page_title: Camäleon-class gunboat
section_title: Service history
hierarchical_section_title: Camäleon-class gunboat / Service history
caption_attribution_description: English: "Seegefecht zwischen Kanonenboot "SMS Meteor" und dem französischen Aviso "Bouvet" vor Havanna am 12. November 1870" Painting showing the Battle of Havana during the Franco-Prussian War 1870/71.
context_page_description: The Camäleon class was a group of gunboats built for the Prussian Navy. Eight ships comprised the class: Camäleon, Comet, Cyclop, Delphin, Blitz, Basilisk, Meteor, and Drache. The vessels were armed with a battery of one 15 cm gun and two 12 cm guns. In 1865, the ships then in service had their 15 cm gun replaced with a 21 cm gun; Meteor and Drache, not yet completed, entered service with that gun. The vessels saw action during the wars of German unification, with Comet taking part in the Battle of Jasmund and Blitz and Basilisk present during the Battle of Heligoland, both during the Second Schleswig War in 1864. Several of the ships served in the North Sea during the Austro-Prussian War, where some of them supported operations against the Kingdom of Hanover. During the Franco-Prussian War, Meteor battled the French aviso Bouvet in the Battle of Havana in 1870; the other members of the class were deployed on coastal defense assignments.
  During their peacetime careers, the vessels served in a variety of roles, including as survey vessels, training ships, fishery protection ships, and guard ships.
context_section_description: The ships of the Camäleon class were frequently laid up during peacetime, as tight Prussian naval budgets in the 1860s prevented an active fleet policy. This was in large part due to liberal opposition to an expansion and modernization program for the Prussian Army under Albrecht von Roon, the Prussian Ministry of War; the Prussian Landtag refused to pass a budget authorizing the expenses requested by Roon, leading to a constitutional crisis where the army and navy operated without legal budgets. The navy was thus unable to spare funding to operate smaller vessels like the Camäleon class. Indeed, the lack of funds delayed completion of Meteor and Drache considerably. During periods of inactivity, the ships were moved ashore, their copper plating was removed, and ventilation holes were cut into the hulls to prevent deterioration of the wood. The first four ships were laid up after completion, with budgetary shortages preventing Cyclop from even conducting sea trials.
  All four were commissioned in late 1863 or early 1864 as Prussia and its ally Austria prepared for the Second Schleswig War against Denmark, which began in February 1864. During the war, the four gunboats were assigned to coastal defense duties in the Baltic Sea, and Comet saw action at the Battle of Jasmund in March 1864, where she traded ineffectual fire with a Danish screw frigate at long range. The fifth and sixth members of the class, Blitz and Basilisk, had been sent to the Mediterranean Sea on a training cruise and had to be recalled at the start of the war. They joined an Austrian squadron with the screw frigates Schwarzenberg and Radetzky under Kommodore (Commodore) Wilhelm von Tegetthoff. The Austro-Prussian force attacked the Danish squadron blockading the North Sea coast of the German states in the inconclusive Battle of Heligoland, though Blitz and Basilisk were too slow to take an active role in the engagement. After the war, the ships were kept in service, mostly to conduct surveys of the coastlines of Schleswig and Holstein, duchies that had been seized by Austria and Prussia during the war.
  Throughout the 1860s, the members of the class served in a variety of roles, including fishery protection vessels, as guard ships, and as training ships on cruises to the Mediterranean. During the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, the completed members of the class served in the Baltic and North Seas, or in the case of Camäleon and Comet, were not activated at all. The ships in service did not see significant action, since the Austrian fleet was contained in the Adriatic Sea by Prussia's ally Italy. Cyclop, Delphin, Blitz, and the ironclad turret ship Arminius supported the Prussian Army's campaign against the Kingdom of Hanover. In 1869, the last two members of the class, Meteor and Drache, were finally completed. At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the ships of the class were again activated for coastal defense duties, either in the mouth of the Elbe or the Jade Bay in the North Sea or at the main Prussian naval base at Kiel in the Baltic. Meteor was abroad on a training cruise in the Caribbean Sea, and encountered the French aviso Bouvet in the Battle of Havana. In the action, Bouvet rammed and dismasted Meteor, but in turn had her engine disabled by a shell from Meteor. A Spanish corvette intervened to prevent Meteor from pursuing Bouvet after the French vessel broke off the engagement.
  After the war, Camäleon and Cyclop were stricken from the naval register owing to their deteriorated condition and were broken up. Throughout the 1870s, the remaining members of the class performed a variety of tasks, including conducting cartographic surveys, weapons testing with new self-propelled torpedoes, and fishery protection duties. In 1873, Delphin was sent to Spain to protect German nationals during the Third Carlist War. Basilisk was hulked in 1875 and used to store naval mines until at least 1900. Blitz was also reduced to a hulk in 1876 but was scrapped two years later. Meteor and Comet were stationed in the Mediterranean during the Russo-Turkish
caption: Painting of Meteor in battle with Bouvet
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