SMS Arminius SMS " Arminius " was an ironclad warship of the Prussian Navy , later the Imperial German Navy . The ship was designed by the British Royal Navy Captain Cowper Coles and built by the Samuda Brothers shipyard in Cubitt Town , London as a speculative effort ; Prussia purchased the ship during the Second Schleswig War against Denmark , though the vessel was not delivered until after the war . The ship was armed with four guns in a pair of revolving gun turret s amidships . She was named for Arminius , the victor of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest . " Arminius " served as a coastal defense ship for the first six years of her service with the Prussian Navy . She saw extensive service in the Austro - Prussian and Franco - Prussian wars during the process of German unification . The vessel was the primary challenge to the French blockade of German ports during the latter conflict . After the wars , " Arminius " was withdrawn from front - line service and used in a variety of secondary roles , including as a training ship for engine - room crews and as a tender for the school ship . The ship was eventually sold in 1901 and broken up for scrap the following year . Design . General characteristics and machinery . The warship that came to be SMS " Arminius " was designed by Captain Cowper Coles , a British Royal Navy officer and advocate of turret - armed ironclad warships . " Arminius " was nearly identical to the Danish ironclad " Rolf Krake " , also designed by Captain Coles . The vessel was constructed with transverse frames and constructed with an iron hull , which contained eight watertight compartments . The ship was long at the waterline and long overall . The ship had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft . She was designed to displace but at combat load , " Arminius " displaced up to . The ship ' s crew consisted of ten officers and 122 enlisted men . She carried a number of smaller boats , including two pinnace s , two cutters , and one dinghy . " Arminius " was not a particularly successful design ; she suffered from severe , fast rolling , especially in heavier seas . She also shipped a great deal of water over the bow and was unbalanced in steering . The ship turned rapidly to starboard but was sluggish in turning to port . Indeed , the ship was required to have the rudder at 15 degrees to port in order to remain on a straight course . It was also impossible to control the ship with only sail power . The ship was powered by a single two - cylinder single expansion engine built by J . Penn & Sons , Greenwich . The engine drove a single two - bladed screw that was in diameter . Four transverse trunk boilers , each of which had four fireboxes apiece , supplied steam to the engine . The boilers were also built by J Penn & Sons , Greenwhich , and were arranged in a single boiler room . Limited electrical power was provided by a single generator , which supplied 1 . 9 kilowatts at 55 volts . The ship was equipped with a schooner rig with a surface area of 540 square meters . The propulsion system was rated at and a top speed of , though on trials , " Arminius " reached and . The ship carried of coal , which enabled a range of at a cruising speed of . Armament and armor . As built , " Arminius " was equipped with a main battery of four rifled , bronze 72 - pounder cannon , but after delivery to the Prussian Navy , they were replaced with four L / 19 guns . These guns were supplied with a total of 332 rounds , and could elevate to 12 degrees . At maximum elevation , the guns could engage targets out to . After 1881 , four machine guns were installed , along with a single torpedo tube mounted in the bow above the waterline . " Arminius " s armor consisted of wrought iron backed with teak plating . The conning tower was protected by of wrought iron on of teak . The armored belt ranged in thickness from of iron on the bow and stern to 114 mm amidships , the entire length of which was backed by 229 m of teak . The two turrets were armored with 114 mm of iron on of timber . Service history . She was built by the Samuda Brothers shipyard in London as a speculative project , possibly to sell to the Confederate Navy . The ship was laid down in 1863 and launched on 20 August 1864 . Prussia instead purchased the ship on 20 August 1864 , and commissioned her on 22 April 1865 as SMS " Arminius " . Delivery was delayed by the British government ; the British were sympathetic to Denmark , which was then engaged in a war with Prussia and Austria . The British therefore prevented the ship from being delivered until after the war was concluded . The cost of the ship , which amounted to some 1 , 887 , 000 gold marks , was paid in part by public donations . " Arminius " served as a harbor defense ship for six years , through 1871 . Along with the ironclad ram , " Arminius " was the first armored warship acquired by the Prussian Navy . At the outbreak of the Austro - Prussian War in mid - 1866 , " Arminius " was mobilized along with " Prinz Adalbert " , the only other Prussian ironclad . The ships were initially based in Kiel , but in the opening days of the war , " Arminius " raced to Hamburg via the Skagerrak and the Kattegat , a distance of some , in 100 hours , an impressive feat for an early ironclad warship . Without a naval threat from Austria , the Prussian navy therefore concentrated its effort against the Kingdom of Hanover For the remainder of the conflict , " Arminius " operated out of Geestemünde , under the command of Reinhold Werner , and the mere appearance of " Arminius " caused several Hanoverian coastal batteries to surrender . On 15 June , " Arminius " and a pair of gunboats , and , covered the crossing of the Elbe river by General Edwin von Manteuffel and some 13 , 500 soldiers to attack the city of Hanover . By the end of the month , the Prussian army had decisively defeated the Austrians at Königgrätz and ended the war . On 3 October 1866 , the ship raced the US Navy ' s monitor in Kiel ; " Arminius " was two knots faster than the American vessel . In 1870 , the ship had her sailing rig removed . At the outbreak of the Franco - Prussian War of 1870 – 1871 , the Prussian Navy concentrated " Arminius " and the armored frigate s , , and in the North Sea naval base Wilhelmshaven . " Arminius " was stationed in Kiel at the outbreak of war , but managed to break through the French blockade by hugging the Swedish coast , which her shallow draft permitted . Her passage through Swedish territorial waters also protected the ship from French attack . Despite the great French naval superiority , the French had conducted insufficient pre - war planning for an assault on the Prussian naval installations , and concluded that it would only be possible with Danish assistance , which was not forthcoming . The four ships , under the command of Vice Admiral Jachmann , made an offensive sortie in early August 1870 out to the Dogger Bank , though they encountered no French warships . The three armored frigates thereafter suffered from chronic engine trouble , which left " Arminius " alone to conduct operations . Captain Otto Livonius commanded the ship during the war . In the course of the war , she sortied from the port over forty times ; these also failed to result in major combat , though she occasionally traded shots with the blockading French warships . For the majority of the war , " Arminius " was stationed in the mouth of the Elbe along with the ironclad ram and three small gunboats . The three armored frigates remained off the island of Wangerooge . On 11 September , the three frigates were again ready for action ; they joined " Arminius " for another major operation , though it too did not encounter French opposition . The French Navy had by this time returned to France . After being removed from front - line service in 1872 , she was used as a training vessel for naval engineers . The ship was decommissioned in 1875 and placed in reserve . Her ram bow allowed her to be used as an ice - breaker in Kiel in the 1880s . In 1882 , she was used as a tender for the cadet training vessel . The ship was rebuilt in 1888 ; during the refit the propulsion system was overhauled and replaced with German - built equipment and two searchlights were installed . The ship was ultimately stricken from the naval register on 2 March 1901 and sold to shipbreakers for 72 , 000 gold marks . " Arminius " was broken up for scrap the following year .