HDMS Tordenskjold (1852)

Last updated
Andreas Riis Carstensen - Blokade pa projsisk Kyst.png
HDMS Tordenskjold guarding the Prussian Coast in 1864
History
Naval Ensign of Denmark.svgFlag of Denmark.svgDenmark
NameTordenskjold
Namesake Tordenskjold
Builder Nyholm shipyard, Copenhagen
Launched16 June 1852
Commissioned15 April 1854
Decommissioned17 February 1872
Homeport Copenhagen
FateSold to merchant service and sank in 1892
General characteristics
Type Steam and screw frigate
Displacement1,453 long tons (1,476  t)
Length50.40 m (165 ft)
Beam12.86 m (42 ft 2 in)
Draft5.38 m (17 ft 8 in)
Installed power200  shp (150  kW) (1862)
Propulsion1 × shafts; 1 × steam turbine
Speed8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph)
Armament

Royal Danish Navy ship of the line HDMS Tordenskjold was commissioned in 1854. The Tordenskjold was constructed in response to the perceived danger posed by the German nations to Denmark's status as a major naval force in the Baltic. It was named after the celebrated Danish naval hero Peter Tordenskjold. [1]

Contents

Construction and career

The Tordenskjold was a three-decked ship of the line with a displacement of around 2,500 tons that was constructed in Copenhagen. She was launched on 16 June 1852 at the Nyholm shipyard. The vessel was armed with 74 cannons and had a crew of 550 sailors. The Tordenskjold was one of the era's largest and most formidable warships.

During the Danish-German War of 1864, the Tordenskjold saw considerable duty and played a significant part in the Battle of Heligoland. During the First Schleswig War, the Tordenskjold contributed to retain Danish sovereignty over the waterways of the Baltic. In both wars, the Tordenskjold displayed superior firepower and played a crucial part in Danish naval victory. [2] [3]

Despite her massive size and tremendous weaponry, the Tordenskjold was decommissioned in 1872 as Denmark shifted toward more modern naval warships. After nearly four decades of service, the Tordenskjold was then sold and used as a merchant vessel until it was lost in the Atlantic in 1892. Today, the Tordenskjold is regarded as one of Denmark's finest naval battleships and a symbol of the nation's maritime power in the 19th century. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ship of the line</span> Warship of 17th–19th centuries

A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two columns of opposing warships maneuvering to volley fire with the cannons along their broadsides. In conflicts where opposing ships were both able to fire from their broadsides, the opponent with more cannons firing – and therefore more firepower – typically had an advantage. Since these engagements were almost invariably won by the heaviest ships carrying more of the most powerful guns, the natural progression was to build sailing vessels that were the largest and most powerful of their time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Danish Navy</span> Sea-based branch of the Danish Defence

The Royal Danish Navy is the sea-based branch of the Danish Defence force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Danish territorial waters. Other tasks include surveillance, search and rescue, icebreaking, oil spill recovery and prevention as well as contributions to international tasks and forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Copenhagen (1807)</span> Part of the Gunboat War and Napoleonic Wars

The Second Battle of Copenhagen was a British bombardment of the Danish capital, Copenhagen, in order to capture or destroy the Dano-Norwegian fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. The incident led to the outbreak of the Anglo-Russian War of 1807, which ended with the Treaty of Örebro in 1812. The attack on Denmark, a neutral country, was heavily criticized internationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Tordenskjold</span> Norwegian sea officer

Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskiold, commonly referred to as Tordenskjold, was a Norwegian nobleman and flag officer who spent his career in the service of the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. He rose to the rank of vice-admiral for his services in the Great Northern War. Born in the Norwegian city of Trondheim, Peter Wessel travelled to Copenhagen in 1704, and eventually enlisted in the navy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Heligoland (1864)</span> Battle of the Second War of Schleswig

The Battle of Heligoland was fought on 9 May 1864, during the Second Schleswig War, between a Danish squadron led by Commodore Edouard Suenson and a joint Austro-Prussian squadron commanded by the Austrian Commodore Wilhelm von Tegetthoff. The action came about as a result of the Danish blockade of German ports in the North Sea; the Austrians had sent two steam frigates, SMS Schwarzenberg and Radetzky, to reinforce the small Prussian Navy to help break the blockade. After arriving in the North Sea, Tegetthoff joined a Prussian aviso and a pair of gunboats. To oppose him, Suenson had available the steam frigates Niels Juel and Jylland and the corvette Hejmdal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Jasmund (1864)</span> 1864 naval battle of the Second Schleswig War

The naval Battle of Jasmund took place between elements of the Danish and Prussian navies on 17 March 1864 during the Second Schleswig War. The action took place east of the Jasmund peninsula on the Prussian island of Rügen, during a Prussian attempt to weaken the Danish blockade in the Baltic Sea. The Prussian squadron, commanded by Eduard von Jachmann, sortied with a screw frigate, a screw corvette, a paddle steamer, and six gunboats to attack the Danish squadron blockading the eastern Prussian coast. The Danish force was commanded by Edvard van Dockum, and it consisted of one screw frigate, one ship of the line, and two steam corvettes. In an action lasting two hours, the superior Danish squadron forced the Prussians to withdraw, both sides suffering damage and light casualties. The Danish victory was compounded by the arrival of further warships after the battle, which cemented the blockade. The outcome of the battle, and the naval war in the Baltic as a whole, was irrelevant to the outcome of the war, however, as the Prussian and Austrian armies decisively defeated the Danes on land, forcing them to surrender.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gunboat War</span> 1807–1814 war between Denmark–Norway and the United Kingdom

The Gunboat War was a naval conflict between Denmark–Norway and Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. The war's name is derived from the Danish tactic of employing small gunboats against the materially superior Royal Navy. In Scandinavia it is seen as the later stage of the English Wars, whose commencement is accounted as the First Battle of Copenhagen in 1801.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prussian Navy</span> Military unit

The Prussian Navy, officially the Royal Prussian Navy, was the naval force of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1701 to 1867.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imperial Russian Navy</span> Navy of the Russian Empire

The Imperial Russian Navy operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from a smaller force that had existed prior to Tsar Peter the Great's founding of the modern Russian navy during the Second Azov campaign in 1696. It expanded in the second half of the 18th century and reached its peak strength by the early part of the 19th century, behind only the British and French fleets in terms of size.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Danish navy</span> Military unit

The history of the Danish navy began with the founding of a joint Dano-Norwegian navy on 10 August 1510, when King John appointed his vassal Henrik Krummedige to become "chief captain and head of all our captains, men and servants whom we now have appointed and ordered to be at sea".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coastal defence ship</span> Warships built for the purpose of coastal defense.

Coastal defence ships were warships built for the purpose of coastal defence, mostly during the period from 1860 to 1920. They were small, often cruiser-sized warships that sacrificed speed and range for armour and armament. They were usually attractive to nations that either could not afford full-sized battleships or could be satisfied by specially designed shallow-draft vessels capable of littoral operations close to their own shores. The Nordic countries and Thailand found them particularly appropriate for their island-dotted coastal waters. Some vessels had limited blue-water capabilities; others operated in rivers.

HNoMS <i>Tordenskjold</i>

HNoMS Tordenskjold, known locally as Panserskipet Tordenskjold, was a Norwegian coastal defence ship. She, her sister ship, Harald Haarfagre, and the slightly newer Eidsvold class were built as a part of the general rearmament in the time leading up to the events in 1905. Tordenskjold remained an important vessel in the Royal Norwegian Navy until she was considered unfit for war in the mid-1930s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Estonian Navy</span> Maritime warfare branch of Estonias military

The Estonian Navy are the unified naval forces among the Estonian Defence Forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard</span>

The Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard from 1788 to 1853 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, at the site of the current Royal Military College of Canada.

HMS <i>Magnet</i> (1807) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Magnet was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop built at Robert Guillaume’s yard at Northam and launched in 1807. She served in the Baltic, where she took two prizes, one an armed privateer, before wrecking in 1809.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polish Navy</span> Military unit

The Polish Navy is the naval branch of the Polish Armed Forces. The Polish Navy consists of 46 ships and about 12,000 commissioned and enlisted personnel. The traditional ship prefix in the Polish Navy is ORP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battles at Göta Älv</span> Battle during the Great Northern War

The battles at Göta älv were a series of battles and sieges which took place in and around the Gothenburg area between 1717 and 1719, between the Swedish Empire and Denmark–Norway, during the Great Northern War.

SMS <i>Comet</i> (1860) Gunboat of the Prussian and German Imperial Navy

SMS Comet was a Camäleon-class gunboat of the Prussian Navy that was launched in 1860. A small vessel, armed with only three light guns, Comet served during the Second Schleswig War of 1864 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, part of the conflicts that unified Germany. The ship was present at, but was only lightly engaged in the Battle of Jasmund during the Second Schleswig War. She served in a variety of roles during peacetime, including fishery protection and survey work. Comet went on one lengthy deployment abroad, with an assignment to the Mediterranean Sea from 1876 to 1879. She saw little active service after returning to Germany and was decommissioned and hulked in 1881. The vessel remained in the navy's inventory until at least 1891, being broken up sometime thereafter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baltic Fleet (United Kingdom)</span> Military unit

The British Baltic Fleet and also known as the Baltic Squadron was a series of temporary or semi permanent fleets of the Royal Navy. They were assembled at Spithead a naval anchorage in the English Channel for various naval operations in the Baltic Sea from 1658 to 1856 commanded by the Commander-in-Chief, Baltic Fleet.

References

  1. "Danish Fifth Rate frigate 'Tordenskiold' (1852)". threedecks.org. Retrieved 2020-12-04.
  2. Degenkolv, H. (1906). Information concerning the ships of the Danish navy in the last century. Copenhagen.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. Munchaus Petersen, Holger (1986). Joint forces - Danish steamships until 1870 III. Vol. 12. Esbjerg: The Fisheries and Maritime Museum's Maritime Publications. ISBN   87-87453-25-8.
  4. "Danish Naval History".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)