page_title: SMS Blücher (1877)
section_title: Construction through 1890
hierarchical_section_title: SMS Blücher (1877) / Service history / Construction through 1890
caption_attribution_description: English: German Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, circa 1903.
context_page_description: SMS Blücher was a Bismarck-class corvette built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the late 1870s. The Bismarck-class corvettes were ordered as part of a major naval construction program in the early 1870s, and she was designed to serve as a fleet scout and on extended tours in Germany's colonial empire. Blücher was laid down in March 1876, launched in September 1877, and was commissioned into the fleet in late 1878. Unlike her sister ships, Blücher was converted shortly after entering service into a torpedo training ship to experiment with the new self-propelled torpedoes and develop German torpedo doctrine.
  Blücher served in this capacity for the entirety of her active career. She was initially based in Kiel in the Baltic Sea, under the command of Alfred von Tirpitz. Between the 1880s and early 1900s, most of the officers and crewmen in the German fleet received their torpedo training aboard the ship. In 1907, Blücher suffered a boiler explosion that badly damaged the ship and killed thirty men. Deemed too old to warrant repairing, Blücher was instead sold to a Dutch company that used her as a coal storage hulk; her ultimate fate is unknown.
context_section_description: Blücher was laid down in March 1876 under the contract name "C", and she was launched on 20 September 1877. The Chief of the Marinestation der Ostsee (Baltic Sea Naval Station), Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Reinhold von Werner christened the ship at her launching after Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, the famous Prussian Army commander during the Napoleonic Wars. In late 1878, the ship was ready to begin sea trials, which lasted until 30 January 1879. On entering service, Blücher was assigned to torpedo testing duties; the navy planned to use the ship as a support ship for torpedo boats in the event of a war. By early 1880, the ship had been converted for this use; her original intended armament was removed and replaced with a variety of torpedo tubes, and her sailing rig was reduced. On 10 August, she finally entered service with the Torpedo School at Kiel, where Alfred von Tirpitz served as her first commander. 
  In the years that Blücher was in service, the majority of German naval officers and enlisted men received their torpedo training aboard the ship, though she did not actually begin training new crews until 1 May 1881. She was initially based in the Kieler Förde, and on 17 September she participated in a naval review to demonstrate the new torpedo weapons for Kaiser Wilhelm I. While off Friedrichsort outside of Kiel, the Torpedo School conducted a series of demonstrations that began with four torpedo-armed pinnaces launching torpedoes at targets, followed by Blücher, which approached at full speed and launched torpedoes at the anchored target ship Elbe, scoring a direct hit amidships and sinking her. On 27 October, Blücher was decommissioned following the end of the annual training maneuvers.
  In 1882, the torpedo boat Ulan was assigned as Blücher's tender. From 22 June to 15 July, Blücher went on a training cruise in the Baltic Sea, which was followed by the annual fleet training exercises held in August and September. She spent the entirety of 1883 in commission, the first year she did so. In 1884, the navy organized a torpedo boat division for the first time, which included Kühn, Flink, Scharf,Sicher, Tapfer and Vorwärts and the torpedo gunboat Jäger. During tests on 4 August, the old gunboat Wolf was sunk as a target. Blücher then went to Wilhelmshaven in September to assist in the testing of new torpedo boats being built there. She spent 1885 conducting training exercises with the torpedo boats in the training squadron. In 1886, the ship was assigned to the newly formed Inspektion des Torpedowesens (Torpedo Inspectorate); the year passed uneventfully, apart from a short trip to Wilhelmshaven.
  On 1 October, Blücher was decommissioned for a major overhaul. The Kaiserliche Admiralität (Imperial Admiralty) considered restoring Blücher to a fully-functional warship, with her place in the Torpedo School taken by the frigate Elisabeth, but this plan was not adopted. In the course of the overhaul, the ship's classrooms were modernized and search lights were installed on the deck to allow night-time torpedo training. On 30 April 1887, Blücher returned to service and she participated in a naval review held to celebrate the beginning of work on the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal in June. For the following year, Blücher was occupied with the normal routine of training exercises. She participated in training maneuvers in Norwegian waters off Kristiansand in 1889 that emphasized long-range firing.
caption: Alfred von Tirpitz, the ship's first commander
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