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introduction of armour-plating followed the American civil war, a few
monitors were built, but it was of course impossible for a nation
numbering less than two million persons to keep up with the
rapid development of large and very costly vessels that followed.
We confined ourselves mainly to strengthening to some extent the
defence of the skjærgaard by building small steam gun-boats with
heavy guns. The importance of defence by torpedoes in waters
like those of Norway, was soon understood; and the first
torpedo-boat [[** sjk bindestrek]] built for any foreign government was for the Norwegian
navy, by Thornycroft (1873).
It was not before 1895, however, that the development of the
Norwegian navy again made any advance worthy of remark.
Attention was then turned to other branches of the fleet equally
necessary for a country like Norway, that is obliged to procure
the necessaries of life across the sea, namely armoured and more
sea-going war-vessels. As these ships, however, must also be
adapted for employment within the skjærgaard, nature itself sets
a limit to their size, a limit also more nearly corresponding to
the financial capacity of the country. The type chosen was the
3rd or 4th class iron-clad of the large navies, or coast-defence
vessels of from 3600 to 4000 tons, with a speed of 17 knots. Up
to the present, Norway has had 4 of these ships built at the Elswick
Works, Newcastle-on-Tyne (2 of them will be finished in 1900).
They are comparatively strongly protected and armed, the
armament being two 21 cm. guns in turrets, and a secondary battery
of 6 guns, 12 cm. on the two ships first built and 15 cm. in
armour-plated casemates on the two last, all quick-firing, and
moreover from 12 to 14 76—37 mm. quick-firing guns besides two
broadside submarine launching tubes for Whitehead torpedoes. The
complement of men is about 240.
The 4 monitors have been re-armed, their old, heavy, but
short guns having been exchanged for smaller, quick-firing guns
(12 cm.). With their low speed, however, they can scarcely be
regarded as anything but floating batteries for local defence.
The Norwegian navy has two rather large gun-boats of 1100
and 1400 tons displacement, with a protective deck over the vital
parts, a speed of 15 knots, and armed with two 12 or 15 cm.
guns, in addition to some of smaller calibre. There are further
8 small gun-boats, with one large gun (21—27 cm.) each, only
one of them having any armour-plating. Their speed is low,
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