SMS Wespe was a steam gunboat of the Jäger class built for the Prussian Navy in the late 1850s and early 1860s.

The ship was ordered as part of a program to strengthen Prussia's coastal defense forces, then oriented against neighboring Denmark.

The Jäger class of gunboats came about as a result of a program to strengthen the Prussian Navy in the late 1850s in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Reichsflotte and in the midst of rising tensions with Denmark.

[2] The ship was not commissioned upon completion,[4] and while out of service, her copper sheathing was removed from her hull so ventilation holes could be cut into the outer planking.

On 8 December 1863, the Prussian Navy ordered the fleet to mobilize, as tensions between Prussia and Denmark over the Schleswig–Holstein question rose sharply.

[7] The flotilla was deployed on 17 March to support Captain Eduard von Jachmann's corvettes as they attempted to break the Danish blockade in the Baltic Sea, but the gunboats were only lightly engaged during the ensuing Battle of Jasmund.

Jachmann had ordered them to take up a position closer to land to cover a potential withdrawal, and so they were too far to take part in the main action.

Nevertheless, as the Danish steam frigate Tordenskjold arrived to reinforce the main squadron, Wespe and the other gunboats fired on her from afar.

As the Danes continued south in pursuit of Jachmann's ships, the gunboats withdrew back to Stralsund, though they had to take Hay under tow after her engines broke down.

Wespe saw no combat during the war, mainly because the French squadron in the North Sea focused its attention on the area near Helgoland.