SMS Preussischer Adler information

Painting of Preussischer Adler, by Christopher Rave
Class overview
Operators	Prussian Navy  Imperial German Navy
Preceded by	None
Succeeded by	Nix class
Completed	1
Retired	1
History
Name	Preussischer Adler
Builder	Ditchburn & Mare, Blackwall, London
Laid down	1846
Launched	1846
Stricken	27 November 1877
Fate	Sunk as a target, 26 June 1879
General characteristics (as configured, 1848)
Class and type	Aviso
Displacement	Design: 1,171 t (1,153 long tons) Full load: 1,430 t (1,410 long tons)
Length	62.72 m (205 ft 9 in) o/a
Beam	Hull: 9.6 m (31 ft 6 in) Paddle wheel boxes: 16.2 m (53 ft 2 in)
Draft	3.3 m (11 ft)
Installed power	3 × boilers 900 metric horsepower (888 ihp)
Propulsion	1 × marine steam engine 2 × paddle wheels
Speed	10.5 knots (19.4 km/h; 12.1 mph)
Complement	10 officers 100 enlisted men
Armament	2 × 25-pounder mortars

SMS Preussischer Adler was a paddle steamer originally built in the mid-1840s for use on a packet route between the Kingdom of Prussia and the Russian Empire in the Baltic Sea. She was requisitioned by the Prussian Navy during the First Schleswig War in 1848 and converted into an aviso, the first vessel of the type commissioned by Prussia. During the war, she took part in an inconclusive action with the Danish brig St. Croix, the first naval battle of the Prussian fleet. After the war, she was disarmed and returned to her commercial role, operating uneventfully on the Stettin–St. Petersburg route until 1862, when the expansion of the Prussian Eastern Railway had rendered the maritime route superfluous. The ship was purchased by the Prussian Navy that year and rearmed, once again as an aviso.

Preussischer Adler was sent to the Mediterranean Sea in September 1863 in company with a pair of gunboats, but shortly after they arrived, they were recalled owing to an increase in tension between Prussia and Denmark that resulted in the Second Schleswig War. While on the way back to Prussia, the three ships rendezvoused with a pair of steam frigates from Prussia's ally Austria. The combined squadron attacked a Danish force enforcing a blockade of the German North Sea ports, resulting in the Battle of Heligoland in May 1864. The battle was tactically inconclusive, but the arrival of the Austrian warships forced the Danes to abandon their blockade. Boiler problems kept Preussischer Adler from taking part in subsequent naval operations and she underwent extensive repairs in 1867–1868.

The ship served in a variety of roles in the late 1860s and early 1870s; in 1868, she took a contingent of senior naval officers to observe Russian naval exercises and she assisted with the completion of the ironclad warship SMS König Wilhelm the following year. During the Franco-Prussian War, she served as the flagship of the Prussian squadron in the Baltic Sea in 1870, though she saw no action. Beginning in 1872, she was used alternately as a training ship for engineers and as a fishery protection vessel. In poor condition by 1877, she was decommissioned in April and struck from the naval register in November. She was ultimately sunk as a target ship during experiments with torpedoes in 1879.