 Habicht probably in the 1880s
| |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Preceded by | Wolf class |
| Succeeded by | SMS Hay |
| Built | 1878–1885 |
| In commission | 1880–1905 |
| Completed | 3 |
| Lost | 1 |
| Scrapped | 2 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Gunboat |
| Displacement | |
| Length | 59.2 m (194 ft 3 in) |
| Beam | 8.9 m (29 ft 2 in) |
| Draft | 3.52 m (11 ft 7 in) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | |
| Speed | 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) |
| Range | 2,010 nmi (3,720 km; 2,310 mi) at 9 kn (17 km/h; 10 mph) |
| Complement |
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| Armament |
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The Habicht class of screw gunboats was a class of three vessels built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the late 1870s and early 1880s. The class comprised Habicht, the lead ship, along with Möwe and Adler. Intended to serve abroad, the ships were ordered as part of a construction program intended to modernize Germany's fleet of cruising vessels in the mid-1870s. The Habicht class was armed with a battery of five guns, and was the first class of German gunboat to use compound steam engines. The ships had a top speed of 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph).
The ships of the class spent the bulk of their time in service cruising abroad; after entering service in 1880, Habicht and Möwe were sent to the Pacific, returning to Germany in 1882 by way of Egypt, where they protected Germans during the Anglo-Egyptian War. In the mid-1880s, both ships were sent to Africa, where they supported the establishment of Germany's colonial empire in Africa. Adler was commissioned in 1886 for a deployment to the South Pacific, and she was destroyed in Samoa by the 1889 Apia cyclone.
Möwe was converted into a survey ship in 1889 and charted Germany's African colonies until 1894, when she was sent to map the country's Pacific colonies. In 1896, Habicht was sent on another deployment to western Africa, and she took part in the early stages of the Herero Wars in 1904. Both ships were taken out of service in 1905; Habicht was recalled to Germany, while Möwe could not make the lengthy voyage home. Instead, she was reduced to a hulk in Qingdao, China, where she remained until 1910 when she was sold for scrap. Habicht, meanwhile, was sold to ship breakers in 1906.