Bismarck-class corvette

The Bismarck-class corvettes were a class of six corvettes built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the 1870s. The six ships were Bismarck, Blücher, Stosch, Moltke, Gneisenau, and Stein. The Bismarck-class corvettes were ordered as part of a major naval construction program in the early 1870s, and they were designed to serve as fleet scouts and on extended tours in Germany's colonial empire. The ships were armed with a battery of between ten and sixteen 15 cm (5.9 in) guns and they had a full ship rig to supplement their steam engine on long cruises abroad. One ship, Blücher, was converted into a torpedo testing and training ship shortly after she was completed, having her guns replaced with a variety of torpedo launchers.
Most of the members of the class were sent on extended foreign cruises throughout their careers, frequently to support the expansion of Germany's colonial empire through the 1880s. Moltke supported one of the German expeditions for the International Polar Year in 1882. Bismarck was involved in the seizure of the colony of Kamerun in 1884, and she, Gneisenau, and Stosch were used to secure the protectorate of Wituland in 1885–1886, which later became...