SMS Blücher (1877)
SMS Blücher was a Bismarck-class corvette built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the late 1870s. 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. Blücher was laid down in March 1876, launched in September 1877, and was commissioned into the fleet in late 1878. Unlike her sister ships, Blücher was converted shortly after entering service into a torpedo training ship to experiment with the new self-propelled torpedoes and develop German torpedo doctrine.
Blücher in heavy seas with a torpedo boat | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| German Empire | |
| Name | SMS Blücher |
| Namesake | Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher |
| Builder | Norddeutsche Schiffbau, Kiel |
| Laid down | 1876 |
| Launched | 20 September 1877 |
| Completed | 21 December 1879 |
| Fate | Sold 1909 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Bismarck-class corvette |
| Displacement | Full load: 2,890 t (2,844 long tons) |
| Length | 82.5 m (270 ft 8 in) |
| Beam | 13.7 m (44 ft 11 in) |
| Draft | 6.18 m (20 ft 3 in) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion |
|
| Speed | 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
| Range | 2,380 nmi (4,410 km; 2,740 mi) at 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) |
| Complement | 404 |
| Armament | 4–7 × 35 cm (13.8 in) torpedo tubes |
Blücher served in this capacity for the entirety of her active career. She was initially based in Kiel in the Baltic Sea, under the command of Alfred von Tirpitz. Between the 1880s and early 1900s, most of the officers and crewmen in the German fleet received their torpedo training aboard the ship. In 1907, Blücher suffered a boiler explosion that badly damaged the ship and killed thirty men. Deemed too old to warrant repairing, Blücher was instead sold to a Dutch company that used her as a coal storage hulk; her ultimate fate is unknown.