The ship saw action in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877–1878, where she supported Ottoman forces in the Caucasus, and later helped to defend the port of Sulina on the Danube. She was laid up for twenty years, until the outbreak of the Greco-Turkish War in 1897, which highlighted the badly deteriorated state of the Ottoman fleet. "Necm-i Şevket" was one of just two ironclads that was still in serviceable condition at the time of the war, though she was not included in the large fleet modernization program. Instead, she became a stationary ship and later a barracks ship. During the First Balkan War in 1912, "Necm-i Şevket" was reactivated to help stop the Bulgarian advance on Constantinople. Thoroughly obsolete by that point, she saw little action and returned to barracks duties after the war. The ship remained in the fleet's inventory through the 1920s, being decommissioned in 1929 and broken up thereafter.