SMS Wacht

SMS Wacht was an aviso of the Imperial German Navy, the lead ship of her class. She had one sister ship, SMS Jagd. Wacht was built by the AG Weser shipyard; she was laid down in 1886, launched in August 1887, and commissioned in August 1888. She served in the active fleet through the 1890s and participated in numerous training exercises. Her career was cut short on 4 September 1901, when she collided with the old ironclad SMS Sachsen (1877). The latter's ram bow holed Wacht under the waterline and caused her to rapidly sink. Her crew was safely rescued, however, and there were no casualties.

Design
Wacht was 85.5 m long overall and had a beam of 9.66 m and a maximum draft of 3.74 m forward. She displaced 1499 MT at full combat load. Her propulsion system consisted of two angled 3-cylinder triple expansion engines. Steam for the engines was provided by four coal-fired locomotive boilers. The ship's propulsion system provided a top speed of 19 kn and a range of approximately 2860 nmi at 10 kn. Wacht had a crew of 7 officers and 134 enlisted men.

As built, the ship was armed with three 10.5 cm K L/35 guns placed in single pivot mounts. The guns were supplied with a total of 180 rounds of ammunition. Wacht also carried three 35 cm torpedo tubes, one mounted submerged in the bow and the other two in deck-mounted launchers on the broadside. In 1891, four 8.8 cm SK L/30 guns in single mounts were added. The ship was the first German aviso to carry armor: a 10 mm thick deck, along with 25 mm of armor plating for the conning tower.

Service history
Wacht was laid down in 1886 at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen. She was launched on 27 August 1887 and commissioned into the German fleet on 9 August 1888. In 1889, Franz von Hipper served aboard the ship as her watch officer. In early 1889, Wacht was assigned to the Maneuver Squadron, which at the time consisted of the old ironclads SMS Baden (1880), SMS Bayern (1878), and SMS Oldenburg (1884) and the protected cruiser SMS Irene. The Squadron was commanded by Prince Heinrich. In May, the Maneuver Squadron conducted mock combat exercises with the Training Squadron in the Baltic Sea.

In late 1889, Wacht joined a squadron of four old ironclads&mdash;SMS Kaiser (1874), SMS Deutschland (1874), SMS Friedrich der Grosse (1874), and SMS Preussen (1873)&mdash;that cruised the Mediterranean Sea along with Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht Hohenzollern and the protected cruiser SMS Irene, which carried Prince Heinrich. The squadron visited numerous ports in the Mediterranean, including state visits to Italy and the Ottoman Empire. Wilhelm II also stopped in Greece, where he attended the wedding of his sister Sophie to the Greek crown prince Constantine. The squadron remained in the Mediterranean until April 1890, when it returned to Germany. The ship led the torpedo boat flotilla in the Maneuver Squadron in 1893. In early 1894, Wacht was assigned to the II Division of the Maneuver Squadron as the divisional dispatch vessel. The division was commanded by Rear Admiral Otto von Diederichs. During the 1896 annual maneuvers, Jagd was assigned to the I Division.

On 4 September 1901, Wacht collided with the ironclad SMS Sachsen (1877) while on extensive training maneuvers with the rest of the fleet. Wacht was sunk, but the crew was safely evacuated and neither ship suffered casualties. During the maneuvers, Wacht attempted to pass between Sachsen and SMS Württemberg (1878). However, Wacht's helmsman misjudged the distance and passed too closely in front of Sachsen. Sachsen immediately attempted to reverse course to avoid ramming the ship, but the two vessels collided. Sachsen's ram bow tore a large hole in Wacht, which began to slowly sink. The battleship SMS Weissenburg attempted to tow Wacht to shallow water, but several of Wacht's internal bulkheads collapsed under the strain and the ship quickly sank. Nevertheless, her crew was taken off safely; neither ship suffered any casualties.