SMS Moltke (1877)

Moltke in the 1890s as a school ship
History
German Empire
Name	SMS Moltke
Namesake	Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
Builder	Kaiserliche Werft, Danzig
Laid down	July 1875
Launched	18 October 1877
Completed	16 April 1878
Fate	Sold for scrap, 7 July 1920
General characteristics
Class and type	Bismarck-class corvette
Displacement	Full load: 2,994 t (2,947 long tons)
Length	82 m (269 ft)
Beam	13.7 m (44 ft 11 in)
Draft	5.2 m (17 ft 1 in)
Installed power	2,500 ihp (1,900 kW) 4 × fire-tube boilers
Propulsion	1 × screw propeller 1 × marine steam engine
Speed	13.9 knots (25.7 km/h; 16.0 mph)
Range	2,380 nmi (4,410 km; 2,740 mi) at 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph)
Complement	18 officers 386 sailors
Armament	10 × 15 cm (5.9 in) guns 2 × 88 mm (3.5 in) quick-firing guns 6 × 37 mm (1.5 in) 5-barreled guns

SMS Moltke was a Bismarck-class corvette built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) in the late 1870s. The ship was named after the Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. She was the fourth member of the class, which included five other vessels. The Bismarck-class corvettes were ordered as part of a major naval construction program in the early 1870s, and she was designed to serve as a fleet scout and on extended tours in Germany's colonial empire. Moltke was laid down in July 1875, launched in October 1877, and was commissioned into the fleet in April 1878. She was armed with a battery of ten 15 cm (5.9 in) guns and had a full ship rig to supplement her steam engine on long cruises abroad.

Moltke went on one major overseas deployment in the 1880s to South America. There, she visited ports in several South American countries in the aftermath of the War of the Pacific and carried the German expedition for the International Polar Year to South Georgia Island. After returning to Germany in 1885, she became a training ship for naval cadets and later apprentice seamen. The ship served in this capacity from 1885 to 1908, during which time her activity consisted primarily of fleet training exercises and overseas training cruises. These cruises frequently went to the West Indies and Mediterranean Sea. She was stricken from the naval register in October 1910, converted into a barracks ship, and assigned to the U-boat school in Kiel. In October 1911, Moltke was renamed Acheron and she served in this capacity until 1920, when she was sold to ship breakers in July and subsequently dismantled for scrap.