SMS Habicht (1860)

Habicht's sister Fuchs
History
Prussia
Name	Habicht
Builder	Keier & Devrient, Danzig
Laid down	1859
Launched	1860
Commissioned	1860
Decommissioned	31 August 1877
Stricken	29 November 1877
General characteristics
Type	Gunboat
Displacement	Design: 237 t (233 long tons) Full load: 283 t (279 long tons)
Length	41.2 m (135 ft 2 in)
Beam	6.69 m (21 ft 11 in)
Draft	2.2 m (7 ft 3 in)
Installed power	4 × boilers 220 PS (220 ihp)
Propulsion	2 × marine steam engines 1 × screw propeller
Speed	9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph)
Complement	2 officers 38 enlisted
Armament	1 × 24-pounder gun 2 × 12-pounder guns

SMS Habicht was a steam gunboat of the Jäger class built for the Prussian Navy in the late 1850s and early 1860s. The ship was ordered as part of a program to strengthen Prussia's coastal defense forces, then oriented against neighboring Denmark. She was armed with a battery of three guns. The ship saw very little activity during her career. She was activated during the Second Schleswig War against Denmark in 1864 and briefly engaged Danish ships in July. She was also commissioned for the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, being used to defend the Prussian coast. She saw no action against French forces in the conflict, however. Habicht largely remained out of service through the 1870s, until she was struck from the naval register in 1877. She was used as a storage hulk for a time in Wilhelmshaven, but details of her eventual disposal are unknown.