Description
Built as part of the general rearmament in the time leading up to the events in 1905, the two ships of the Eidsvold class remained, along with the slightly older Tordenskjold class, the backbone of the Norwegian Navy until the German invasion of Norway in 1940. Norge and Eidsvold were the largest vessels in the Norwegian Navy, displacing 4,233 tons and crewed by 270 men. It was intended to augment the Norwegian Panserskip fleet with the two ships of the Bjørgvin class, ordered in 1912, but both were confiscated by the British Navy at the outbreak of World War I. Obsolete by the time of the German invasion, both Eidsvold class ships were sunk during the first Battle of Narvik.
The Eidsvold class carried a mixed armament, typical of coastal defense ships:
- Two 21 cm (8.26 inch) guns mounted in turrets fore and aft as the main armament
- Six 15 cm (5.90 inch) guns, mounted three on either side in casemates as the secondary armament
- Eight 7.60 cm (3 inch) guns, four mounted in the battery (two on either side) and the remaining four mounted fore and aft
- Four 4.7 cm (1.85 inch / 3 pdr) rapid-fire guns for use against torpedo boats
- Two submerged torpedo tubes
The Eidsvold class was armoured to withstand battle with ships of a similar class, but the underwater armour and internal partitoning were not designed to withstand torpedo hits, which caused both ships' demise:
- 6 inches (15.24 cm) of Krupp cemented armour in the belt.
- 9 inches (22.86 cm) of the same armour on the main gun turrets.
Read more about this topic: Eidsvold Class Coastal Defence Ship
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