SMS Meteor (1865)

Painting of Meteor in battle with Bouvet
History
Name	Meteor
Operator	Prussian Navy Imperial German Navy
Builder	Königliche Werft, Danzig
Laid down	27 June 1861
Launched	17 May 1865
Commissioned	6 September 1869
Stricken	27 November 1877
Fate	Sunk as a target
General characteristics
Class and type	Camäleon-class gunboat
Displacement	422 t (415 long tons)
Length	43.28 m (142 ft)
Beam	6.96 m (22 ft 10 in)
Draft	2.67 m (8 ft 9 in)
Installed power	320 PS (320 ihp)
Propulsion	1 × Marine steam engine
Speed	9.3 knots (17.2 km/h; 10.7 mph)
Complement	71
Armament	1 × 15 cm (5.9 in) gun 2 × 12 cm (4.7 in) guns

SMS Meteor was a Camäleon-class gunboat of the North German Federal Navy (later the Imperial German Navy) that was launched in 1865. A small vessel, armed with only three light guns, Meteor took part in the Battle of Havana in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. There, she battled the French aviso Bouvet; both vessels were lightly damaged, though Bouvet was compelled to disengage after a shot from Meteor disabled her engine. After the war, Meteor returned to Germany, where her career was limited; she served briefly as a survey vessel. From 1873 to 1877, she was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea as a station ship in Constantinople during a period of tensions in the Ottoman Empire. After returning to Germany in 1877, she was decommissioned, converted into a coal hulk and expended as a target ship some time later.