Albatross-class gunboat

The Albatross class of steam gunboats comprised two ships: SMS Albatross and Nautilus. They were ordered by the North German Federal Navy, but by the time they had entered service in the early 1870s, the German lands had unified into the German Empire, and so they commissioned into Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the early 1870s. The ships were ordered as part of a construction program intended to begin replacing the old Jäger-class gunboats that had been built a decade earlier. Unlike the older ships, Albatross and Nautilus were intended to serve abroad to protect German economic interests overseas. The ships were armed with a battery of four guns, and had a top speed of 10 to 10.5 knots (18.5 to 19.4 km/h; 11.5 to 12.1 mph).

The two ships spent the majority of their careers overseas, including a cruise to South America in the early 1870s for Albatross. Both ships patrolled the coast of Spain during the Third Carlist War in 1874–1875 to protect German nationals in the country. The two ships were sent to the Pacific Ocean in the latter half of the decade to defend German economic interests in China and the South Pacific. They each made another lengthy cruise in the Pacific for much of the 1880s, and were involved in German colonial activities in the South Pacific. After returning home in 1888, both vessels were converted into survey ships and used in home waters. Nautilus was eventually sold for scrap in 1905, and Albatross became a coal barge that year, before being wrecked in a storm in 1906.