Jäger-class gunboat

The Jäger class of steam gunboats was a class of fifteen ships that were built for the Prussian Navy in the late 1850s and early 1860s. The class, which were the first steam gunboats built for the Prussian fleet, comprised the following vessels: Jäger, Crocodill, Fuchs, Hay, Scorpion, Sperber, Hyäne, Habicht, Pfeil, Natter, Schwalbe, Salamander, Wespe, Tiger, and Wolf. They were armed with three guns and were intended to guard the Prussian coast in the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea. They proved to handle poorly in service, and as a result, spent much of their existences laid up ashore. Several of the boats were activated during the Second Schleswig War in 1864, and some took part in a minor battle against Danish warships. Crocodill was scrapped in 1867 due to her poor condition, but the rest of the class remained in the fleet's inventory into the 1870s, when they began to be discarded. Most of the ships served on as storage barges, usually for naval mines, though Jäger and Wolf were both sunk as target ships.