SMS Meteor was a of the North German Federal Navy (later the Imperial German Navy) that was launched in 1865. A small vessel, armed with only three light guns, Meteor took part in the Battle of Havana in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. There, she battled the French aviso ; both vessels were lightly damaged, though Bouvet was compelled to disengage after a shot from Meteor disabled her engine. After the war, Meteor returned to Germany, where her career was limited; she served briefly as a survey vessel. From 1873 to 1877, she was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea as a station ship in Constantinople during a period of tensions in the Ottoman Empire. After returning to Germany in 1877, she was decommissioned, converted into a coal hulk and expended as a target ship some time later.
Design
The s came about as a result of a program to strengthen the Prussian Navy in the late 1850s in the aftermath of the dissolution of the and in the midst of rising tensions with Denmark. In 1859, Prince Regent Wilhelm approved a construction program for some fifty-two gunboats to be built over the next fifteen years, of which eight became the Camäleon class. They were similar to the contemporaneous s, but were substantially larger vessels.
Meteor was long, with a beam of and a draft of . She displaced at full load. The ship's crew consisted of 4 officers and 67 enlisted men. She was powered by a single marine steam engine that drove one 3-bladed screw propeller, with steam provided by two coal-fired trunk boilers, which gave her a top speed of at . As built, she was equipped with a three-masted schooner rig. The ship was armed with a battery of one rifled 24-pounder gun and two rifled 12-pounder guns.
Service history
Meteor was laid down at the Königliche Werft Danzig (Royal Dockyard Danzig) on 27 June 1861. Construction work on the ship was delayed significantly due to a lack of funding, the result of budgetary conflicts between Minister President Otto von Bismarck and the Prussian House of Representatives. The ship was launched on 17 May 1865, though fitting-out work was delayed the following year when the ship was allocated to an expedition to the North Pole. The ship was finally commissioned into service with the North German Federal Navy on 6 September 1869. The Admiralstab (Admiralty Staff) ordered the gunboat to the Caribbean, along with the corvette . The sailors were concerned with Meteors seaworthiness for an Atlantic crossing, and so planned to transfer the 15 cm gun to Arcona for the voyage. Arcona was instead reassigned to represent Germany at the opening of the Suez Canal, and so Meteor was forced to make the journal on her own. She departed Kiel on 4 October, under the command of then-Kapitänleutnant (Captain Lieutenant) Eduard von Knorr. En route, she had to put into Falmouth from 12 October to 6 November to repair damage sustained during a storm in the North Sea.
Meteor arrived in Bridgetown, Barbados, on 19 December 1869, and met the training ship . The gunboat was unable to stay in Barbados, as unrest in Venezuela threatened German nationals in the country, and she was ordered there to protect them. She remained in the area until mid-March 1870; at the beginning of the month, she anchored off La Guaira with Niobe in an attempt to enforce German financial claims in the city. During the period she operated off Venezuela, Meteor left once for periodic repairs at Willemstad, Curacao. On 16 March, she departed Venezuelan waters, bound for Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where she was to meet Arcona. On the way, Meteor struck a coral reef off Gonâve Island, though she was able to get off on her own power. After arriving in Port-au-Prince, Knorr learned that Arcona had gone to La Guaira, and he was to take his vessel there as well. On 19 July, France declared war on Prussia, initiating the Franco-Prussian War.
Battle of Havana
On 7 November 1870, Meteor arrived in Havana, Cuba, where the French aviso Bouvet was docked. The French ship was more heavily armed than the Prussian vessel, with one gun and four 12 cm guns compared to a single 15 cm gun and two 12 cm guns aboard Meteor. The French captain issued a challenge to Knorr, who accepted. Bouvet departed the harbor on 8 November, followed by Meteor the following day; international law mandated that belligerent ships wait twenty-four hours after an enemy vessel left port. The Battle of Havana lasted for two hours, Meteor opening fire first with her 15 cm gun.