 Moltke in the 1890s as a school ship
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| History | |
|---|---|
 German Empire | |
| Name | SMS Moltke |
| Namesake | Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder |
| Builder | Kaiserliche Werft, Danzig |
| Laid down | July 1875 |
| Launched | 18 October 1877 |
| Completed | 16 April 1878 |
| Fate | Sold for scrap, 7 July 1920 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Bismarck-class corvette |
| Displacement | Full load: 2,994 t (2,947 long tons) |
| Length | 82 m (269 ft) |
| Beam | 13.7 m (44 ft 11 in) |
| Draft | 5.2 m (17 ft 1 in) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion |
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| Speed | 13.9 knots (25.7 km/h; 16.0 mph) |
| Range | 2,380 nmi (4,410 km; 2,740 mi) at 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) |
| Complement |
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| Armament |
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SMS Moltke was a Bismarck-class corvette built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) in the late 1870s. The ship was named after the Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. She was the fourth member of the class, which included five other vessels. The Bismarck-class corvettes were ordered as part of a major naval construction program in the early 1870s, and she was designed to serve as a fleet scout and on extended tours in Germany's colonial empire. Moltke was laid down in July 1875, launched in October 1877, and was commissioned into the fleet in April 1878. She was armed with a battery of ten 15 cm (5.9 in) guns and had a full ship rig to supplement her steam engine on long cruises abroad.
Moltke went on one major overseas deployment in the 1880s to South America. There, she visited ports in several South American countries in the aftermath of the War of the Pacific and carried the German expedition for the International Polar Year to South Georgia Island. After returning to Germany in 1885, she became a training ship for naval cadets and later apprentice seamen. The ship served in this capacity from 1885 to 1908, during which time her activity consisted primarily of fleet training exercises and overseas training cruises. These cruises frequently went to the West Indies and Mediterranean Sea. She was stricken from the naval register in October 1910, converted into a barracks ship, and assigned to the U-boat school in Kiel. In October 1911, Moltke was renamed Acheron and she served in this capacity until 1920, when she was sold to ship breakers in July and subsequently dismantled for scrap.