HNoMS Sleipner (1878-1935)

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The gunship HNoMS Sleipner, after the rebuild in 1900.
Career Norway
Builder:	Horten Navy Yard
Laid down:	1 January 1877
Launched:	7 August 1877
Christened:	20 May 1878
Decommissioned:	1935
Out of service:	1 January 1919
Status:	Decommissioned
General Characteristics
Displacement:	720 tons (sources disagree)
Length:	53.26 m
Beam:
Draught:	3.35 m
Propulsion:	650 hp reciprocating steam engines and sails
Speed:	12.7 knop on engine, 13.4 knots on engine and sails
Complement:	90
Armament:	1 x 26cm/22 (10.2 inch) breachloading gun 1 x 15 cm/25 (5.9 inch) breachloading gun 1 x underwater torpedotube

The HNoMS Sleipner was a 1. class gunboat built for the Royal Norwegian Navy. Like all other Norwegian gunships of her era, she carried a heavy armament on a diminutive hull.

Her main weapon was a 26 cm cannon, of the same make and model other navies mounted^[1] on battleships. Sleipner also carried an underwater torpedo tube in her bow for firing Whitehead torpedos, and she was the first vessel in the Royal Norwegian Navy equipped with this weapon.

In 1900 Sleipner was rebuilt, and her masts and rigging was removed. After her rebuild she was used as a cadet ship (training vessel) until 1915, when she started a new life as a floating barracks. Between 1921 and 1932 Sleipner was used as a floating depot for the fledgling Naval Air Service, before she was finally decommissioned and scrapped in 1935.

The vessel was built at the Naval Yard at Horten, and had the yard number 56.

[edit] Notes and references

1. ^ GR 10in 26cm 22cal Krupp BL, retrieved 2 March 2006

• Naval history via Flix: KNM Sleiner, retrieved 2 March 2006
• Sjøforsvaret dag for dag: 20 mai, retrieved 2 March 2006
• Byggenummer ved Horten verft, retrieved 2 March 2006

Norwegian gunships

1. class:

Ellida, Sleipner, Viking and Frithjof

2. class:

Vale class: Vale, Brage, Nor, Uller and Vidar

Gor class: Gor and Tyr

Æger

Gunships of the Royal Norwegian Navy