Jaguar c. 1899
History
German Empire
Name	SMS Jaguar
Builder	Schichau-Werke, Danzig
Laid down	early 1898
Launched	19 September 1898
Commissioned	4 April 1899
Fate	Scuttled on 7 November 1914
General characteristics
Class and type	Iltis-class gunboat
Displacement	Designed: 894 t (880 long tons) Full load: 1,048 t (1,031 long tons)
Length	65.2 m (213 ft 11 in) o/a
Beam	9.1 m (29 ft 10 in)
Draft	3.59 m (11 ft 9 in)
Installed power	4 × Thornycroft boilers 1,300 PS (1,300 ihp)
Propulsion	2 × triple-expansion steam engines 2 × screw propellers
Speed	13.5 knots (25.0 km/h; 15.5 mph)
Range	3,080 nautical miles (5,700 km; 3,540 mi) at 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph)
Complement	9 officers 121 enlisted men
Armament	4 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/30 guns 6 × 37 mm (1.5 in) Maxim guns
Armor	Conning tower: 8 mm (0.31 in)

SMS Jaguar was the second member of the Iltis class of gunboats built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the late 1890s and early 1900s, for overseas service in the German colonial empire. Other ships of the class are SMS Iltis, SMS Luchs, SMS Tiger, SMS Eber and SMS Panther.

The German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) abandoned gunboat construction for more a decade after Eber, launched in 1887. By the mid-1890s, the navy began planning to replace the older vessels of the Wolf and Habicht classes, but the loss of the gunboat Iltis necessitated an immediate replacement, which was added to the 1898 naval budget. The new ship was planned to patrol the German colonial empire; requirements included engines powerful enough for the ship to steam up the Yangtze in China, where the new gunboat was intended to be deployed. Six ships were built in three identical pairs.^[1]

Jaguar was 65.2 meters (213 ft 11 in) long overall and had a beam of 9.1 m (29 ft 10 in) and a draft of 3.59 m (11 ft 9 in) forward. She displaced 894 metric tons (880 long tons) as designed and 1,048 t (1,031 long tons) at full load. The ship had a raised forecastle deck and a pronounced ram bow. Her superstructure consisted primarily of a conning tower with an open bridge atop it. She had a crew of 9 officers and 121 enlisted men.^[2][3]

Her propulsion system consisted of a pair of horizontal triple-expansion steam engines each driving a single screw propeller, with steam supplied by four coal-fired Thornycroft boilers. Exhaust was vented through two funnels located amidships. Jaguar was rated to steam at a top speed of 13.5 knots (25.0 km/h; 15.5 mph) at 1,300 metric horsepower (1,300 ihp), though she exceeded these figures in service. The ship had a cruising radius of about 3,080 nautical miles (5,700 km; 3,540 mi) at a speed of 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph).^[2][3]

Jaguar was armed with a main battery of four 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/30 guns, with 1,124 rounds of ammunition. Two guns were placed side-by-side on the forecastle and the other pair side-by-side near the stern. She also carried six 37 mm (1.5 in) Maxim guns. The only armor protection carried by the ship was 8 mm (0.31 in) of steel plate on the conning tower.^[2][4]

The keel for Jaguar was laid down at the Schichau-Werke shipyard in Danzig in early 1898. Her completed hull was launched on 19 September 1898 and after completing fitting-out work, the new gunboat was commissioned into the German fleet on 4 April 1899.^[2] She departed Kiel on 1 June 1899. After passing the Torres Strait and calling on Herbertshöhe in the German Bismarck Islands, she made port calls at Ambon and Makassar in the Netherlands East Indies, and Singapore. She then visited Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands (13 October), Palau (3 November) and Saipan in the Mariana Islands (17 November) with the governor of German New Guinea, Rudolf von Bennigsen on board in order to raise the German flag confirming change in possession of these island groups from Spain to the German Empire per the terms of the German-Spanish Treaty.^[5] She reached Shanghai on 30 November, where she made repairs, and arrived at Qingdao on 4 July 1900 to come under the command of the East Asia Squadron.^{[citation needed]}

Shortly thereafter, the Boxer Rebellion broke out in China. At the time, the East Asia Squadron also included the protected cruisers Kaiserin Augusta, Hansa, Hertha, and Irene, and the unprotected cruiser Gefion.^[6] Kaiser Wilhelm II decided that an expeditionary force was necessary to reinforce the Eight Nation Alliance that had formed to defeat the Boxers. The expeditionary force consisted of the four Brandenburg-class battleships, six cruisers, ten freighters, three torpedo boats, and six regiments of marines, under the command of Marshal Alfred von Waldersee.^[7] Jaguar took part in combat operations along the Chinese coast and in the Yangtze River. Afterwards, she underwent a major overhaul at Nagasaki in Japan in 1902.^{[citation needed]}

In concert with the unprotected cruiser Condor, Jaguar participated in the suppression of unrest in the Marshall Islands in September and October 1908.^[8] During this operation, the ships carried a contingent of Melanesian infantry to the island of Pohnpei to suppress tensions between rival factions on the island.^[9] In early 1909, unrest broke out in Apia, Samoa; Jaguar and the light cruisers Leipzig and Arcona were sent to suppress the uprising.^[8] She later transported leaders of the Mau movement and their families to exile in Saipan. Her captain gifted one of the Samoan exiles an atlas which he later used as a navigational aid when he escaped Saipan for Guam in a small dugout canoe in October 1914.^[10] The Jaguar returned to her home port in China in May 1909.^{[citation needed]}

In December 1910, Jaguar supported British forces against an uprising in Wuhan, remaining stationed in Wuhan to February 1911. With the start of the Xinhai Revolution, Jaguar was sent to protect the German consulate at Fuzhou, which also had a large foreign missionary population. In February 1914, she ran hard aground in the Yangtze River, and was repaired locally. Although World War I had started in Europe, she was repaired at a British-owned dock in July 1914, and sailed at night for Qingdao to avoid British warships.^[11]

When Jaguar arrived at Qingdao of 4 August 1914 she was the only operational German warship, as her sister ships had been stripped of their guns to equip the auxiliary cruiser SS Prinz Eitel Friedrich which sailed on the following day to join Admiral Graf von Spee and the East Asia Squadron at Pagan in the Caroline Islands.^{[citation needed]}

Jaguar participated in combat operations against the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Siege of Qingdao, together with the Austro-Hungarian Navy cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth. She was received a direct hit to her bow on 4 October.^{[citation needed]} Jaguar was scuttled on 7 November 1914 at the German colony in the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory, on the final day of the siege of Qingdao. Three of her sisters were also scuttled during the siege.^[12]

• Gröner, Erich (1990). German Warships: 1815–1945. Vol. I: Major Surface Vessels. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-790-6.
• Herwig, Holger (1998) [1980]. "Luxury" Fleet: The Imperial German Navy 1888–1918. Amherst: Humanity Books. ISBN 978-1-57392-286-9.
• Hezel, Francis X. (2003). Strangers in Their Own Land: A Century of Colonial Rule in the Caroline and Marshall Islands. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-2804-6.
• Hildebrand, Hans H.; Röhr, Albert & Steinmetz, Hans-Otto (1993). Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe: Biographien – ein Spiegel der Marinegeschichte von 1815 bis zur Gegenwart [The German Warships: Biographies − A Reflection of Naval History from 1815 to the Present] (in German). Vol. 4. Ratingen: Mundus Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7822-0382-1.
• Lyon, Hugh (1979). "Germany". In Gardiner, Robert; Chesneau, Roger; Kolesnik, Eugene M. (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-133-5.
• Nottelmann, Dirk (2022). "The Development of the Small Cruiser in the Imperial German Navy Part III: The Gunboats". In Jordan, John (ed.). Warship 2022. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. pp. 63–79. ISBN 978-1-4728-4781-2.
• Perry, Michael (2001). Peking 1900: the Boxer rebellion. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84176-181-7.

36°03′00″N 120°16′00″E / 36.0500°N 120.2667°E / 36.0500; 120.2667