SMS Sperber (1860)
| History | |
|---|---|
| Name | Sperber |
| Operator | |
| Builder | Domcke, Grabow |
| Laid down | 1859 |
| Launched | 14 February 1860 |
| Commissioned | 11 February 1864 |
| Decommissioned | 31 May 1877 |
| Stricken | 12 November 1878 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Gunboat |
| Displacement | |
| Length | 41.2 m (135 ft 2 in) |
| Beam | 6.69 m (21 ft 11 in) |
| Draft | 2.2 m (7 ft 3 in) |
| Installed power | |
| Propulsion |
|
| Speed | 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) |
| Complement |
|
| Armament |
|
SMS Sperber was a steam gunboat of the Jäger class built for the Prussian Navy in the late 1850s and early 1860s. The ship was ordered as part of a program to strengthen Prussia's coastal defense forces, then oriented against neighboring Denmark. She was armed with a battery of three guns. The ship saw very little activity during her career. She was activated during the Second Schleswig War against Denmark in 1864 and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, being used to defend the Prussian coast. She saw no action against enemy forces in either conflict, however. Sperber was used intermittently as a tender in the 1870s, and was struck from the naval register in 1878. She was then used as a barge in Kiel.