 SMS Nymphe circa 1901
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
  German Empire | |
| Name | Nymphe |
| Laid down | November 1898 |
| Launched | 21 November 1899 |
| Commissioned | 20 September 1900 |
| Stricken | 31 August 1931 |
| Fate | Scrapped, 1932 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Gazelle-class light cruiser |
| Displacement | |
| Length | 105.1 m (344.8 ft) loa |
| Beam | 12.2 m (40 ft) |
| Draft | 4.11 m (13.5 ft) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion |
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| Speed | 21.5 knots (39.8 km/h; 24.7 mph) |
| Range | 3,570 nmi (6,610 km; 4,110 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement |
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| Armament |
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| Armor |
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SMS Nymphe was the third member of the ten-ship Gazelle class of light cruisers that were built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the late 1890s and early 1900s. The Gazelle class was the culmination of earlier unprotected cruiser and aviso designs, combining the best aspects of both types in what became the progenitor of all future light cruisers of the Imperial fleet. Built to be able to serve with the main German fleet and as a colonial cruiser, she was armed with a battery of ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and a top speed of 21.5 knots (39.8 km/h; 24.7 mph).
The ship spent the majority of her prewar career serving as a training ship, first with the Torpedo Inspectorate and then with the Naval Artillery Inspectorate. During this period, she also frequently escorted Kaiser Wilhelm II during cruises aboard his yacht, Hohenzollern to visit foreign countries. She was decommissioned in 1909 and remained out of service until August 1914, when World War I led to her reactivation to support coastal defense forces in the mouth of the Elbe river through late 1915. She was used as a barracks ship and stationary training ship for the rest of the war.
Nymphe was one of the six cruisers Germany was allowed to keep in service by the Treaty of Versailles, and she was modernized in the early 1920s before being recommissioned in 1924. She served as the flagship of the fleet's light forces in the Baltic Sea through the 1920s, during which time she made two major training cruises into the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. The ship was decommissioned in 1929 and employed as a barracks ship until 1931, when she was struck from the naval register and sold to ship breakers. She was dismantled in 1932 in Hamburg.