Wespe Class

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last revised 15/10/09

Armoured Gunboat (Panzerkanonenboot) Wespe-Class (1876 ff.)

of the Imperial German Navy

• A new modelling project under development •


S.M.S. Wespe (HENK, 1895)	S.M.S. Wespe, brand-new and still without the 30.5 cm gun (1875)	S.M.S. Wespe(?) c.188?	S.M.S. Brummer c.188?	Artist's impression (ANONYM, 1891)

G.A. of the 30.5 cm gun (REVENTLOW, 1901)	Gun drill in the 1890s (LAVERRENZ, 1900)	Stern with emergency steering wheel (LAVERRENZ, 1900)	Upper deck and conning tower in the 1890s ( (LAVERRENZ, 1900))	Under construction (HENK, 1895)

History and context

The Wespe-Class armoured gun-boats were born out of a tactical concept that dated well back into the Napoleonic era. The idea was to mount a heavy long-range gun onto a highly mobile small craft that would be able to retire into shallow coastal waters, beyond the range of even the heavy artillery of an attacking fleet. The addition of a steam engine and the increase in calliper followed the development of the time, of course. Adding heavy armour to the front (mainly) was meant to give the gun-boats a certain attacking capability. It also owes something to the floating batteries used in the defence of Copenhagen during the Napoleonic wars and to the armoured floating batteries used by the allied French/British forces during the Crimean War. In fact, adding armour plating to a (rowing) gunboat was already proposed as early as the late 18^th century in Spain, as documented by a model in the Museo Naval in Madrid, but apparently never put to work in full scale.

At the time of their conception (the early 1870s), a former cavalry(!) general was the naval chief-of-staff in Germany. The tactical dogma was 'proactive defence': an attacking enemy was to be awaited in home waters and fenced off. The main threat was seen in amphibian operations attacking the German coast. Thus, the landing of troops at strategic points had to be prevented. Long-range strategic and oceanic operations were out of the scope of the naval planners at the time. There was a certain logic in this, as Germany, unlike Britain, is/was a more or less land-locked country and largely self-sufficient in many respects at that time. Overseas trade then did not have such an importance as in Britain or as in later globalising economies. Therefore, attempts to severe overseas supply chains was not so relevant. There was, indeed, active resistance from trade interest groups, particularly the merchants in the cities of Hamburg and Bremen, to a navy that would engage itself overseas. These merchants relied on their network of friendly contacts.

So, the Wespe-Class was designed to be mainly a heavily armoured gun-platform, giving long-range protection to the tidal North Sea harbours that are surrounded by mud-flats and to give mobile protection to the deep fjords of Schleswig-Holstein's Baltic coast. They would be backed-up by heavy artillery (and later torpedo batteries) in coastal forts.

It is interesting to note that, most navies around the world toyed with similar ideas and had built small (armoured) craft with one heavy gun mounted to fire forward. The guns usually could only be trained by turning the whole boat. This seems more difficult then it probably was, because even in the old days of the rowing gunboats they would attack by rowing in a wide circle and when the intended target passed through the line of aim, one would fire. As the Wespe-Class was designed to let themselves fall dry on mud-flats, a possibility to train the gun was needed.


HMS Mastiff	HMS Staunch		Constitución	Bermejo	Falster
© Science Museum, London		© NMM, Greenwich	© Museo Naval del Tigre		© Orlogsmuseet, Copenhagen

The Royal Navy had a selection of 30 of such gun-boats built from the late 1860s onwards in three classes: Ant class (20), Gadfly class (4) and Bouncer class (2) (CONWAY, 1979). The armament was a 10" MLR (muzzle loading rifled gun). Having only a displacement of 254 and 265 t respectively, they were much smaller than the Wespe class. The first such boat was orginally built by Armstrongs as a sea-going platform for testing guns. A model of HMS Staunch(?) is on display in the Science Museum in South Kensington/London. For those who like to build paper models, David Hathaway (Papershipwright) offers inter alia models of HMS Staunch (prototype) and HMS Kite (Ant class). The Argentinian navy had four 'Bombardere' (Bermejo, Constitución, Pilcomayo, and República) built around 1874/75 at Laird's in Great Britain. Bermejo and Pilcomayo had a displacement of 416 tons, were capable of making 9 knots, and were armed with what appears to be an 11" Armstrong gun on a sliding carriage (MINISTERIO DE MARINA, 1945). Models and lithographs are in the Museo Naval del Tigre (North of Buenos Aires). The Danish Royal Navy had such boats, e.g. the Falster and Møn and the Dutch Royal Navy had a whole series of them built after the model of HMS Staunch as is evidenced by plans in the Scheepvaart Museum in Amsterdam and the odd photograph.


Modern model of a in early livery	Photograph	Modern model in later livery
Staunch-Class gunboat of the Royal Dutch Navy, © Marinemuseum, Den Helder

It is quite possible that the ideas for the WESPE-class gunboats owe something to this British development, albeit the former are somewhat more sophisticated in design and equipment.

Technical Description

The Wespe-Class comprised ten boats delivered in two batches between 1876 and 1880: Wespe (1876), Viper, Biene, Mücke, Scorpion, Basilisk, Camaeleon, Crocodill, Salamander, Natter. They were all built by A.G. Weser in Bremen. With a length of 46.4 m and a beam of 10.65 m they had a dead weight of 1157 t, drawing 3.37 m. The dimensions vary somewhat according to source, but this may be due to different reference points, such as length overall compared to length between the perpendicles etc.

BRIX (1876) gives their length as 43.5 m and their beam as 10.6, the former number clearly pointing to a dimension between perpendicles. The same author also provides a detailed description of the constructional arrangements, the dimensions of the scantlings, as well as two cross-sections. These drawings appear to be based on the source same as those drawing preserved in the Deutsche Museum in Munich (see below):

Two inclined double-expansion engines on two propellers gave a maximum speed of 11 knots. Their original complement was 3 officers and 73 crew.

Steering was from a stand on the hut and an emergency double steering wheel abaft. Very early on they were also retrofitted with an electrical generator.

The Wespe-class were the first German warships (and indeed among the first of any warship) that did completely without auxiliary sails. In the consequence they only had a light mast for signalling.

In spite of sporting quite some leading edge technology, they were only of limited seaworthyness and their handling was far from perfect. This resulted in them being given a collection of rather unfavourable nicknames (GRÖNER, 1937). They were also not very popular with the crews and their officers for the cramped accomodation provided, but then they were not meant for long voyages in the open sea.

Armament

The main armament was a single 30.5 cm rifled breech-loading gun (Ringkanone mit Rundkeilverschluß) designed and manufactured by Krupp. At the time the Wespe-class were designed, fast torpedo-boats did not exist yet – the automotive fish-torpedo was just being developed. When then in the mid-1880s small torpedo-boats became a tactical reality, some form of self-defence against them was necessary and two bronze(!) 8.7 cm/l24 breech-loading guns in 'disappearing' carriage and two 37 mm Hotchkiss revolving guns came on board. In fact, very early on (1883) also two 35 cm underwater torpedo launching tubes were installed to increase the attacking capabilities.

The 30.5 cm/l22 Rk

The Rk-30.5/l22 (Ringkanone of 22 calliper length) gun has been the heaviest gun in the German Imperial Navy for many years and was among the heaviest ships' guns in the World at that time. It was mounted on the usual sliding carriage on a turn-table in an open barbette. Later, sliding armour shields were added to give the gun crew better protection while loading. The gun was trained entirely by hand. The apparatus is an interesting exercise of remote control or 'power steering'. The No. 1 would stand in a lightly armoured box behind the gun, taking aim and turn the gun left or right by actuating a clutch to the drive using one of two levers. The power is genuine 'man-power', provided from below on a set of hand-cranks. It would be interesting to know why no steam power was employed at a time when power steering apparatus, which work on very much the same principle, were already known. Below is an excerpt from GALSTER (1885) describing the gun itself:

while the pages below describe its mounting (the last image from ANONYM 1882):

The same type of gun was sold by Krupp to some other navies as well, including the Danish Navy. Blueprints, judging by the date probably from the 'sales package', survive in the Rigsarkivet in Copenhagen and a very detailed instruction model for training the gun crews is on display in the Orlogsmuseet. The gun is mounted in a turret and was the main armament of the 'panserskibet' Helgoland (STEEN STEENSEN, 1961, 1968).


Instruction model for the Rk 30.5/l22 on 'Helgoland' in the Orlogsmuseet Copenhagen			The shell hoisting cradle © Rigsarkivet	'Rundkeilverschluß', Krupp field gun in the Stockholm Military Museum	An Admiralty drawing of the Rk 30.5 and its barbette ©www.dreadnoughtproject.org	After gun on dockyard model of SMS Wacht (1887) in the DSM, showing green paint.	28 cm Krupp-clone guns at the fortress Suomenlinna outside Helsinki - a pictorial survey

Some specimens of full-size 28 cm guns built in Russia presumably under license by Krupp survive in various stages of decay on the fortress island of Suomenlinna just outside Helsinki in Finland. A pictorial survey of the guns' details can be found here.

The 8,7 cm/l24 Rk

GALSTER (1885) also provides a detailed description of the 8,7 cm guns and their 'disappearing' carriage:

The 3,7 cm RevK

The Hotchiss revolving gun was adopted in the early 1880s in the 37 mm or the 47 mm version in those navies around the World that did not opt for the competing products of Nordenfeldt or Gatling. A synopsis of the 37 mm gun, based on various original sources and some Internet resources is presented in these PDF-files: Part 1, Part 2

A copy of an original instruction and maintenance manual (in German) can viewed here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Recently, I have been able to take some close-up pictures of an original naval gun from 1886, preserved at the Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung and another close-range defense gun in the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, both in Koblenz, Germany. The land-based guns lack the shoulder piece, have a straight hand crank and simpler sights, but are otherwise largely identical to the naval version.


The 1886 naval gun. Note that it appears to rest the wrong way around in the fork, as pivot locking srew should be facing inboard	Details of the locking screw for the rear cover and the flap over the feed channel	Front bearing of the barrel bundle.	The ammunition feed channel made of sheet metal riveted together	The internal workings from a specimen preserved in the USA	A naval gun in carriage mounting in use in the former German colony in East Africa sometime between 1903 and 1916 (by Walther Dobbertin)
© Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung, Koblenz, Germany	© Festung Ehrenbreitstein, Koblenz, Germany			© Fieldsofthunder	© Deutsches Bundesarchiv

Here are two videos of the internal workings of a Hotchkiss-gun (at the end of the movie!) and a similar Gatling-gun being fired.

Changes to the outward appearance

Much uncertainty persists (and likely will so in the future) over any stage in the history of the prototypes and what they exactly looked like at any given time. Though it is known that they went through various refits, during which e.g. the underwater torpedo launching tubes were added and the 3.7 cm RevKs and 8.7 Rks came on board. Also an armoured conning tower was added together with the sliding semi-circular armour shields on top of the barbette. Early on boat racks were added; the boats appear to have been originally slung outboard from davits, thus being more vulnerable to the sea and to damage from collision when in harbour. To protect the double screws, an extended rubbing strake was also added. On some boats at least the deck house seems to have been extended at its after end by something that has decidedly the appearance of a garden shed !

The early boats, S.M.S. Wespe and S.M.S. Viper, must have been delivered in the 1874 ordinance colour scheme:

Black	hull up to main bulwark railing; certain iron deck areas and (probably) machinery such as the capstan, bollards etc.
White	line about 0.5 m above the CWL and another one just below the main bulwark railing; any superstructures above the level of the main bulwark railing, ventilators, deckhouses, inside bulwark and awning stanchions.
Yellow	masts and funnel, scroll-work (picked out in gold), water ways; deviating from the ordinance also the two main boiler-room ventilators next to the funnel seem to have been painted yellow.
Varnish	Judging from pictures, skylight caps have been natural wood in clear varnish, rather than white as stipulated by the ordinance.

In 1878 a new ordinance was issued specifying the following colour scheme:

Black	hull up to main bulwark railing; certain iron deck areas and (probably) machinery such as the capstan, bollards etc.
Yellow	any superstructures above the level of the main bulwark railing; masts and funnels; scroll-work (picked out in gold); ventilators; deckhouses.
White	line about 0.5 m above the CWL and another one just below main bulwark railing; inside bulwark and awning stanchions.
Varnish	Judging from pictures, skylight caps have been kept in natural wood in clear varnish, rather than yellow.

According to the "Vorschriften für die Behandlung und Instandhaltung der Schiffsgeschütze (...)", Berlin, 1891 (I have not seen this reference in person) the gun barrels were to be painted brown, while the gun carriages were painted green and other accessories belonging to the gun were black. Nothing specific is known about the hues of the brown and green. One might infer that the brown was something like an umbra, mimicking the in situ browning applied in earlier times by rubbing the barrels repeatedly with vinegar and solidifying the developing 'rust' by rubbing it down with linseed oil (DAVIDS, 1870). This colour scheme for deck guns is corroborated e.g. by the contemporary dockyard model of SMS Wacht (1887) in the Deutsche Schiffahrtsmuseum Bremerhaven (see picture above).

There remains some uncertainty around what the decks originally looked liked, that is before imported marine linoleum was introduced by the Imperial Navy at the end of the 1870s. Contrary to the assumption made in early model reconstruction plans, it is now sure that the only decks that had a wooden cover was the one on the quarter deck and certain sectors of the gun emplacement. All other decks were presumably covered in some sort of tar paint, mixed with sand and with sand sprinkled on. This would give these decks a dark grey 'tarmac' appearance. It is not know colour the first linoleoum had. Some research on linoleum indicates that it was originally only available in its 'natural' colour, that is a darkish cork-brown, from domestic sources from 1882 onwards. The characteristic red-oxide colour of 'battleship' quality linoleum was introduced according to the archives of the (sole) manufacturer in 1892. It is not exactly known, how the linoleum was fixed to the iron decks, but presumably a sort of marine glue was used. In addition, the seams of the linoleum panels were protected by flat brass bars about 5 cm wide, as can be clearly seen on on of the above pictures.

At some stages red(?) bands appeared around the funnels, distinguishing the different boats in a flotilla.

In 1895 and 1896 new ordinances specified grey over virtually the whole ship. However, this is beyond the period of interest here and therefore no further details are provided, except the pictures below.


A wasps' nest	SMS SCORPION in Kiel ?	SMS NATTER in Kiel ?	SMS NATTER in Wilhelmshaven ?	SMS MÜCKE in Wilhelmshaven ?	SMS CROCODIL and SMS SCORPION in the entrance to Wilhelmshaven dock.

Sources

As for most ships of the early German Imperial Navy drawings and photographs are rather scarce and good quality ones even more so. My research efforts that extended back some 10 years were supplemented by a group of interested people loosely organised in the 'Kaiserliche Marine-Forum'. However, little material additional to what I already had came to light. This group is currently collecting all the available material into a CD-ROM.

Recently a set of pages that summarises the main data on the WESPE-Class appeared on the German Wikipedia.

Drawings

The Deutsche Museum in Munich has a set of contemporary drawings (on which the commercial model building plans appear to draw), but these were not builder's plan, rather than some instruction or publicity material. These plans appear to have been drawn before the major refit in the 1880s, i.e. the change in armament is not recorded, but the change in the arrangement for the boats.

The Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (Freiburg i. Brsg.) has a number of drawings that survived the plundering/partial destruction of the naval construction offices archive in Berlin in 1945, but these only pertain to some refitting at a late stage in life of e.g. S.M.S. Natter.

Recently some interesting drawings surfaced in the USA in a private collection (www.dreadnoughtproject.org). The drawing of the gun bears a date of 1877 and may have been the original from which the drawing in LAVERRENZ (1900) was reproduced. The other drawings seem to pertain to some refitting done in Wilhelmshaven in the early 1890s. In any case, considering the signatures and other marks, these drawings are certainly 'official' ones. It is hoped that some day they may find their way into a public collection, though their current ready accessibility is rather laudable.

Photographs

The Marinearchiv of the Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte in the Württembergische Landesbibliothek keeps a small range of photographs and pictures.

The commercial image bank of the Wilhelmshavener Zeitung, WZ-Bilddienst offers a range of photographs for sale. Some are from published sources, while others are available elsewhere, e.g. in published books.

Very recently an album with photographs of the Panzerkanonenboot-Flotilla in Danzig, dated around 1898, appeared in an auction on ebay and is now in the collection of one of the Forum-members.

Some photographs shown on this site are only known from published books, no original prints or negatives seem to have survived.

The photographs above seem to be indeed all that is available from the time when the ships appeared in the 1867(?) or 1878 livery.

Published Books

At the time S.M.S Wespe was designed and built, it seems to have raised considerable interest and descriptions of various details appears in the contemporary technical and popular literature, e.g. BRIX (1876), KRONENFELS (1882), HENK (1895) or LAVERRENZ (1900).

The main armament is reviewed in detail with accompanying drawings in GALSTER (1885) as detailed above.

Commercial Sources for the modeller

There are a couple of commercial plans available, such as that drawn by Wolfgang Bohlayer (available from VTH); they all pertain to the time after the major refit of the mid-1880s.

For those into card modelling, there is also a commercial building set for Wespe/Natter available that is based on one of the published modelling drawings for S.M.S. Wespe by W. Bohlayer.

Open Questions

Many questions are still open and if anybody can shed any light on these, please contact me at wefalck at wefalck dot eu:

Which was the colour of the skylights (mahagony/white/yellow) and when ? Pictures and regulations (e.g. Marineverordnungsblatt 2(102 and 9(181)) give conflicting information.
What did the original boat-davits (before the racks were installed) actually look like ?
Where the coaling hatches made of cast iron or of brass ?

The Model

A waterline model in 1:160 scale (N-scale) is currently under construction, aiming to show S.M.S. Wespe as she might have appeared when first commissioned in 1876.

The model is largely based on the drawings from the Deutsche Museum München and the photograph that shows her while being fitted out - with occasional reference to the plan drawn by W. Bohlayer - who drew on the same sources, in order to see how he interpreted various details. Of course, all the other source material listed here has also been consulted.

Construction progress is documented on a separate modelling page (updated 25/02/09).

Literature:

ANONYM (1880-82): Artillerie-Unterricht für die k.k. Kriegs-Marine.- 3 vols., pl., Laibach (I. von Kleinmayr & F. Bamberg).

ANONYM (1887): Exercirreglement für die Marine-Artillerie, Nr. I. Für die 30,5 cm Kanone L/22 in Pivot-Laffete C/76.- Berlin (E.S. Mittler und Sohn). !!! If you have a copy or know someone who has, I would very much appreciate to hear from you: wefalck at wefalck dot eu !!!

ANONYM (1891): Die Kaiserlich Deutsche Marine.- 8 p., 29 plates, Leipzig (Verlagsbuchhandlung von J.J. Weber).

BRIX, A. (1876): Der Bau eiserner Kriegs- und Handelsschiffe - Ein Leitfaden.- 114 pp. + 33 plates, Berlin (Ernst & Sohn).

BRIX, A. (1878): Praktischer Schiffbau - Bootsbau.- 28 pp. + 12 plates, Berlin (Hütte).

CONWAY (1979): All the World‘s Fighting Ships 1860-1905.- 440 pp., London (Conway Maritime Press).

DAVIDS, K. (1870): Leitfaden für den Unterricht in der Schiffsartillerie zunächst für die Feuerwerksmaatenschule.- 176 Sp, 18 woodcuts., 4 plates, Berlin (E.S. Mittler und Sohn).

GALSTER, C. (1873): Das Krupp‘sche 30 1/2 cm Geschütz.- Marine-Verordnungsblatt, Beiheft 4.3: 16-9, Berlin.

GALSTER, C. (1885): Die Schiffs- und Küstengeschütze der deutschen Marine - Unter Benutzung amtlichen Materials bearbeitet.- 290 pp., 248 woodcuts, 7 lithographs, Berlin (S. Mittler und Sohn).

GRÖNER, E. (1937): Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe 1815-1936.- München (J.F. Lehmanns Verlag).

HENK, W. VON (1895): Zur See.- 417 pp., Hamburg (reprint 1982 at Gerstenberg Verlag, Hildesheim).

HILDEBRAND, H., RÖHR, A., STEINMETZ, H.-O. (1999): Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe – Biographien, Bd. 8 - Schiffsbiographien Undine bis Zieten.- 286 pp., Hamburg (Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft).

KRONENFELS, J.F. VON (1881): Das schwimmende Flottenmaterial der Seemächte.- 599 pp., Wien/Pest/Leipzig (A. Hartleben‘s Verlag; reprint 1976 as Vol. I, Christian Schmidt‘s Maritime Reprints, München).

LAVERRENZ, V. (1900): Unter Deutscher Kriegsflagge – Bilder aus dem Manschaftsleben an Bord.- 178 pp., Berlin (W. Sommer).

MINISTERIO DE MARINA (1945): Museo Naval del Tigre.- 87 S., Buenos Aires (Guillermo Kraft LTDA.).

REVENTLOW, Graf E. (1901): Die deutsche Flotte.- 300 pp., Zweibrücken i.d.Pf. (Fr. Lehmann, reprint 1999 at Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg, ).

STEEN STEENSEN, R. (1961): Orlogsmuseet.- 128 pp., København (Marinehistorisk Selskab/ Strubes Vorlag).

STEEN STEENSEN, R. (1968): Vore Panserskibe 1863-1943.- 492 pp., København (Marinehistorisk Selskab/Strubes Vorlag).

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