SMS was the second of ten light cruisers that were built for the German () in the late 1890s and early 1900s. The class was the culmination of earlier unprotected cruiser and aviso designs, combining the best aspects of both types in what became the progenitor of all future light cruisers of the Imperial fleet. Built to serve with the main German fleet and also in German colonies, she was armed with a battery of ten guns and had a top speed of . The ship had a long career, serving in the German, Yugoslav, and Italian fleets over the span of more than forty years.
served in both home and overseas waters in the Imperial Navy, serving in a variety of roles, including as a flotilla leader for torpedo boats, as a scout for the main fleet, and as a station ship with the East Asia Squadron. After the outbreak of World War I, the ship joined the vessels tasked with defending Germany's North Sea coast. By late 1915, she was withdrawn from active service and used as a headquarters ship for various commands. She was disarmed in 1917, but as one of the cruisers permitted to the postwar (Navy of the Realm) by the Treaty of Versailles, she was modernized and rearmed in the early 1920s.
The ship saw no active service with the and, in 1925, Germany sold the ship to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia). There, she was renamed and served in the Royal Yugoslav Navy until April 1941, when she was captured by the Italians during the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia. Renamed , she served in the Italian (Royal Navy) until the Italian surrender in September 1943. She was then seized by the German occupiers of Italy, who restored her original name. She was used in the Adriatic Sea briefly until December 1943, when she ran aground on the island of Silba, and was subsequently destroyed by British motor torpedo boats. The wreck was ultimately salvaged and broken up for scrap between 1947 and 1952.
Design
Following the construction of the unprotected cruisers of the and the aviso for the German (Imperial Navy), the Construction Department of the (Imperial Navy Office) prepared a design for a new small cruiser that combined the best attributes of both types of vessels. The designers had to design a small cruiser with armor protection that had an optimal combination of speed, armament, and stability necessary for fleet operations, along with the endurance to operate on foreign stations in the German colonial empire. The resulting design provided the basis for all of the light cruisers built by the German fleet to the last official designs prepared in 1914.
After construction of had begun, the German Navy secured the passing of the Naval Law of 1898; this act authorized a total cruiser strength of thirty small cruisers. Two were ordered immediately, the second of which became . Both of these new ships differed in minor details from , being fitted with more powerful Thornycroft boilers, which significantly increased the power of the ship's propulsion system and thus top speed compared to .
was long overall, with a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced normally and up to at full combat load. The ship had a minimal superstructure, which consisted of a small conning tower and bridge structure. She was fitted with two pole masts. Her hull had a raised forecastle and quarterdeck, along with a pronounced ram bow. She had a crew of 14 officers and 243 enlisted men.
Her propulsion system consisted of two four-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines manufactured by AG Germania in Tegel, driving a pair of screw propellers. The engines were powered by eight coal-fired Thornycroft water-tube boilers that were vented through a pair of funnels. They were designed to give , for a top speed of . carried of coal, which gave her a range of at .
The ship was armed with ten SK L/40 guns in single pivot mounts protected by gun shields. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle; six were located on the broadside in sponsons; and two were placed side by side aft. The guns could engage targets out to . They were supplied with 1,000 rounds of ammunition, for 100 shells per gun. She was also equipped with two torpedo tubes with five torpedoes. They were submerged in the hull on the broadside.
She was protected by an armored deck that was thick. The deck sloped downward at the sides of the ship to provide a measure of protection against incoming fire. The conning tower had thick sides, and the gun shields were thick.
Service history
Construction and early career
was ordered under the contract name "B", and was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen on 30 August 1898 and launched on 18 July 1899, after which fitting-out work commenced. Named after Niobe, a figure from Greek mythology, she was commissioned on 25 June 1900 to begin sea trials, which lasted until 22 August. She was thereafter placed in reserve. On 11 April 1901, the ship returned to service and was assigned as the flagship of I Torpedo-boat Flotilla on the 18th, replacing the elderly aviso , which was by then worn out. Her first commanding officer was (Corvette Captain) Reinhard Scheer, who went on to command the High Seas Fleet at the Battle of Jutland during World War I. served as flagship until 26 June, and during this period, took part in training exercises in the Baltic Sea and the Kattegat. On 28 June, she left I Flotilla and escorted the imperial yacht on a trip to Norway. The visit was cut short following the death of Kaiser Wilhelm II's mother, Victoria. then joined I Squadron for the annual fleet exercises in late August and early September. At the conclusion of the maneuvers, the Germans held a naval review for the visit of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia; was again tasked with escorting Wilhelm II in while he met with Nicholas from 11 to 13 September. then returned to Wilhelmshaven, where she went into drydock for alterations that lasted from 1 October to 1 April 1902.
After returned to active service in April 1902, she resumed operations with I Torpedo-boat Flotilla, and was stationed in the Baltic. On 2 July, she was transferred back to I Squadron for the annual training exercises and a winter cruise toward the end of the year. During this period, (Corvette Captain) Franz von Hipper served as the ship's commander. In early 1903, she again returned to the I Torpedo-boat Flotilla, her last stint as the flotilla flagship. The Navy initially planned on sending to reinforce the squadron participating in the naval blockade of Venezuela of 1902–1903, but the incident concluded before she could be sent. Instead, on 1 March, she joined the cruisers of I Scouting Group for her second trip to Norway. She remained in I Scouting Group for the annual maneuvers that followed later in the year, and through 1904 as well. Following the fleet maneuvers in August and September 1904, was decommissioned on 29 September. She spent the following two years out of service, during which time she underwent a major overhaul.
On 19 June 1906, was recommissioned for an overseas deployment as part of the East Asia Squadron. She left Wilhelmshaven on 9 July and rendezvoused with the squadron, the flagship of which was the armored cruiser , on 8 September. The ship cruised Chinese and Japanese waters for the next three years; her time in the East Asia Squadron was uneventful. On 31 January 1909, steamed out of the main German port in the region, Qingdao, and made the return voyage to Germany. She reached Kiel on 21 March, and having become badly worn out during her three years abroad, she was decommissioned ten days later.
World War I
After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, was recommissioned for coastal defense, stationed in the German Bight. Between 28 August to 2 September, and from 23 December, s commander also served as the commander of the torpedo-boat flotillas defending the Jade Bight and the mouth of the Weser River. She was removed from front-line service on 5 September 1915, and her crew was reduced four days later. The commander of the torpedo-boat flotillas returned to on 14 January 1916, as his previous flagship, the old coastal defense ship , was decommissioned. nevertheless remained in service with a reduced crew. (Commodore) Ludwig von Reuter, the commander of the IV Scouting Group, and his staff briefly used as a headquarters ship, from 6 June to 3 July. Starting on 20 August, she became the headquarters ship for now- (Rear Admiral) von Hipper, the commander of the I Scouting Group.
During this period, Hipper organized the office of (BSN—Commander of the Defense of the North Sea), which was also stationed on . In 1917, she was disarmed so her guns could be used to reinforce the defenses of Wilhelmshaven. In October that year, Friedrich Boedicker, then the commander of the I Squadron, came aboard ; the bulk of the High Seas Fleet had gone into the Baltic to launch Operation Albion, and Boedicker temporarily took control of the BSN. Hipper and his staff left on 11 August 1918, having been promoted to command of the High Seas Fleet. The BSN remained aboard until January 1919, two months after the war ended with the Armistice; it was then transferred to the old pre-dreadnought battleship , also in use as a headquarters ship. was then decommissioned on 3 February.
was among the ships permitted by the Treaty of Versailles after the end of the war, and so she continued on in service with the newly reorganized . During this period, she was significantly modernized; her old ram bow was replaced with a clipper bow. Her old 10.5 cm SK L/40 guns were replaced with newer SK L/45 guns in U-boat mountings and two torpedo tubes in deck-mounted launchers were installed. On 24 June 1925, was stricken from the naval register and sold to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia).
Yugoslav service The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (KSCS) had initially been given the ships of the old Austro-Hungarian Navy after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the closing days of World War I, but the Allied powers quickly seized the majority of the ships and allocated them to the various Allied countries. Left with only twelve modern torpedo boats, the new country sought more powerful vessels. It therefore purchased when Germany placed her for sale in 1925. The copper sheathing of her hull was a significant factor in the purchase, as naval infrastructure in the new state was very limited, and it was not expected that she could be dry docked regularly. Since Germany was forbidden from exporting armed warships, was taken to the shipyard in Kiel and disarmed. She also had her conning tower removed. On 7 August 1926, she began sea trials before being transferred to her new owners. was taken to the Tivat arsenal in the Bay of Kotor, arriving on 3 September 1927. There, she was rebuilt as a training cruiser, based on a design developed by a KSCS naval commission, with the work supervised by the Dutch Piet van Wienen Company, which had also been responsible for the negotiating the purchase contract. The rebuild included shortening the masts and funnels, a crow's nest was placed atop the foremast, and a radio shack was built in place of the conning tower.