New page: Norwegian Navy

The Union between the Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway came to an end in 1905. Earlier Norway — like Sweden — had built up a navy of some coastal battleships and a lot of torpedo-boats. From monitors — one built in Sweden — the 1890s saw the building of 4 coastal battleships at British yards and 4 gunboats of varying types, 1 destroyer and 12 small torpedo-boats. In the last years of the Union only some torpedoboats were added. From 1906 Norway did not do much to modernise her navy which was manned by about 1000 regulars and 1000 annual conscripts under a rear-admiral despite having 13,000 miles of coastline and 150,000 islands to protect: 3 small destroyers, 3 large and some smaller torpedo boats as well as 4 submarines were all the warships built before the First World War broke out. But Norway, like the other two Scandinavian countries, decided to complete her division of coastal battleships. Two such with lighter armament than the contemporary Swedish and Danish vessels were ordered in England in 1912. Launched in 1914 they were both seized by the British government as war broke out and never reached the Horten naval base on Oslofjord. During and after the war the Navy was busy minesweeping and recovering 222 dead bodies washed up on the coast.


The most recoignisable Oslo class frigates, icons of the cold war

Discover the rest on Minor Navies Cold War & Modern times
A fully fledge, dedicated page will be published later: Before going back on it in force on a dedicated page on May, 17, 2025 (Norway Day) with a poster, after WW1 and WW2 here is an overview of the Norwegian navy in the cold war and to this day. A fleet that still operated ex-Type VIIC and Typ XXIII U-Boats in the 1960s, as well as S-Boote and R-Boote but had a solid industry and focused on motor torpedo boats and missile fast attack crafts as well as minelayers (and the Oslo class frigates !).

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