SMS Leipzig (1875)

SMS Leipzig

Illustration of Leipzig by Fritz Stoltenberg
History
Name	Leipzig
Namesake	Battle of Leipzig
Builder	AG Vulcan, Stettin
Laid down	1874
Launched	13 September 1875
Commissioned	1 June 1877
Stricken	27 August 1894
Fate	Broken up, 1921
General characteristics
Class and type	Leipzig-class corvette
Displacement	Full load: 4,626 metric tons (4,553 long tons)
Length	87.5 meters (287 ft 1 in) (loa)
Beam	14 m (45 ft 11 in)
Draft	6.2 m (20 ft 4 in)
Installed power	10 × fire-tube boilers 6,050 metric horsepower (5,970 ihp)
Propulsion	1 × marine steam engine 1 × screw propeller
Sail plan	Full ship rig
Speed	15.8 knots (29.3 km/h; 18.2 mph)
Range	2,330 nautical miles (4,320 km; 2,680 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Crew	39 officers 386 sailors
Armament	2 × 17 cm (6.7 in) RK L/25 guns 10 × 17 cm RK L/20 guns

SMS^[1] Leipzig was a German flush-deck steam corvette, the lead ship of the Leipzig class, named after the 1813 Battle of Leipzig. She was built for the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the 1870s, being laid down in early 1875, launched in September that year, and commissioned into the fleet in May 1877. She had one sister ship, SMS Prinz Adalbert. Intended for long cruises abroad, the ship was fitted with a full ship rig to supplement her steam engine if coal was unavailable. She carried a battery of twelve 17 cm (6.7 in) guns.

Leipzig went on two overseas cruises as a training ship for naval cadets early in her career. The first, in 1877–1878, went to Central America and East Asia; while in Central American waters, she was involved in an international dispute between Germany and Nicaragua. The second cruise, which took place from 1882 to 1884, also went to East Asia. While on the way back to Germany, she stopped in the newly-proclaimed colony of German Southwest Africa, where she participated in the flag-raising ceremony. From 1885 to 1888, Leipzig was extensively modernized and reconstructed for use as a squadron flagship overseas.

In 1888, Leipzig embarked on a major overseas deployment, first to German East Africa, which was in the midst of the Abushiri revolt. Leipzig and several other warships formed a cruiser squadron that bombarded rebel troops and sent landing parties ashore to suppress the rebellion, which was defeated by 1890. Leipzig and the rest of the squadron went to East Asia, but in 1891 they were reassigned to Chilean waters to protect German interests during the Civil War of 1891. After the fighting subsided, Leipzig alternated between East Africa and East Asia before being recalled to Germany in 1893 after a refit in Cape Town revealed a significant deterioration in her condition. Found to be not worth repairing, she was converted into a barracks ship and training hulk, a role she filled until 1919, when she sank unexpectedly. She was raised in 1921 and subsequently broken up in 1921.