SMS Meteor (1865)

Painting of Meteor in battle with Bouvet
History
Name	Meteor
Laid down	27 June 1861
Launched	17 May 1865
Commissioned	6 September 1869
Stricken	27 November 1877
Fate	Sunk as a target
General characteristics
Class and type	Camäleon-class gunboat
Displacement	422 t (415 long tons)
Length	43.28 m (142 ft)
Beam	6.96 m (22 ft 10 in)
Draft	2.67 m (8 ft 9 in)
Installed power	320 PS (320 ihp)
Propulsion	1 × Marine steam engine
Speed	9.3 knots (17.2 km/h; 10.7 mph)
Complement	71
Armament	1 × 15 cm (5.9 in) gun 2 × 12 cm (4.7 in) guns

SMS Meteor was a Camäleon-class gunboat 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 Bouvet; 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.