SMS Basilisk (1878)
SMS Basilisk was an ironclad gunboat of the built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the 1870s. The ships, which were armed with a single MRK L/22 gun, were intended to serve as part of a coastal defense fleet. Because Basilisk was a purely defensive vessel, she saw little active use, apart from brief stints in active service for sea trials upon completion in 1880, and then again in 1881. The ship remained in the fleet's inventory until 1910, when it was discarded. She was eventually sold to ship breakers in 1919 and dismantled the following year.
Design
Development of the of ironclad gunboats began in the 1850s, after the first ironclads were introduced during the Crimean War. Through the 1860s, the Federal Convention examined various proposals, ranging from plans to build eight to as many as eighteen armored warships. The decision was finalized based on the fleet plan conceived by General Albrecht von Stosch, the new Chief of the Kaiserliche Admiralität, in the early 1870s. He envisioned a fleet oriented on defense of Germany's Baltic and North Sea coasts, which would be led by the ironclad corvettes of the. These were to be supported by larger numbers of small, armored gunboats, which became the Wespe class.Basilisk was long overall, with a beam of and a draft of. She displaced as designed and increasing to at full load. The ship's crew consisted of 3 officers and 73 to 85 enlisted men. She was powered by a pair of double-expansion steam engines that drove a pair of 4-bladed screw propellers, with steam provided by four coal-fired cylindrical fire-tube boilers, which gave her a top speed of at. At a cruising speed of, she could steam for.
The ship was armed with one MRK L/22 gun in a barbette mount that had a limited arc of traverse. In practice, the gun was aimed by turning the ship in the direction of fire. The Wespes were intended to beach themselves on the sandbars along the German coastline to serve as semi-mobile coastal artillery batteries. The armored barbette was protected by of wrought iron, backed with of teak. The ship was fitted with a waterline armor belt that was thick, with the thickest section protecting the propulsion machinery spaces and ammunition magazine. The belt was backed with 210 mm of teak. An armor deck that consisted of two layers of of iron on of teak provided additional protection against enemy fire.
Service history
The keel for Basilisk was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen in September 1877, under the contract designation "F". She was launched on 14 September 1878. She was named after the earlier, a steam gunboat from the 1860s. Work on the ship was completed nearly two years later, and she was commissioned into active service on 20 August 1880. She conducted her initial sea trials under the command of Leutnant zur See Emil Freiherr von Lyncker; this round of testing continued until 17 September, when she was temporarily decommissioned. She was reactivated just ten days later, again under Lyncker's command to participate in training exercises. She was decommissioned again for the winter months on 20 November.Basilisk was present for a fleet review held on 16 August 1881 held for Kaiser Wilhelm I. She was recommissioned again on 20 August for another period of training with other elements of the fleet. These maneuvers lasted until 18 September, when she was decommissioned again. By 1883, the ship had been refitted with an additional L/24 built-up gun, a pair of Hotchkiss revolver cannon, and two torpedo tubes in her bow, both of which were below the waterline.
The ship saw no further active service, however, and remained in the reserve fleet for more than twenty years. Basilisk was struck from the naval register on 27 September 1910. The navy used the ship for hull leakage tests, and in 1919, sold Basilisk for scrap. She was broken up the following year in Hamburg.