SMS Carola

SMS Carola was the lead ship of the of steam corvettes built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the 1880s.

Design
The six ships of the Carola class were ordered in the late 1870s to supplement Germany's fleet of cruising warships, which at that time relied on several ships that were twenty years old. Carola and her sister ships were intended to patrol Germany's colonial empire and safeguard German economic interests around the world.

Carola was 76.35 m long overall, with a beam of 12.5 m and a draft of 4.98 m forward. She displaced 2424 t at full load. The ship's crew consisted of 10 officers and 246 enlisted men. She was powered by a single marine steam engine that drove one 2-bladed screw propeller and eight coal-fired fire-tube boilers, which gave her a top speed of 13.7 kn at 2367 PS. She had a cruising radius of 3420 nmi at a speed of 10 kn. As built, Carola was equipped with a three-masted barque rig, but she was not actually fitted with sails.

Carola was armed with a battery of ten 15 cm 22-caliber (cal.) breach-loading guns and two 8.7 cm 24-cal. guns. She also carried six 37 mm Hotchkiss revolver cannon. The 15 cm guns were later reduced to six and then four guns, and the 8.7 cm guns were replaced with a pair of 10.5 cm SK L/35 guns, eight 8.8 cm SK L/30 guns, and two 5 cm SK L/40 guns.