screw propellers, she was the first Prussian warship to be fitted with a domestically-produced marine steam engine. The ship carried a light armament of two 12-pound guns and had a top speed of 10.5 knots (19.4 km/h; 12.1 mph). Loreley was intended to serve as the flagship of the gunboatflotillas
that formed the bulk of the Prussian fleet in the 1850s.
After entering service, the ship was sent to the
Danish Navy during the war at the Battle of Jasmund, where she received a single hit that killed one man. After the war, she was decommissioned
and saw little activity for the rest of the decade, by which time she was in poor condition.
Loreley was extensively rebuilt between 1869 and 1873, thereafter serving in the
naval register
in August and sold in September. Her ultimate fate is unknown.
Design
Following the sale of the two
screw propellers on warships, and the Prussian designers still had reservations about adopting the new technology. They also eschewed iron for the hull in favor of traditional wood planking.[1]
General characteristics
Loreley was 43.34 m (142 ft 2 in)
watertight compartments. Her freeboard amounted to 4.9 m (16 ft 1 in).[2]
Loreley was thoroughly rebuilt between 1869 and 1873;[3] the reconstruction was so extensive, she is sometimes considered a different vessel.[4] Her original wooden hull was rebuilt with iron frames, though she retained the wooden outer planking, still sheathed in copper. Displacement fell slightly, to 395 t (389 long tons) as designed and 450 t (440 long tons) at full load. She was also shortened slightly, with a waterline length of 42.84 m (140 ft 7 in) and an overall length of 46.6 m (152 ft 11 in). Beam remained the same, but her draft increased slightly to 2.51 m (8 ft 3 in) forward and 3.05 m (10 ft) aft.[2]
Steering was controlled with a single
beam sea caused considerable loss of speed. The ship had a crew of four officers and sixty-one enlisted men, though the latter figure was later reduced to fifty-three after the reconstruction. She carried two small boats of unrecorded type.[5]
Machinery
Loreley was propelled by a single oscillating, 2-cylinder
gaff-rigged schooner, though they contributed little to her performance. Her sailing rig had a total area of 310 m2 (3,300 sq ft), though this was later reduced to 200 m2 (2,200 sq ft).[2][6]
The ship initially retained her original propulsion system during her reconstruction, but in 1879, she received new boilers that were built by the
Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Wilhelmshaven. As reconstructed, her top speed fell to 9.1 knots (16.9 km/h; 10.5 mph). She carried 34 t (33 long tons) of coal, which provided a cruising radius of 450 nautical miles (830 km; 520 mi) at a speed of 9 knots.[2]
Armament
Loreley carried an initial armament of two long-barreled 12-pounder guns in individual carriages. These were supplied with a total of 240 shells. After emerging from her refit in 1873, she carried a single 12.5 cm (4.9 in) 23-caliber (cal.) breechloadinghoop gun that was supplied with 142 shells. It had a range of 5,200 m (17,100 ft). In addition, she received a pair of 8 cm (3.1 in) 23-cal. breechloading guns with a total of 190 shells.[5]
Service history
The
sea trials on 28 September, with Leutnant zur See (LzS—Lieutenant at Sea) Heinrich Köhler as her first commander; the trials revealed that her engine was too weak to meet the design requirements, but no improvements were made. The ship entered active service in 1860; she was sent to the Mediterranean Sea to protect Prussian and German interests and evacuate civilians in the Italian Peninsula, then in the midst of the Second Italian War of Independence that led to the unification of Italy. The ship still had not received her intended armament, so she received a pair of guns that had been fitted to Preussischer Adler in 1848. Since Loreley would be incapable of carrying the number of passengers that would be required, the navy chartered the steamshipSS Ida to accompany Loreley. The aviso's commander for the operation was Korvettenkapitän (KK—Corvette Captain) Hans Kuhn.[5][7]
Loreley left Danzig on 31 July 1860 and Ida followed on 9 August; the two ships rendezvoused off
Abdülaziz. The ship's executive officer, LzSOtto Livonius, took command of the ship when Kuhn was recalled to Prussia to take command of the gunboat flotilla; Loreley then cruised to Mount Athos. She remained in the Mediterranean for another year, which passed uneventfully, before returning to Prussia, being decommissioned at Dänholm in August 1862.[8]
Second Schleswig War
Loreley (left) and the corvette Nymphe engaging the Danish frigate Sjælland (right distance)
The
screw corvette Nymphe, supported by Loreley and I Division, which consisted of six gunboats.[10]
The Prussians scouted the blockade line on 16 March to determine the strength of the Danish squadron, which was commanded by
Rear Admiral Edvard van Dockum, that was tasked with enforcing it. Late in the day, they spotted a group of three ships off Cape Arkona, but there was not sufficient daylight left to allow them to engage. The Prussians instead turned south and withdrew back to Swinemünde. Jachmann sortied with his two larger vessels at 07:30 on 17 March, followed by Loreley and the gunboats later that morning. The two groups rendezvoused at 13:15 to the east of Rügen and continued further north to locate the Danish squadron. Jachmann ordered Loreley to leave the gunboats off Rügen, where they would be in position to cover a retreat, and to join his two vessels. Arcona opened fire first, targeting the frigate Sjælland; a few minutes later, after Sjælland closed to 1,500 meters (1,600 yd), Dockum turned his flagship to starboard and began firing broadsides at Arcona. Jachmann turned Arcona to starboard as well, having realized the strength of the Danish squadron. He failed to inform the captains of Loreley and Nymphe of his decision to withdraw, and they continued to steam east for several minutes before they conformed to his maneuver. Loreley and Nymphe came under heavy fire from the pursuing Danish squadron and both vessels were hit by Danish fire. Loreley was hit once by a shell that tore off the davit for her starboard cutter, killing one man, her only casualty in the action. At 16:00, Loreley' broke off to the west toward Stralsund and Dockum allowed her to leave, preferring to continue after Jachmann's corvettes.[11][12]
After the battle, Loreley took the gunboat division to Stralsund. Adalbert ordered all five gunboat divisions to concentrate at Stralsund on 29 March to support the
Wilhelm I on 6 June; Loreley led the gunboat divisions during the review.[12]Loreley and the rest of the Prussian fleet in the Baltic saw little activity for the rest of the war. After the ceasefire ended in late June, the Danes reimposed the blockade and the Prussian fleet could not challenge it. The war ended quickly thereafter, however, as Prussian and Austrian armies had conquered the entire Jutland Peninsula and Als.[13] The gunboat divisions were then deactivated and on 31 August, Kuhn's command was disestablished. Loreley was decommissioned on 23 September.[12]
Reconstruction and station ship in Constantinople
By the end of the decade, Loreley was in a badly-deteriorated condition, to the extent that she could not simply be overhauled and returned to service. It was decided to completely rebuild the vessel with a new iron-framed hull, though she retained copper-sheathed wood planking for the hull itself. The boilers were also replaced, though the original engine remained. Her old guns were replaced with newer breechloading guns. The reconstruction was carried out at the Königliche Werft in Wilhelmshaven and it lasted from 1869 to 1873, though the
Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) of united Germany on 16 April 1873. She thereafter served as a tender for the Marinestation der Nordsee (North Sea Naval Station), based in Wilhelmshaven. In May, she embarked members of the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) during a visit to the port. Loreley next carried Crown Prince Friedrich and his family on a cruise to the island of Föhr in late July and into August. In September, she conducted a coastal survey cruise with members from the General Staff.[2][14]
Little is known of Loreley's activity during the period from 1874 to 1878. She went to Folkestone on 18 June 1878 to take part in salvage work for the turret shipGrosser Kurfürst that had been sunk there in an accidental collision the previous month. Her crew assisted in the burial of those killed in the sinking at a local cemetery. She returned to Wilhelmshaven on 21 September, and the following year work began to prepare the vessel to serve as the station ship in Constantinople; Germany had inherited Prussia's rights under the 1856 Treaty of Paris to operate a vessel in the Black Sea, and Loreley was to fill this role once again. She left Germany on 20 July, bound for the Ottoman Empire, arriving in the Bosporus on 30 August. At that time, she was based in Büyükdere in Constantinople, and during her service in the Ottoman capital over the next decade, she periodically steamed to Galați, Romania, where she received new crews. Loreley began a tour of the region that continued into April 1880, which she repeated in 1881, this time extending it to include ports in the Aegean Sea.[14]
During the
La Valletta, Malta. She was dry-docked there on 19 December and after completing repairs, returned to the Bosporus, arriving on 10 April 1884.[15][16]
The years 1884 and 1885 passed uneventfully for Loreley, with the only event of note another period in the shipyard in La Valletta from 20 January 1885 to 12 February. She saw more activity in 1886, conducting training cruises to
Therapia, where Germany's embassy was also relocated. The following year, the new Kaiser, Wilhelm II, and his wife traveled to Greece to attend the wedding of his sister Sophie to Constantine, the heir to the Greek throne. Wilhelm and his wife traveled with the ironclad training squadron, which Loreley met in Piraeus on 21 October. She remained there until 30 October, when she returned to Constantinople to make preparations for the Kaiser's visit with the Sultan.[17]
Loreley saw no events of note from 1890 to 1892. She visited Greece in 1893 and while there had to go into drydock at the
coastal defense ship Hagen to support these operations.[17]
By this time, Loreley was once again badly worn out and in need of replacement. She conducted a final cruise in the Black Sea in early 1896 and was then struck from the
naval register on 10 August, though she remained in commission until 7 September when she was replaced by a newly procured steam yacht. Her crew began their voyage home and the vessel remained under the supervision of the German station commander until 23 October, when she was sold. Her ultimate fate is unknown.[18]
Hildebrand, Hans H.; Röhr, Albert & Steinmetz, Hans-Otto (1993). Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe: Biographien – ein Spiegel der Marinegeschichte von 1815 bis zur Gegenwart [The German Warships: Biographies − A Reflection of Naval History from 1815 to the Present] (in German). Vol. 5. Ratingen: Mundus Verlag.
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