SMS Iltis

SMS Iltis was the lead ship of the Iltis-class gunboat of gunboats built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Other ships of the class are SMS Luchs, SMS Tiger, SMS Eber, SMS Jaguar, and SMS Panther.

Design
Iltis was 65.2 m long overall and had a beam of 9.1 m and a draft of 3.59 m forward. She displaced 1048 MT at full load. 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. Iltis could steam at a top speed of 14.8 kn at 1378 PS. The ship had a cruising radius of about 3080 nmi at a speed of 9 kn. She had a crew of 9 officers and 121 enlisted men. Iltis was armed with a main battery of four 8.8 cm SK L/30 guns, with 1,124 rounds of ammunition. She also carried six machine guns.

Service history
Iltis was laid down at the Schichau-Werke shipyard in Danzig in 1897. She was launched on 4 August 1898 and commissioned into the German fleet on 1 December that year. After entering service, Iltis was sent abroad, to Germany's main naval force in Asia, the East Asia Squadron. Shortly thereafter, the Boxer Rebellion broke out in China. At the time, the East Asia Squadron also included the protected cruisers SMS Kaiserin Augusta, SMS Hansa (1898), SMS Hertha, and SMS Irene, the unprotected cruiser SMS Gefion, and the gunboat SMS Jaguar. 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, 10 freighters, three torpedo boats, and six regiments of marines, under the command of Marshal Alfred von Waldersee.

After the outbreak of World War I in early August 1914, the light cruiser SMS Emden captured the Russian steamer Ryazan and brought her back to Tsingtao. Men from the crews of Iltis, the unprotected cruiser SMS Cormoran (1892) and the gunboat SMS Vaterland were used to man Ryazan, which was commissioned as the auxiliary cruiser SMS Cormoran (1909). Iltis was then scuttled on 28 September 1914 during the Siege of Tsingtao. Three of her sisters were also scuttled during the siege.