Overview
The class was a group of screw corvettes built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the early 1870s. The class comprised three ships: , , and .
Design
Like other major navies in the 1850s, the Austrian Navy began building a series of screw frigates and corvettes (and converting existing vessels to steam power), but unlike their foreign contemporaries, the Austrian Empire neither had or sought an overseas colonial empire. Instead, the cruising vessels of the fleet were intended to be primarily used as training ships. The class, which the historians Erwin Sieche and Ferdinand Bilzer refer to as sloops, were part of this series. The ships of the class were long overall and long between perpendiculars. They had a beam of and a draft of . The ships had a displacement of . They had a flush deck and very minimal superstructure. Steering was controlled by a single rudder at the stern. Their crew numbered 210 officers and enlisted sailors.
The ships were powered by a single 2-cylinder, horizontal triple-expansion steam engine that drove a screw propeller. The number and type of boilers is not known, but smoke from the boilers was vented through a single funnel located amidships, between the fore- and main mast. The propulsion system was capable of generating , for a top speed of . On her initial sea trials, reached a top speed of from ; trials data for the other two ships has not survived. The ships were fitted with a three-masted barque sailing rig to supplement the steam engine on long voyages. , , and were armed with a main battery of four Wahrendorf breechloading guns. The guns were mounted individually in sponsons in the sides of the hull. Two guns were placed just aft of the mainmast and the other pair were placed at the stern. The ships also carried a pair of guns and two machine guns.
By 1891, the ships' armament had been revised significantly. Two of the 15 cm guns, one of the 7 cm guns, and both of the 25 mm machine guns were removed, and a new light battery of four guns and two Hotchkiss revolving cannon were installed.