 1893. After an overhaul and modernization, another deployment in East Africa followed from 1898 to mid-1900, followed by a stay in East Asia. At the end of 1902 the cruiser was decommissioned. An intended conversion to a survey ship was not carried out. The Schwalbe was removed from the list of warships on December 6, 1919 and scrapped in 1922.
- Sparrowhawk : launched on August 23, 1888. The first test drives took place from April to June 1889. From August 1889 on, the ship was abroad, first in East Africa, from 1890 to 1893 in the South Seas and then until 1896 in West Africa . After a major overhaul, another deployment abroad followed in 1902. After brief stays in the Caribbean and East Africa, an assignment in East Asia followed from late 1903 to 1905. The cruiser then did station service in West Africa until 1910 and then moved to East Africa for a year. After more than eight and a half years, the reclassified on 6 March 1911 to the gunboat returned Sperber returned in the summer of 1911 to Germany. The cruiser is one of the ships of the Imperial Navy with the longest uninterrupted stay abroad. The Sparrowhawk was removed from the list of warships on March 16, 1912, and after being used as the Hulk in 1922, it was scrapped.
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. 121 .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 7 : Ship biographies from Prussian eagle to Ulan . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen.