Description
Eidsvold was built as part of the general rearmament in the time leading up to the political events in 1905, and remained, along with her sister ship Norge, the backbone of the Royal Norwegian Navy for just over 40 years. She was named after the town of Eidsvold, the site of the drafting and signing of the Norwegian Constitution on 17 May 1814. Considered to be quite powerful ships for their time, with two 21 cm (8.26 inch) guns as their main armament, they were soon outclassed by the new Dreadnought battleships. They were armoured to withstand battle with ships of a similar class to their own, with 6 inches (15.24 cm) of Krupp cemented armour in the belt and 9 inches (22.86 cm) of the same armour on her two turrets. Eidsvold and Norge were the largest vessels in the Royal Norwegian Navy at 4,233 tons gross and crews of up to 270 men.
It was intended to augment the Norwegian Panserskip fleet with the two ships of the Bjørgvin class, ordered in 1912, but after these were confiscated by the British Royal Navy at the outbreak of World War I, the Eidsvold class and the older, two ship strong, Tordenskjold class was forced to soldier on long after they were obsolete.
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