SMS Arminius (1864)

The Arminius was an ironclad warship of the Prussian Navy, later the Imperial German Navy.

She was built by the Samuda Brothers shipyard in Poplar as a speculative project, laid down in 1863 and launched on 20 August 1864. Similar vessels had been ordered in British shipyards by the Royal Danish Navy and the Imperial Russian Navy. No evidence exists to connect the Arminius to the efforts by the Confederate States of America to order warships in Europe. The 630,000 Vereinsthalers paid for the Arminius was collected by popular subscriptions in Prussia and was named for Arminius, victor at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

The Arminius was Coles-type monitor, a near sister of the Danish Rolf Krake and Russian Smerch. She was powered by a single horizontal steam engine of 300 nominal horsepower (1200 indicated horsepower) which gave her a maximum speed under steam of 10–11 knots. In addition, for longer voyages, she carred schooner-rigged sails on two masts—as she was a very poor sailing ship these were removed in 1870. Her armament was carried in two Coles-type turrets forward and aft. Originally each mounted two 72-pounder bronze smoothbore cannon, but these were soon replaced by the new Krupp 21 cm 19-calibre rifled breech-loading guns. After 1881 she carried a single torpedo launching tube in the bow and four revolver cannon.

Her construction and armour was of standard Royal Navy type, a maximum of convert|4.5|in|mm of wrought iron on convert|18|in|mm of teak backing, and an iron hull. She had a strengthened bow, for ramming. Under steam she was very wet. She turned rapidly to starboard, and slowly to port.

Rapid advances in naval technology meant that the Arminius was a first-line warship for only a few years, being downgraded to a guardship in 1872, and then a school ship for engineers. Thanks to the strengthened bow, she served as an icebreaker at Kiel. She remained in service until 2 March 1901, when she was sold to a Hamburg shipbreakers and scrapped in 1902.

References

* Chesneau, Roger & Eugene M. Kolesnik (eds), "Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905." Conway Maritime Press, 1979. ISBN 0-85177-133-5
* Gröner, Erich, "Die deutschen Kriegsschiffe 1815–1945. Band 1: Panzerschiffe, Linienschiffe, Schlactschiffe, Fluzeugträger, Kreuzer, Kanonenboot." Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 1998. ISBN 3-7637-4800-8