The German: Gazelle class was a group of ten light cruisers built for the Imperial German Navy at the turn of the 20th century. They were the first modern light cruiser design of the Imperial Navy, and set the basic pattern for all future light cruisers in Imperial service. The design of the German: Gazelle class attempted to merge the fleet scout with the colonial cruiser. They were armed with a main battery of ten 10.5cm (04.1inches) guns and a pair of torpedo tubes, and were capable of a speed of .
All ten ships served with the fleet when they were first commissioned, and several served on foreign stations in the decade before the outbreak of World War I. Most were used as coastal defense ships early in the war. was sunk at the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914, was torpedoed in the Baltic by a British submarine in November 1915, and was sunk at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916. The rest survived the war to see service with the German: [[Reichsmarine]], with the exception of, which was broken up in 1920.
was sold to Yugoslavia in 1925 and renamed Dalmacija, and the rest of the cruisers were withdrawn from service by the end of the 1920s and used for secondary duties or broken up for scrap. German: Medusa and German: Arcona were converted into anti-aircraft ships in 1940 and were scuttled at the end of World War II. Dalmacija was captured twice during the war, first by the Italians, who renamed her Italian: Cattaro, and then by the Germans, who restored the original name of German: Niobe. She ran aground in December 1943 and was subsequently destroyed by British Motor Torpedo Boats. was the only member to survive the war intact, as a barracks ship, and she remained in service until 1954, when she was broken up for scrap.
Through the 1870s and early 1880s, Germany built two types of cruising vessels: small, fast, but lightly armed avisos suitable for service as fleet scouts and larger, long-ranged screw corvettes capable of patrolling the German colonial empire. Beginning in the mid-1880s, General Leo von Caprivi, the Chief of the Imperial Admiralty, embarked on a construction program to modernize Germany's cruiser force. The first step in the program, the two unprotected cruisers, provided the basis for the larger . All of these vessels were comparatively slow, capable of no more than 15.5kn, which was not sufficient for scout operations with the main fleet.
In the early 1890s, naval officers began to consider a new type of cruiser that incorporated the speed of the avisos with the heavier armament and longer cruising radius of the unprotected cruisers. Then-Captain Alfred von Tirpitz, at the time the Chief of Staff of the Imperial Naval High Command (German: Oberkommando der Marine—OKM), wrote a summary of 1894 fleet maneuvers that included what he believed to be the necessary characteristics of a new small cruiser. These included a top speed of at least, armament sufficient to permit them to engage enemy fleet scouts, and an armor deck to protect the ship's propulsion machinery.
The General Department of the Imperial Naval Office (German: Reichsmarineamt—RMA) issued a call for proposals on 10 May 1895 for the next cruiser, provisionally titled "G". Records of the initial proposals have not survived, though the final design closely followed Tirpitz's specifications outlined in 1894. The caliber of the main battery had to be limited to, despite his preference for larger weapons, to keep displacement within reasonable limits. Maximum speed was to be, a margin of over contemporary battleship designs. The design for the first vessel, which would become, was prepared in 1895–1896 by the navy's chief designer, Alfred Dietrich. As additional members of the class were ordered, a series of improvements were incorporated in their designs over the course of 1897–1900.
By 1897, when the second member of the class would be proposed to the German: [[Reichstag (German Empire)|Reichstag]] to be included in the next year's budget, developments in other vessels prompted the first of these changes. The latest s would have a speed of, necessitating an increase in speed to maintain the 3-knot speed advantage. The RMA also considered increasing the caliber of main guns in line with Tirpitz's thinking, but Dietrich stated that the requested improvements could not be incorporated while retaining a displacement of not more than 3000t. More problematically, the cost of the new ship would increase by around 26 percent, which the German: Reichstag would not likely approve. As a result, the next vessel would largely repeat German: Gazelles design, though new machinery developed by the Germaniawerft shipyard secured the necessary increase of speed to .
The design was somewhat smaller than contemporary light cruisers, but the ships were nevertheless sturdy and powerfully armed for the period. These characteristics evenly balanced the requirements for the two roles envisioned for the class. According to the historian Eric Osborne, "[t]he light cruisers of the German: Gazelle-class established a trend for future ships of this general design...[they] carried little or no armor, the chief asset being speed." Indeed, all future light cruisers built by the Imperial Navy through the of 1906 generally followed the same pattern, with few fundamental changes.
The ships of the German: Gazelle class were 104.1to long at the waterline and 105m (344feet) long overall. The first seven ships had a beam of 12.2m (40feet) and the last three were slightly wider, at 12.4m (40.7feet). They had a draft of 4.11to forward and 5.31to aft. They were designed to displace 2643to at a normal loading, and at full load their displacement rose to 2963t3180t. The ships' hulls were constructed with transverse and longitudinal steel frames; the outer hull wall consisted of wooden planks covered with a layer of Muntz metal to prevent fouling. The Muntz metal extended up to a meter above the waterline. The hull was divided into twelve watertight compartments and it had a double bottom that extended for 40 percent of the length of the keel. For the last three ships, their double bottom was lengthened to 46 percent of the hull.
All ten ships were crank and rolled severely. They were also wet in a head sea. After their modernizations, they tended to suffer from lee helm. Nevertheless, the ships turned tightly and were very maneuverable. In a hard turn, their speed fell up to 65 percent. They had a transverse metacentric height of 0.5mto0.63mm (01.6feetto02.07feetm). The German: Gazelle class required a crew of 14 officers and 243 enlisted men, though for the last three ships, the number of enlisted men rose to 256. They carried a number of boats, including one picket boat, one pinnace, two cutters, two yawls, and one dinghy.
Their propulsion system consisted of two triple-expansion engines manufactured by the dockyards that built the ships. German: Gazelles engines were designed to give 6000ihp, for a top speed of, while the rest of the ships' engines were rated at 8000ihp for . The engines were powered by eight coal-fired water-tube boilers of various manufacture, divided into two boiler rooms. The first three ships carried 500t of coal, which gave them a range of 3570nmi at . The next four vessels carried slightly more, at 560t, which allowed them to cruise to the approximately same range, 3560nmi, at the higher speed of . The last three ships carried 700t of coal, which substantially increased their cruising radius, to 4400nmi at 12 knots. The ships were equipped with three electricity generators that provided a total of 110 kilowatts at 110 volts.
The ships were armed with ten 10.5 cm SK L/40 guns in single mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle, six were located amidships, three on either side, and two were placed side by side aft. The guns could engage targets out to . They were supplied with 1,000 rounds of ammunition, for 100 shells per gun, though the allotment for the last three ships increased to 1,500 rounds, or 150 per gun. They were also equipped with torpedo tubes. German: Gazelle had three 45cm (18inches) tubes with eight torpedoes; one was submerged in the hull in the bow and two were mounted in deck launchers on the broadside. The rest of the class only had two 45 cm tubes with five torpedoes, and these were submerged in the ships' hulls, on the broadside.
The ships were protected by an armored deck that was 20mm25mm thick, with 50mm thick sloping armor on the side. The armor consisted of two layers of steel with a single layer of Krupp steel. The German: Gazelle-class cruisers were also equipped with cork cofferdams to increase buoyancy. The conning tower had 80mm thick sides, with a 20 mm thick roof. The guns were protected by 50mm thick shields.
The ten ships of the German: Gazelle class were built between 1897 and 1904, at various German dockyards, including private firms and government shipyards.
| Builder | Laid down | Launched | Commissioned | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germaniawerft, Kiel | 1897 | 31 March 1898 | 15 June 1901 | |
| AG Weser, Bremen | 1898 | 18 July 1899 | 25 June 1900 | |
| Germaniawerft, Kiel | 1898 | 21 November 1899 | 20 September 1900 | |
| Kaiserliche Werft Danzig | 1899 | 3 July 1900 | 14 September 1901 | |
| AG Weser, Bremen | 1899 | 10 August 1900 | 18 May 1901 | |
| Germaniawerft, Kiel | 1899 | 6 October 1900 | 15 November 1901 | |
| AG Weser, Bremen | 1900 | 5 December 1900 | 26 July 1901 | |
| AG Weser, Bremen | 1901 | 22 March 1902 | 17 February 1903 | |
| AG Weser, Bremen | 1901 | 22 April 1902 | 12 May 1903 | |
| Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, Kiel | 1901 | 11 December 1902 | 5 January 1904 | |
The German: Gazelle-class cruisers served in various capacities after their commissioning. Most of them served with the fleet reconnaissance force, though several served on foreign stations as well. German: Gazelle served abroad in 1902 - 1904, German: Thetis in 1902 - 1906, German: Niobe in 1906 - 1909, and German: Arcona in 1907 - 1910. German: Nymphe was also used as a training ship for naval cadets in addition to her fleet scout role, and German: Undine served as a gunnery training ship.
Due to their age, the German: Gazelles had been placed in reserve by 1914, but after the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, they were mobilized for active service. Most were initially used as coastal defense vessels in the Baltic, but German: Frauenlob and German: Ariadne remained in service with the fleet. They both saw action at the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28 August 1914; German: Frauenlob engaged and badly damaged the British cruiser, while German: Ariadne was sunk by several battlecruisers. German: Frauenlob soldiered on in the fleet reconnaissance forces until the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916, when she was torpedoed and sunk by in a ferocious night battle, with the loss of almost her entire crew. In the Baltic, German: Undine was torpedoed and sunk by the British submarine on 7 November 1915.
The seven surviving ships were withdrawn from front-line service in 1916 and disarmed, with the exception of German: Medusa, which retained six of her guns, and German: Thetis, which was rearmed with nine 10.5 cm U-boat guns for use as a gunnery training ship. The remaining seven cruisers survived the war and went on to serve in the new German: [[Reichsmarine]], except for German: Gazelle, which was broken up for scrap in 1920. The ships remained in service throughout the 1920s, but were all withdrawn by the early 1930s. German: Niobe was sold to Yugoslavia in 1925 and renamed Dalmacija, while German: Nymphe and German: Thetis were scrapped in the early 1930s. German: Arcona, German: Medusa, and German: Amazone were used as barracks hulks for the rest of the 1930s.
After the outbreak of World War II, German: Medusa and German: Arcona were converted into floating anti-aircraft batteries and defended German ports from 1940 to the end of the war, when they were scuttled by their crews on 3 May 1945. German: Amazone meanwhile remained in service as a barracks ship through the end of the war. Dalmacija was captured by the Italians after the Invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, renamed Italian: Cattaro, and pressed into service with the Italian Navy. She was then captured by the Germans after the Italian surrender in September 1943, and returned to her original name, German: Niobe. The ship ran aground in the Adriatic in December 1943 and was destroyed by a pair of British Motor Torpedo Boats. German: Niobe, German: Medusa, and German: Arcona were broken up for scrap in the late 1940s, but German: Amazone lingered on as a barracks ship until 1954, when she too was sold for scrapping.