shipbuilders most experienced with the type, so the navy decided to order one vessel from each country. The contract for Friedrich Carl was placed on 9 January 1866 followed by that for four days later, from France and Britain respectively. The French-built Friedrich Carl was modeled on , albeit a smaller version of the French ironclad. General characteristics Friedrich Carl was long at the waterline and long overall. She had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft. The ship was designed to displace at a normal loading, and up to with a full load. The ship's hull was constructed with transverse and longitudinal iron frames. It contained eight watertight compartments and had a double bottom that ran for 76 percent of the length of the vessel. Friedrich Carl was an excellent sea boat; the ship was responsive to commands from the helm and had a moderate turning radius. Steering was controlled with a single rudder. She was somewhat unbalanced, however, and a 6 degree rudder to port was required to keep the ship on a straight course. The ship's crew numbered 33 officers and 498 enlisted men, and while serving as a flagship, the crew was augmented with a command staff of 6 officers and 35 enlisted men. Friedrich Carl carried a number of smaller boats, including a large tender, two launches, a pinnace, two cutters, two yawls, and one dinghy. A horizontal, two-cylinder single-expansion steam engine powered the ship. It drove a four-bladed screw propeller in diameter. Six trunk boilers, divided into two boiler rooms with eleven fireboxes in each, supplied steam to the engine at . Both boiler rooms were vented into a single funnel. The propulsion system was rated at and a top speed of , though on trials Friedrich Carl managed to make and . The ship carried of coal, which enabled a maximum range of at a cruising speed of . A barque rig with a surface area of 2,010 square meters supplemented the steam engine, though in service they added little to the ship's performance. Armament and armor As built, Friedrich Carl was equipped with a main battery of twenty-six rifled 72-pounder cannon. After her delivery to Germany, these guns were replaced with a pair of L/22 guns and fourteen 21 cm L/19 guns. The L/22 gun could depress to −5 degrees and elevate to 13 degrees, which provided a range