List of avisos of Germany
The latter two classes were disappointments in service owing to their small size, insufficient speed, and in the case of the Meteors, excessive vibration from their engines.
Preussischer Adler was an iron-hulled paddle steamer originally built for the Prussian postal service to operate on the packet route between Prussia and Russia in the mid-1840s.
[1][2] The ship was requisitioned early in her career during the First Schleswig War to defend the Prussian coast from the more powerful Danish Navy that imposed a blockade on Prussia's and the other German states' ports.
She returned to commercial duties after the war and served in that capacity uneventfully until 1862, when the expansion of the Prussian Eastern Railway rendered her superfluous.
Reduced to subsidiary duties in 1872, including as a training ship and fisheries protection vessel, she was ultimately decommissioned in April 1877 and sunk as a target two years later in June 1879.
[7][8][9] Grille was ordered in 1855 as part of Adalbert's fleet expansion program; she was the first steam ship to use a screw propeller rather than the paddle wheels of earlier vessels.
Grille remained in service through the early 1910s, serving in a variety of roles, including as a fleet scout, a tender, and a training vessel.
She served in her intended role during the Second Schleswig War, and saw action at the Battle of Jasmund against the Danish blockade squadron in March 1864, where she was hit only once.
[16][19] Falke was originally built as a speculative project by her British constructors, who intended to sell the vessel to the Confederate States Navy for use as a blockade runner during the American Civil War.
A private shipowner in the Netherlands purchased the vessel, renamed her Heinrich Heister, and left it idle in Rotterdam for the next five years.
She operated with the fleet during the 1870s, but suffered repeated machinery breakdowns, thereafter serving as a tender for the Marinestation der Nordsee (North Sea Naval Station) in the early 1880s.
[22][23] Pommerania was built for the Prussian postal service as a packet steamer, though the exact nature of her design and construction is uncertain.
After returning to Germany, she served as a tender to the Marinestation der Nordsee from 1881 to 1884, thereafter seeing service as a fisheries protection vessel and survey ship.
[28] Laid down at the Thames Iron Works, Zieten was the last major warship of the Imperial German fleet to be built overseas.
[29] Zieten proved to be highly influential, as experiments with the new torpedoes not only led to further construction of torpedo-armed warships, but also inspired similar vessels in the French, Italian, and Austro-Hungarian fleets.
Blitz spent much of her career as a flotilla leader for torpedo boats, while Pfeil served with the training squadron and the main fleet.
They operated as dedicated tenders to the battle squadrons of the High Seas Fleet by the mid-1900s, filling that role through the start of World War I.
Blitz took part in Operation Albion in the Baltic Sea in late 1917 and Pfeil was later used as a training ship for U-boat crews.
Recommissioned in May 1897, she served as a fleet scout for the next two years, thereafter being reduced to secondary roles once again, including as a training ship, before being decommissioned for the last time in September 1900.
[42] Following the appointment of General Leo von Caprivi as the German admiralty chief in 1883, the navy began to experiment more seriously with torpedo boats.
Caprivi embraced some of the ideas of the Jeune École doctrine, mostly importantly the theory that cheap torpedo boats could be used for coastal defense instead of larger, more expensive ironclads.
Both vessels suffered from serious problems that rendered them unfit for service, namely poor seakeeping and excessive vibration of their propeller shafts.
[49][50] Hela's design was intended to correct many of the deficiencies in the Wacht and Meteor classes, mainly through an increase in size that would produce improved seaworthiness.
[52][53] The ship served with the fleet from 1898 to 1902, and during this period, from mid-1900 to mid-1901, she was deployed as part of an expeditionary force sent to help suppress the Boxer Uprising in Qing China.
The naval command decided her armament was insufficient for front-line use, so she was extensively modernized between 1903 and 1910, thereafter serving as a tender until the outbreak of World War I.
[54] Grille, the last aviso built in Germany, was ordered as a state yacht for dictator Adolf Hitler and other elements of the Nazi regime.
After the start of World War II, she was used as an auxiliary minelayer, and was briefly assigned to participate in Operation Sea Lion in that capacity before it was cancelled in September 1940.
