SMS Hansa (1898)

SMS Hansa after her refit
History
German Empire
Name	SMS Hansa
Namesake	Hanseatic League
Builder	Stettiner Maschinenbau AG Vulcan
Laid down	23 July 1896
Launched	12 March 1898
Commissioned	20 April 1899
Stricken	6 December 1919
Fate	Scrapped, 1920
General characteristics
Class and type	Victoria Louise-class protected cruiser
Displacement	Normal: 5,885 t (5,792 long tons) Full load: 6,705 t (6,599 long tons)
Length	110.5 m (363 ft)
Beam	17.6 m (58 ft)
Draft	7.08 m (23.2 ft)
Installed power	18 × Belleville boilers 10,000 PS (9,900 ihp)
Propulsion	3 × triple-expansion steam engines 3 × screw propellers
Speed	19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Range	3,412 nmi (6,319 km; 3,926 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement	31 officers 446 enlisted men
Armament	2 × 21 cm (8.3 in) guns 8 × 15 cm (5.9 in) guns 10 × 8.8 cm (3.5 in) guns 10 × 3.7 cm (1.5 in) Maxim machine cannon 3 × 45 cm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes
Armor	Deck: 4 to 10 cm (1.6 to 3.9 in) Turrets: 10 cm Casemates: 10 cm Conning tower: 15 cm (5.9 in)

SMS Hansa was a protected cruiser of the Victoria Louise class, built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) in the 1890s, along with her sister ships Victoria Louise, Hertha, Vineta, and Freya. Hansa was laid down at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin in 1896, launched in March 1898, and commissioned into the Navy in April 1899. The ship was armed with a battery of two 21 cm guns and eight 15 cm guns and had a top speed of 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph). Though the five Victoria Louise-class cruisers proved to be disappointing in some ways, they marked the beginning of a decade of German cruiser construction.

Hansa served abroad in the East Asia Squadron for the first six years of her career, and during the first few years of this deployment, she served as the deputy commander's flagship. She saw action during the Boxer Uprising in Qing China in 1900, contributing a landing party to the force that captured the Taku Forts and the subsequent Seymour Expedition. Over the next four years, she toured the region, visiting numerous ports from Japan to Australia. In August 1904, she participated in the internment of the Russian battleship Tsesarevich after the Battle of the Yellow Sea during the Russo-Japanese War.

After returning to Germany in 1906, she was modernized and used as a training ship in 1909, following the completion of the refit. Over the next few years, she embarked on numerous training cruises, including a major voyage to the Mediterranean Sea in 1909–1910 and another to the United States in 1911–1912. At the outbreak of World War I, Hansa was mobilized into V Scouting Group, serving as its flagship, but she served in front-line duty only briefly. She was used as a barracks ship after 1915, and ultimately sold for scrapping in 1920.