SMS Prinz Adalbert (1865) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

For other ships of the same name, see SMS Prinz Adalbert

SMS Prinz Adalbert

SMS Prinz Adalbert was a German armored cruiser built in the early 1900s for the Imperial German Navy, named after Kaiser Wilhelm II's third son Prince Adalbert of Prussia. She was the lead ship of her class, which included a second ship, . Prinz Adalbert was built at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel...

SMS Prinz Adalbert was an ironclad warship

Ironclad warship

An ironclad was a steam-propelled warship in the early part of the second half of the 19th century, protected by iron or steel armor plates. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, La Gloire,...

of the Prussian Navy

Prussian Navy

Throughout the centuries, Prussia’s military consistently concentrated on its land power, and never sought a similar power at sea. Yet historically there were always Prussian naval forces , beginning in the days when "Prussia" meant only the Margraviate of Brandenburg.- The Navy of Electoral...

, originally ordered by the Confederate States Navy

Confederate States Navy

The Confederate States Navy was the naval branch of the Confederate States armed forces established by an act of the Confederate Congress on February 21, 1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the American Civil War...

. Prussia purchased the ship during the Second Schleswig War against Denmark, though the vessel was not delivered until after the war. The vessel was designed as an armored ram

Naval ram

A naval ram was a weapon carried by varied types of ships, dating back to antiquity. The weapon consisted of an underwater prolongation of the bow of the ship to form an armoured beak, usually between six and twelve feet in length...

, but also carried three guns: one 21 cm (8.3 in) and two 17 cm (6.7 in) pieces in armored turrets

Gun turret

A gun turret is a weapon mount that protects the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in many directions.The turret is also a rotating weapon platform...

. She was named after Prince Adalbert of Prussia, an early proponent of German naval power.

The ship was poorly constructed and as a result had a very limited service career. She was heavily modified after her delivery to Prussia in 1865 and briefly served with the fleet between 1866 and 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

in 1870–1871, the ship was assigned as a guard ship in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

. After the war, it was discovered that the internal wood construction was badly rotted; she was therefore removed from service in October 1871. Prinz Adalbert was stricken from the naval register in May 1878 and broken up for scrap that year.

General characteristics and propulsion

Prinz Adalbert was 50.48 metres (165.6 ft) long at the waterline and 56.96 m (186.9 ft) long overall. She had a beam

Beam (nautical)

The beam of a ship is its width at the widest point. Generally speaking, the wider the beam of a ship , the more initial stability it has, at expense of reserve stability in the event of a capsize, where more energy is required to right the vessel from its inverted position...

of 9.92 m (32.5 ft) and a draft

Draft (hull)

The draft of a ship's hull is the vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull , with the thickness of the hull included; in the case of not being included the draft outline would be obtained...

of 4.96 m (16.3 ft) forward and 5.02 m (16.5 ft) aft. She was designed to displace 1440 metric tons (1,417.3 LT) at a normal load and up to 1560 MT (1,535.4 LT) at combat load. The ship's hull

Hull (watercraft)

A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and/or deckhouse, where present. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.The structure of the hull varies depending on the vessel type...

was constructed from transverse frames, and included both iron and timber. The hull was sheathed in copper to protect it from parasites. The Prussians regarded the ship as a poor sea boat. The ram bow caused the vessel to ship a great deal of water. It was, however, responsive to commands from the helm and had a very tight turning radius. Prinz Adalbert had a crew of ten officers and 120 enlisted men.

Prinz Adalberts propulsion system was provided by Mazeline, based in Le Havre

Le Havre

Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...

. The ship was powered by a pair of 2-cylinder single expansion engines, each of which drove a four-bladed screw that was 3.6 m (11.8 ft) in diameter. The engines were placed in a single engine room. Two trunk boilers, also in a single boiler room, supplied steam to the engines at 1.5 standard atmospheres (151,987.5 Pa). Two rudders were fitted side by side to control the vessel. The ship was initially fitted with a 740 square meter (2,428 sq ft) brig

Brig

A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...

rig, though this was subsequently replaced with a 677 square meter topsail schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

rig.

Armament and armor

As built, Prinz Adalbert was armed with three rifled 36 pounder muzzle-loading

Muzzleloader

A muzzleloader is any firearm into which the projectile and usually the propellant charge is loaded from the muzzle of the gun . This is distinct from the more popular modern designs of breech-loading firearms...

guns. One was placed in an integral five-port bow turret

Gun turret

, while the other two were located in a fixed two-port turret amidships. After delivery in 1865, the French guns were replaced with a 21 centimetres (8.3 in) L/19 gun in the bow and two 17 cm (6.7 in) L/25 guns in a revolving turret. The forward gun was supplied with 76 rounds of ammunition while the central guns had 71 shells each. Prinz Adalbert was armored with wrought iron

Wrought iron

thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...

, which was mounted on the wooden hull. The armored belt, which protected the waterline

Waterline

The term "waterline" generally refers to the line where the hull of a ship meets the water surface. It is also the name of a special marking, also known as the national Load Line or Plimsoll Line, to be positioned amidships, that indicates the draft of the ship and the legal limit to which a ship...

of the ship, was 127 millimetres (5 in) thick. The turrets were protected by 114 mm (4.5 in) of armor plating on the sides.

Service history

Prinz Adalbert was built under the cover name Cheops by the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

shipyard of the Arman brothers in Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

. Her sister ship, built under the cover name Sphinx, was delivered to the Confederate Navy and renamed CSS Stonewall. The French emperor, Napoleon III, ordered the Arman brothers to sell Cheops to another navy immediately; Prussia purchased the ship on 25 May 1864. The Second Schleswig War between Denmark and Prussia and its ally Austria delayed delivery of the ship. Cheops was commissioned into the Prussian fleet on 29 October 1865 as Prinz Adalbert. Along with the turret ship , Prinz Adalbert was among the first armored vessels acquired by the Prussian Navy. The ship was named for Prince Adalbert of Prussia, one of the creators of the German fleet. While conducting trials off Denmark in June 1865, Prinz Adalbert ran aground. During the Austro-Prussian War

Austro-Prussian War

The Austro-Prussian War was a war fought in 1866 between the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire and its German allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia with its German allies and Italy on the...

in 1866, Prinz Adalbert was mobilized in Kiel under the command of Admiral Jachmann, but due to the lack of opponents in the North and Baltic Seas, the ship remained in the Baltic for the duration of the war.

The ship did not last long in service due to her poor construction; this necessitated significant refurbishment, which was carried out at the naval depot at Geestemünde in 1868–1869. Her armor plating had to be removed and reinstalled, a breakwater was installed at the stern of the ship, and the main mast had to be relocated. She was re-rigged to a schooner rig during this refit. Prinz Adalbert also suffered from severe leaking throughout her short career. In 1870, shortly before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War

, the Prussian fleet was mobilized for a training cruise into the Atlantic. Prinz Adalbert and the recently commissioned broadside ironclad steamed to Plymouth

Plymouth

Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

, England, where they rendezvoused with the rest of the fleet. While in Plymouth, the squadron received news of imminent hostilities with France, and made for safety in Wilhelmshaven

Wilhelmshaven

Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...

, arriving on 16 July, three days before the outbreak of war. For the duration of the conflict, Prinz Adalbert served as a harbor guard ship in Hamburg

Hamburg

. Her timber hull was found to be rotten in 1871, which forced her decommissioning. She was removed from service on 23 October 1871 and disarmed in 1875–1876. The ship was formally stricken from the naval register on 28 May 1878. She was broken up that year in Wilhelmshaven

Wilhelmshaven

Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...

, and her engines were removed and reused.

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