The Ship Model Forum

Dear friends of the steam&sail era!

Here I'll collect all information I can find about the Royal Rrusssian Navy (until 1850-1867) with in the following battleships - ships of the line or as the were called "armoured frigats". The ships were handed over to the northgerman federation late in 1867 - an exact date is something I couldn't figure out until now. But it' most improtant when I want to show a armoured frigat unter the withe&black royal and not the imperial black-white-red naval ensign: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Preu%C3%9Fische_Kriegsflagge_ab_1850.svg

SMS Friedrich Carl 16. Januar 1867 / 03.Oktober 1867
SMS Kronprinz 6. Mai 1867 / 19. September 1867

The best known SMS König Wilhelm never served the royal prussian navy - she was commissed in 1868... Yes indeed - the name is very prussian, but the ship wasn't flagged like it seems to be.
Also of interest are these both:
"armour-vehicel" SMS Arminius 20. August 1864 / 22. April 1865
"ovis*-ship" SMS Prinz Adalbert / 29. Oktober 1865

Yours,
Gorg

*ovis in the meening of Battering ram often with the figurehead of an ovis on the front.

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Lets fill the gap between the ships of the line of Trafalgar and Jutland!
The Avatar is the flag flying over first prussian major ironclad SMS Kronprinz of 1876.

... because they were not actually 'handed over', they just changed flags from the Prussian War Ensign to the war ensign of the Norddeutsche Bund. The rest stayed the same. Ownership remained with Prussia etc. Most warships were Prussian anyway at that moment. The Norddeutsche Bund was an association of independent states that agreed to join forces in certain fields, including naval defence.

The situation changed formally after 18.01.1871, when the Imperial Navy was set up and all ships were actually handed over to the new navy and the old Prussian etc. navies were dissolved. The flag, though, remained unchanged this time. This is in contrast to the land forces, where each state that acceeded to the Empire retained formally its own contingent until the end of WW I, but under the Imperial High Command.

There was also a certain transition period between the Norddeutsche Bund proclaiming its new ensign and the other states formally recognising it. If a flag was not formally recognised by a state, it could treat the respective ship as a 'pirate'. I seem to remember that some major European powers at the time were dragging their feet in this respect.

wefalck

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Eberhard

Former chairman Arbeitskreis historischer Schiffbau e.V. (German Association for Shipbuilding History)

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