Thor was the second member of the Oden class, a development of the earlier Svea class. Originally ordered to be a lone ship type, Oden proved to be such a success that the Swedish Navy ordered two similar vessels on 5 May 1896 to create a three-ship class of first-class coastal defence ships, or Pansarskeppen, able to take a place in the Swedish battle line. The new ships differed from their predecessor in having improved steel, which allowed a reduction of 200 long tons (200t) in weight, and thus the addition of two more casemate-mounted 12cm (4.7in) guns.[1] A hallmark of the improved design was extensive use of electric power, with Thor having 13 electric motors, nearly twice as many as Oden.[2] Despite the differences, the three vessels, including the third ship Niord, are considered members of the same Oden class.[3] As they were named after characters in Norse mythology, the ships are also known as the mythological class.[4]
Thor had an overall length of 86.3m (283ft 2in) and measured 84.9m (278ft 7in)at the waterline, a beam of 14.77m (48ft 5in) and a maximum draught of 5.5m (18ft 1in). Displacement was 3,328 long tons (3,381t)normal and 3,720 long tons (3,780t)full load. Power was provided by six marine boilers feeding steam to two sets of triple-expansion steam engines and rated at 5,300 indicated horsepower (4,000kW) driving two shafts, giving a design speed of 15 knots (28km/h; 17mph).[1] During sea trials, the vessel exceeded 15.5 knots (28.7km/h; 17.8mph), and at one point achieved 16.44 knots (30.45km/h; 18.92mph).[5] Two funnels were fitted. A full load of 280 long tons (280t) of coal was carried, which gave a design range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600km; 2,900mi) at 10 knots (19km/h; 12mph).[1] After reconstruction in 1914 and 1915, coal capacity was expanded to 300 long tons (300t), which gave a design range of 2,530 nautical miles (4,690km; 2,910mi) at 10 knots (19km/h; 12mph). The ship had a complement of 254 officers and ratings.[6] The warship was fitted out to act as a flagship.[7]
Armament consisted of two single 25.4cm (10.0in) M1894 B guns mounted in turrets on the ship's centreline, one fore and the other aft. Each of the guns weighed 23.5 long tons (23.9t). They were manufactured by the French company Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée as the Swedish armament industry was not capable of manufacturing weapons of this calibre at the time, although this changed with the construction of Thor's sister shipNiord.[1] The guns could fire a 200kg (450lb) shell at a muzzle velocity of 2,362ft/s (720m/s). The mounting, designated M1894, used electric training and manual elevation.[8] Secondary armament consisted of six Bofors 12cm (4.7in) guns mounted singularly in casemates amidships. The central gun could traverse 136 degrees, while the outside weapons were limited to 115 degrees. The ship was also armed with a tertiary armament of ten single Bofors 5.7cm (2.2in) guns, two on the forward bridge, four on the forward superstructure, two on the aft superstructure and two on the aft bridge. Two 25mm (1.0in)machine guns were carried by the pinnaces and two 8mm (0.3in) machine guns were mounted on the tops. A single submerged 46cm (18in)torpedo tube was mounted in the bow. Four 90cm (35in)searchlights were carried.[1][7]
The armour was of Harvey steel provided by John Brown & Company of Sheffield. It included a 50m (164ft 1in)-long armoured belt that was between 100 and 240mm (3.9 and 9.4in) thick and 1.48m (4ft 10.3in) wide. The main armament was protected by barbettes that were 200mm (7.9in) thick and turrets 190mm (7.5in) thick with a roof 30mm (1.2in) thick. The secondary armament sat on barbettes protected by 100mm (3.9in) thick armour, in this case nickel-steel rather than Harvey steel, the turrets having a face 125mm (4.9in) thick, sides 60mm (2.4in) thick and a roof 48mm (1.9in) thick. The armour on the casemates was 91mm (3.6in) thick. The conning tower was protected by 190mm (7.5in) armour and the deck was protected by two layers that had a combined thickness of 49.5mm (1.95in) thick.[1]
Construction and career
Thor as rebuilt
Thor was ordered from the Bergsunds shipyard in Stockholm at a cost of 1,871,000 Swedish krona, and named on 22 August 1896.[1]Laid down in 1896, the ship was launched on 7 March 1898 and commissioned on 29 June 1899.[9] In 1902, vessel was equipped with a bilge keel and in 1906 a 37mm (1.5in)quick-firing gun was mounted on each of the ship's pinnaces, the machine gun being removed on 16 September 1908. Meanwhile, following a Royal order signed on 16 July 1907, accommodation for training cadets had been added to the superstructure.[5] On 7 August that year, the ship joined a flotilla led by the coastal defence ship Oscar II on a visit to Portsmouth, which gave the cadets onboard the opportunity to see the naval base.[10] A similar visit took place to Dover on 4 June 1913, this time alongside the torpedo cruiserJacob Bagge.[11]
The ship was taken out of the service and rebuilt at Karlskrona between 1914 and 1915.[12] The fighting mast was replaced by a much smaller three-legged mast and the two funnels were replaced by one. The remaining casemate-mounted 5.7cm (2.2in) guns were removed and those mounted on the superstructure upgraded. The machine guns and torpedo tubes were removed and new boilers installed, which improved performance.[13]
Thor resumed service to provide support to Sweden's neutrality in the First World War.[14] Following a request from the citizens of Åland on 9 February 1918, the vessel was dispatched on 14 February to protect the Swedish citizens on the island, arriving the following day at Eckerö, instigating the Invasion of Åland.[15]Thor was the first Swedish vessel to arrive.[16] With Russian forces in disarray due to Russian Civil War, the Swedish government saw an opportunity to occupy the islands, which the Russians also claimed. However, Germany was also interested in gaining the islands as part of a wider strategy to control the Baltic Sea.[17] A German fleet consisting of the dreadnoughtbattleshipsRheinland and Westfalen arrived on 5 March and a stand-off ensued, which was resolved peacefully two days later.[18]
This proved to be only action in which Thor participated and, on 16 July 1937, the warship was withdrawn from service.[5] After attempts to find a private yard that wanted to purchase the vessel for scrapping failed, the ship was broken up by the team at Karlskrona in 1942.[19]
Friedman, Norman (2011). Naval Weapons of World War One: Guns, Torpedoes, Mines and ASW Weapons of All Nations; An Illustrated Directory. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-84832-100-7.
von Hofsten, Gustaf; Waernberg, Jan; Ohlsson, Curt S. (2003). Örlogsfartyg: Svenska Maskindrivna Fartyg under Tretungad Flagg[Naval Vessels: Swedish Motor-driven Ships under the Tri-tongued Flag] (in Swedish). Stockholm: Svenskt militärhistoriskt bibl. i samarbete med Marinlitteratur. ISBN978-9-19731-873-0.
Insulander, Per; Ohlsson, Curt S (2001). Pansarskepp: Från John Ericsson till Gustav V[Armoured Ships: From John Ericsson to Gustav V] (in Swedish) (1:aed.). Falkenberg: C B Marinlitteratur AB. ISBN978-9-19731-872-3.
Office of Naval Intelligence (July 1900). Notes on Naval Progress. General Information Series: Information from Abroad. Washington: Government Printing Office.
Parkes, Oscar; Prendergast, Maurice (1969). Jane's Fighting Ships 1919. Newton Abbott: David & Charles. OCLC907574860.
Salmon, Patrick (1997). Scandinavia and the Great Powers 1890–1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-89102-8.
HSwMS Äran was a Swedish first class coastal defence ship (Pansarskepp). A development of Dristigheten, the Äran class mounted the same 21 cm (8.3 in) main guns, but differed in the layout of the secondary armament. The vessel was launched in 1901 by Gustaf V breaking a bottle of champagne on her bow, the last time that ceremony took place following complaints that breaking wine on a ship was sacrilegious. The warship served on neutrality patrols in the First World War and was damaged after running aground in 1932. In the period immediately before the Second World War, the ship's armament was deemed out of date, and in 1939 and 1940 significant improvement to the vessel's anti-aircraft capability were made with the addition of 25 mm (1 in), 40 mm (1.6 in) and 57 mm (2.2 in) guns. After the war, the Swedish Navy decided to retire all its coastal defence ships. Äran was retired in 1947 and sold to be broken up in 1951, the last sections of the ship finally sinking in 1968.
HSwMS Sverige was a Sverige-class coastal defence ship (Pansarskepp) commissioned by Sweden during the last year of the First World War. The ship cost approximately 12 million kronor, a sum raised entirely by public donations. The fundraising was done because of the Karl Staaff government's reluctance to spend money on a new battleship. In addition to its impressive cost, the ship also had a significant impact on the Swedish Navy and its capabilities.
Masséna was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy, built in the 1890s. She was a member of a group of five broadly similar battleships, along with Charles Martel, Jauréguiberry, Bouvet, and Carnot, that were ordered in response to the British Royal Sovereign class. She was named in honour of Marshal of France André Masséna. Masséna significantly exceeded her design weight and suffered from serious stability problems that inhibited accurate firing of her guns; as a result, she was considered to be an unsuccessful design.
The Kaiser Friedrich III class consisted of five pre-dreadnought battleships of the Imperial German Navy; all ships of the class were named for German emperors. The ships were Kaiser Friedrich III, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, Kaiser Barbarossa, and Kaiser Karl der Grosse, all built between 1895 and 1901. The class saw the introduction of the traditional armament layout for German battleships prior to the advent of the dreadnought type of battleship in the early 1900s: four large-caliber guns, but of comparatively smaller size compared to their contemporaries, in two gun turrets. The German adoption of smaller guns was a result of a preference for higher volumes of fire over weight of shell. The Kaiser Friedrich III class also standardized the use of three screws for battleships and introduced water-tube boilers and Krupp cemented armor.
The Wittelsbach-class battleships were a group of five pre-dreadnought battleships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the early 1900s. They were the first battleships ordered under the Second Navy Law of 1898, part of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz's fleet expansion program. The class comprised the lead ship, Wittelsbach, and Wettin, Zähringen, Schwaben, and Mecklenburg. All five ships were laid down between 1899 and 1900 and were finished by 1904. The ships of the Wittelsbach class were similar in appearance to their predecessors in the Kaiser Friedrich III class, but had a more extensive armor belt and a flush main deck, as opposed to the lower quarterdeck of the previous class. Both classes carried a battery of four 24 cm (9.4 in) guns in two twin-gun turrets.
The Roon class was a pair of armored cruisers built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the 1900s. The two ships of the class, Roon and Yorck, closely resembled the earlier Prinz Adalbert-class cruisers upon which they were based. The Roon class incorporated slight incremental improvements, including a pair of extra boilers. The ships were easily distinguished from their predecessors by the addition of a fourth funnel. Though the additional boilers were meant to increase the ships' speed, both vessels failed to reach their designed top speed. In addition, the ships had comparatively light armament and thin armor protection, so they compared poorly with their foreign contemporaries, particularly the armored cruisers of their primary opponent, the British Royal Navy.
The Prinz Adalbert class was a group of two armored cruisers built for the German Kaiserliche Marine under the terms of the Second Naval Law. Two ships of the class were built, Prinz Adalbert and Friedrich Carl, between 1900 and 1904. The two ships were heavily based on the previous armored cruiser, Prinz Heinrich, with a series of incremental improvements. Their armor layout was revised slightly to improve internal protection and their main battery consisted of four 21 cm (8.3 in) guns instead of the two 24 cm (9.4 in) carried by Prinz Heinrich. The new ships also received more powerful propulsion systems, making them slightly faster. Prinz Adalbert spent her peacetime career as a gunnery training ship while Friedrich Carl initially served as the flagship of the fleet's reconnaissance forces. By 1909, she had been replaced by more modern cruisers and joined Prinz Adalbert as a training vessel.
The Scharnhorst class was the last class of traditional armored cruisers built by the German Kaiserliche Marine. The class comprised two ships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. They were larger than the Roon-class cruisers that preceded them; the extra size was used primarily to increase the main armament of 21 cm (8.2 inch) guns from four to eight. The ships were the first German cruisers to reach equality with their British counterparts. The ships were named after 19th century Prussian army reformers, Gerhard von Scharnhorst and August von Gneisenau.
Saint Louis was the last of the three Charlemagne-class pre-dreadnought battleships built for the French Navy in the mid-1890s. She spent most of her career assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron and usually was chosen to serve as a flagship. The ship was involved in two accidental ramming incidents with two other French warships in her career, one of which sank a submarine.
The Shikishima class was a two-ship class of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the late 1890s. As Japan lacked the industrial capacity to build such warships itself, they were designed and built in the UK. The ships participated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, including the Battle of Port Arthur on the second day of the war. Hatsuse sank after striking two mines off Port Arthur in May 1904. Shikishima fought in the Battles of the Yellow Sea and Tsushima and was lightly damaged in the latter action, although shells prematurely exploded in the barrels of her main guns in each battle. The ship was reclassified as a coast defence ship in 1921 and served as a training ship for the rest of her career. She was disarmed and hulked in 1923 and finally broken up for scrap in 1948.
The Kaiser class of ironclad warships was a pair of vessels built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the early 1870s. The lead ship, Kaiser, was laid down in 1871 and launched in 1874. Deutschland was laid down in 1872 and launched in 1874; both ships were built by the Samuda Brothers shipyard in London. They were the last German capital ships built by a foreign shipyard. Built as armored frigates, the ships were armed with a main battery of eight 26 cm (10 in) guns in a central armored battery and were capable of a top speed of 14 knots.
The Katori class was a two-ship class of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the early 1900s. As Japan lacked the industrial capacity to build such warships itself, they were designed and built in the UK. They were the last pre-dreadnought battleships to be built for Japan at overseas shipyards, and the last to be equipped with a ram. The ships were delivered after the end of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. They saw no action during World War I, although both were present when Japan joined the Siberian Intervention in 1918. They were disarmed and scrapped in 1923–1925 in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922.
The Neptune class was a proposed class of cruisers planned for the British Royal Navy in the latter years of the Second World War. They were large ships which were to be armed with twelve 6-inch (152 mm) dual-purpose guns and with a heavy secondary armament. Although five ships of the class were planned in 1944, they were cancelled following the end of the war and before construction could begin.
The Zenta class was a group of three protected cruisers built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the 1890s.
HSwMS Oscar II was a coastal defence ship or Pansarskepp of the Swedish Navy. The vessel had a long career lasting over sixty years. A development of the preceding Äran-class coastal defence ship, the ship mounted a powerful armament on a small hull, which necessitated sacrificing speed and endurance. This design decision allowed Oscar II to match the firepower of contemporary armoured cruisers while still carrying the armour of a battleship. Protected by an armoured belt that had a maximum thickness of 150 mm (5.9 in), the ship was armed with a main battery of two 210 mm (8.3 in) Bofors guns mounted separately fore and aft. Maximum speed was 18 knots.
HSwMS Tapperheten was a Äran-class coastal defence ship that served with the Swedish Navy. A development of Dristigheten, the Äran class mounted the same 21 cm (8.3 in) main guns, but differed in the layout of the secondary armament. The vessel was launched in 1901 and served with the coastal defence squadron at Karlskrona. In 1907, the warship attended a naval review by Edward VII. Tapperheten ran aground off the island of Sandön in 1914, earning the nickname, Fastigheten (Permanence) due to the lack of damage received until the vessel was refloated six months later. Subsequently, the vessel served in the First World War protecting Sweden's neutrality. The warship gained a second nickname, Tappaankarheten, for losing an anchor in 1927. After an upgrade to the anti-aircraft armament, the ship also served in the Second World War before retiring in 1947 and being sold to be broken up in 1952.
HSwMS Manligheten was a Äran-class coastal defence ship that served with the Swedish Navy. A development of Dristigheten, the Äran class mounted the same 21 cm (8 in) main guns, but differed in the layout of the secondary armament. The vessel was launched in 1903 and served on neutrality patrols in the First World War. During the two decades following the conflict, the ship undertook a number of international tours that called at ports in Britain, the Netherlands and Spain. Manligheten ran aground in 1930 and was freed by an ingenious manoeuvre by the destroyer Wachtmeister, which created waves by speeding past the stranded vessel. While serving in the Second World War, the vessel was damaged by a paravane in 1939 and modernised between 1940 and 1941. Decommissioned in 1950, Manligheten was broken up, although the ship's hull remaining in use as a pontoon until 1984.
HSwMS Wasa was a Äran-class coastal defence ship that served with the Swedish Navy. The vessel served in the front line for substantially less time than the rest of the class. A development of Dristigheten, the Äran class mounted the same 21 cm (8.3 in) main guns, but differed in the layout of the secondary armament. Wasa was launched in 1901 and served as part of the coastal defence fleet, including taking part in neutrality patrols during the First World War. The ship was retired from front-line service in 1924 and withdrawn from active service in 1940, thereafter acting as a decoy and, from 1951, a damage control training ship. Wasa was sold to be broken up in 1960.
HSwMS Oden was the lead ship of the Oden class of first-class coastal defence ships (Pansarskeppen) constructed for the Swedish Navy. The ship was armed with two 25 cm (9.8 in) guns provided by the French manufacturer Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée. The vessel was launched in 1896 and was first upgraded with additional 12 cm (4.7 in) guns after running aground in 1901. In 1913, the warship accidentally sank the gunboat Urd and was taken out of service the following year to be updated with new boilers and an upgraded armament. Most noticeably, during this rebuild, one funnel was fitted to replace the two that had been a feature of the ship from the start. Oden was retired from front-line service in 1937 and broken up in 1943.
HSwMS Niord was a Swedish first-class coastal defence ship (Pansarskepp) of the Oden class. A follow-on to the name-ship of the class Oden, Niord differed in having improved Harvey steel armour and two additional casemate-mounted 12 cm (4.7 in) guns. The vessel was launched in 1899 in Gothenburg. After an update completed in 1917 that radically altered the ship's appearance by replacing the two funnels with one, Niord was retired from front-line service in 1922. After serving as a barracks ship and tender supporting, in 1925, the seaplanes of what would become the Roslagen Air Corps, unemployed sailors in Stockholm in 1931 and the Cabin Boy Corps (Skeppsgossekåren) of Marstrand in 1935, the vessel was rearmed as an anti-aircraft battery during the Second World War. Decommissioned in 1944, Niord was broken up in Karlskrona in 1945.
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