Tordenskjold (ship, 1897)
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|
|---|---|
 Coastal armored ship Tordenskjold |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Coastal armored ship |
| Shipyard |
Armstrong, Whitworth & Co , |
| Keel laying | March 18, 1896 |
| Launch | March 10, 1897 |
| Namesake | Peter Wessel Tordenskiold |
| Commissioning | August 1898 |
| Whereabouts | Accumulated May 17, 1945, canceled in 1948 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
3,435 ts construction, |
| length |
92.7 m over everything, |
| width |
14.8 m |
| Draft |
5.38 m |
| crew |
225 men |
| drive |
3 cylinder boilers |
| speed |
17.143 kn |
| Range |
5000 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
|
| Armament from 1941 as a nymph |
6 × 10.5 cm Flak 38 , |
| Coal supply |
200 (max. 553) ths |
| Armor |
Harvey type |
| Belt armor |
177 mm |
| Turrets |
127 to 203 mm |
| Command tower |
152 mm |
| Sister ship | |
The Tordenskjold ("thunder shield") was a coastal armored ship of the Royal Norwegian Navy . She was laid down at Armstrong Whitworth in Newcastle-upon-Tyne , England, in 1897, launched on March 18, 1897 , and put into service on March 21, 1898. Since the two armored ships of the Bjørgvin class ( Bjørgvin and Nidaros ) ordered in Great Britain in 1912 were confiscated by the British Royal Navy when the First World War broke out, the Tordenskjold and her sister ship Harald Haarfagre remained important pillars of the Norwegian Navy until the mid-1930s .
The ship was named after Peter Wessel Tordenskiold , the Danish-Norwegian naval officer during the Great Northern War .
Construction and technical data
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The Tordenskjold , the Harald Haarfagre and the two coastal armored ships Eidsvold and Norge , built two years later, were built as part of the general armament to protect Norway against possible military action by Sweden and finally in 1905 in the dissolution of the Swedish-Norwegian personal union and the complete independence of Norway culminated. In 1895 the Norwegian Parliament approved the construction of four new ironclad ships to replace existing obsolete monitors . Because of the political tension, they were not ordered from Sweden, but from England. In 1896 the Armstrong Whitworth shipyard received the order for two ships of 3500 t, which should be armed with two 21 cm guns in single turrets and a 12 cm medium artillery battery. It was not built at the manufacturer's warship yard in Elswick, but on the "Low Walker Yard".
The Tordenskjold was an ironclad ship typical of the pre- Dreadnought era, comparable to the ships of the German Siegfried class . She was 92.66 m long and 14.78 m wide, had a 5.38 m draft and displaced 3,435 ts by design and 3,380 ts as the standard displacement . Two coal-fired steam engines with 4,500 hp gave a top speed of 16.9 knots . The armament consisted of two 21-cm guns in single turrets fore and aft, six 12-cm cannons, six 7.6-cm cannons, six 1-pounder rapid-fire cannons and two 45-cm underwater torpedo tubes . The ship had an armored deck and belt armor 178 mm thick; the two 21 cm turrets had 203 mm armor. The crew consisted of 245 men.
fate
1898-1940
The Tordenskjold provided routine service, training trips and visits abroad until 1918. In 1900 she took part in a visit by a Norwegian association to Kiel, which also included the gunboat Frithjof , the destroyer Valkyrjen and four new torpedo boats of the Storm type . In 1901 she made a long voyage along the Norwegian coast with the sister ship Harald Haarfagre and the new coastal armored ship Norge and the destroyer Valkyrjen .
She stayed in Norwegian waters during World War I to ensure Norwegian neutrality . From 1918 she served as a training ship, where she undertook a total of 18 training trips. In the 1920s their anti-aircraft artillery was modernized. On August 29, 1933, a shell exploded in one of the 21 cm gun turrets and four sailors lost their lives. Towards the end of the 1930s it was retired due to obsolescence and launched as the Hulk . The two 21 cm cannons were removed and reused in the coastal artillery. The machinery remained in the ship.
1940-1945
In this condition, the ship fell into German hands during the occupation of Norway . After a thorough inspection, and since the machines were still delivering a speed of around 14 knots, the ship was converted to a floating anti-aircraft battery at the German works in Kiel and put into service by the Navy on February 1, 1941 under the name Nymphe . The displacement was now 3,858 t and the armament consisted of six 10.5 cm Flak 38 , two Bofors 4 cm Flak and 14 2 cm Flak 30 . In 1944 two 20 mm anti-aircraft quadruplets were added. In contrast to other captured ships that were converted into anti-aircraft batteries, the nymph was able to move on its own. The nymph was initially stationed in Kiel, but was then moved to Tromsø in August 1941 . In the following years it was used in northern Norway to protect the battleship Tirpitz . After the Tirpitz was sunk on November 12, 1944, the nymph was moved to Kiel, where she saw the end of the war.
1946-1948
After the German surrender in May 1945, the ship was driven by its German crew to Narvik , where it was returned to Norway. During this voyage it ran aground on May 17, 1945 and partially sank. It was lifted and got its old name back. The anti-aircraft guns were expanded and reused in the coastal artillery. The hull was still used as a residential ship for some time. In 1947 the ship was sold for scrapping and in 1948 it was scrapped.
Remarks
- ↑ Brook, p. 206
- ↑ Weyer 1941/42, p. 140
- ↑ Hildebrand, Vol. 7, p. 64
- ↑ Abelsen
- ↑ The sister ship Harald Haarfagre was also converted and put into service under the name Thetis .
literature
- Frank Abelsen: Norwegian naval ships 1939–1945. Sem & Stenersen, Oslo, 1986 (p. 290), ISBN 82-7046-050-8 (norw. & Engl.)
- Peter Brooke: Warships for Export: Armstrong Warships 1867-1927 , World Ship Society, Gravesend (1999), ISBN 0-905617-89-4
- Robert Gardiner (ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946. Conway Maritime Press, London, 1987. ISBN 0-85177-146-7 (English)
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German Warships , Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, 1979, ISBN 3-88385-028-4
- Bruno Weyer: Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1905 , 2nd edition, JF Lehmann Verlag, Munich on archive.org
