The Blitz class was a pair of avisos built by the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) in the 1880s. The ships, Blitz and Pfeil, were the first steel-hulled ships of any kind built by the German Navy, and the progenitors of the later light cruisers of the Gazelle type. They were armed with a gun and one torpedo tube as their principal armament, and were capable of a top speed in excess of .