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[General] [The Navy] [The
Army Fleet] [Ships of the Army Fleet][Image]
[The Allotment System] [Swedish
wars] [Swedish Sea Battles]
The
Swedish Galley fleet was organized after The
Great Nordic War, which ended in 1721.
At the end of this war the Swedish coastlines was often under attack by Russian
galleys. Galleys turned out to be a perfect weapon in coastal waters. The
galleys could use both sails and oars, which meant that they weren’t dependent
on the winds. They were shallow-draught (US: shallow-draft) which made them perfect for warfare in
shallow coastal waters.
The Swedish and Finnish coastline are filled with thousands and thousands of islands. I most cases these waters between the islands are narrow and very shallow. This type of coastline is called archipelago (Skärgård in Swedish). The large Navy warships were not suitable for warfare in these narrow and shallow waters. Therefore Sweden developed a second fleet, the Galley fleet
Galleys couldn’t engage
large navy ships in battle on the open sea. However, with
hardly any wind in coastal waters galleys could attack a navy ship and win the
battle if they attacked from behind. The navy ship was then like a sitting duck.
The big navy ships of the line were too big and too deep draught to pursue the
galleys into shallow waters through the narrow channels of the archipelago of Swedish
waters.
The
first type of vessel used by the Swedish Galley fleet was of course the galley.
That’s why the fleet was called the Galley fleet (Galärflottan),
at least in the beginning.
Later, other more specialized ships were built for the fleet. Galleys were
just one type of ship used by the Galley Fleet and later the galleys themselves became out
of date. So the fleet therefore became konwn as “Skärgårdsflottan”
later on. The word “Skärgårdsflottan”
means the Archipelago fleet or the coastal fleet (Skärgård = archipelago).
In the beginning the Galley
Fleet was organized as a unit within the Navy.
In 1756
the “Skärgårdsflottan” was
separated from the navy and formed a new defense branch within the army. The
officers in the Galley Fleet thus carried the same type of ranks as in the army.
In 1823 the Galley Fleet once again became a part of the Navy.
After 1756 the official name of the “Skärgårdsflottan”
became The Army Fleet
("Arméns flotta").
In 1756 the Army Feet
formed a fleet of about 60 vessels of different types.
The Army
fleet was organized into two squadrons, The
Stockholm squadron (Stockholmseskadern) and The Finish squadron (Finska eskadern). Each squadron was under
command of a colonel.
The home base for the Stockholm squadron was
Skeppsholmen in Stockholm and for the Finish
squadron, the Sveaborg fortress outside Helsinki.
Battles fought
by the Army fleet had more similarities with battles on land
rather then the battles of the navy. The purpose of the fleet was to co-operate
with land forces, protect the wings of the land forces, transport the troops
and support offensive Army operations.
In 1786,
just before the outbreak of the Swedish-Russian war (1788-1790), the Stockholm squadron numbered 31 larger vessels and the Finish squadron 16 larger and 65
smaller vessels.
The years before the war the Army Fleet was conducting a massive expansion and the
numbers increased a great deal. The master shipbuilder Fredrik Henrik af
Chapman (1721 - 1808) constructed many new types of ships for the Army
fleet.
The crew
on the ships of the Army Fleet included both sailors and soldiers. The sailors were
under command of naval officers and the soldiers under command of infantry
officers.
The soldiers and the sailors were the "Knektar" and "Båtsmän"
respectively, organized by The Allotment System
(Indelningsverket).
The
Allotment System was the system of organizing and financing
the Swedish armed forces in earlier times.
The vessels of the Army fleet, never carried sails during battle. They were either anchored or were powered by oars.
The
Swedish galleys carried two masts. The length of these craft varied between 100 - 130 feet
(30
- 39 m), 18 feet (5.4 m) wide and 6 feet (1.8 m) deep draught. They only had one
deck. The main mast was placed in the middle of the galley and measured 54 feet
(16 m) high.
The foremast was a bit shorter at 50 feet (15 m).
On the after deck as well as in the foredeck there was a superstructure. The
superstructure on the after deck was used as a cabin for the officers. The superstructure
on the foredeck was used for the artillery batteries, like a forecastle.
There were no protected quarters for the crew onboard the galleys.
The image to the right shows the galley
"Calmar".
The
galleys were equipped with 20 to 22 pairs of oars, and each oar was manned by 5 men. The oars were 40 feet
(12 m) long. With 5 men per oar the galleys
needed a large crew: about 250 sailors. In total there were about 300 men on the
galleys.
Normally a lieutenant was the commander of a galley. 
The
speed of a galley has been estimated to have been about 1 – 1,5 knots when powered by
oars and about 3 knots under sail.
The armament of the galleys normally consisted of two 18- or 24-pound guns. They could
also be equipped with one 24-pound gun and two 6-pound guns. The guns could only
be fired in directions forward of the bow. This limitation made the galleys
vulnerable and after 1745 very few new galleys were built.
Example of galleys: The Carlscrona (1749), The Calmar and
The Uppland (1748)
The
schebeck was a ship similar to the galley but with much better sailing qualities.
The hull was longer and narrower. The schebeck could carry more guns than the
galleys and needed only 9 pair of oars.
In order
to get a more powerful Army Feet, the archipelago frigates were developed around
1760. The designer was the master shipbuilder Fredrik Henrik af
Chapman. The frigates had very good sailing qualities and could carry heavier armament. Like the navy ships they could fire broadsides. A few
different types of frigates were built. The names of the different types
(classes) are names of Finnish provinces.
The
Udema class:
The Udema had one deck and three masts, 14 pair of oars and a crew of 126
sailors. They were armed with ten 12-pound and two 3-pound guns. Size: length
100 feet (30
m) and 5 feet (1,5 m) deep draught.
Example of ships: The Torborg (1772) and The Ingeborg (1776).
The Pojama class:
The Pojama had one deck and two masts, 14 pair of oars (two men per oar) and
a crew of 105 sailors. They were armed with two 12-pound and sixteen 3-pound
guns. Size: length 79 feet (23.8 m), 18.3 feet (5.5 m) width and 6 feet (1,8 m) deep
draught.
Example of ships: The Fröja (1764), The
Disa (1764) and The Brynhilda
(1776).
The
Turuman class:
The Turuman had two decks and three masts, 16 pair of oars (two men per oar) and
a crew of 266 sailors. They were armed with twentyfour 12-pound and four 3-pound
guns. Size: length 118 feet (35.6 m), 29.6 feet (8.9 m) width and 10 feet (3 m) deep
draught.
Example of ships: The Norden (The Nordic) from 1762, and The
Lodbrok (1771).
The image to the right shows an
archipelago frigate
of
the Turuman class.
The Hemmema had two decks and three masts, 14 pair of oars (two men per oar) and
a crew of 220 sailors. They were armed with eighteen 12-pound and sixteen
3-pound guns. Size: length 109 feet (32.7 m), 33.3 feet (10 m) width and 9 feet
(2,7
m) deep draught.
In 1790 a second generation of the Hemmemas were being launched. These Hemmemas
were bigger and carried heavier armament.
They were 145 feet (43.4 m) long, 35.7 feet (10,7 m) wide and 10 feet (3 m) deep
draught. They had 20 pairs of oars. They were armed with twenty-four 36-pound
and two 12-pound guns.
Example of ships: The Oden
(The Woden) from 1764, The Styrbjörn, The
Starkoster and The Hjalmar (all 1789/90).
Gunboats:
A large
number of smaller vessels with a heavy armament were being built as well. There
were two types of these vessels, the gun
sloop (kanonslupar) and the gun
tender (kanonjollar).
These gunboats could engage larger ships in artillary duels. If circumstances
tended to favor the gunboats they would sometimes engage large
navy ships.
A gunboat was a difficult for target larger ships to hit because they were very
small and close to the surface of the water. On the other hand, if a gun boat
was hit it had no
protection.
The gun sloop (Kanonslup):
The gun sloop was equipped
with sails and oars. They had two masts, which were removable. They carried
10 pairs of oars with two men per oar. They were 52 feet (15.6 m) long and 13 feet
(3.9
m) wide. The gun sloop's draught was only 3 feet (0.9 m), so they could operate
in very shallow waters.
The gun sloops had a crew of 63 men. When being powered by oars they could do 2.5 knots.
The gun sloops
were normally armed with a 12-pound gun, while some had an 18-pound gun. The gun
sloopes could only fire the gun in the direction of the bow.
Later they were
equipped with two 24-pound guns. One gun was placed on the stern and one on the
bow.
The gun sloops were kept together in their own units. The gun sloop units were
used both for attack as well as for defensive purposes. They were also used for
reconnaissance.
At battles with the stationary tactics (when the majority of the ships of the
Army fleet was anchored up) the role of the gun sloops were very similar to the one
of the cavalry in the army battles. That is a mobile unit with a great
power that could turn the outcome of a battle into victory.
The first gun sloop was built in 1776. They came to have a very conspicuous roll
in the sea war of 1788 – 1790. In the spring of 1790 there were 127 gun sloops
in the Army fleet.
The Swedish gun sloops came to be a model for gun sloops in many other nation's
navies.
The gun tender (Kanonjolle):
The gun tender was
introduced in the Army fleet in 1786. In a very short time 80 gun tenders was
built. The gun tender could best be described as a floating gun carriage with a
heavy gun.
The gun tender was very shallow-draught, only 2.5 feet (75 cm) and carried a
crew of only 24 men. The length of the tender was between 37 and 51 feet (11 m -
15 m) and had
5 – 10 pairs of oars. The tender could also sail. Its armament was an 18 or a
24-pound gun. It could only fire in the direction of the stern.
Images of gun tenders at The Risörs museum, Norway
The Mortar
longboats had an armament of a 40-pound mortar. This type of vessel was used to
bombard targets on shore or enemy ships in the shelter of islands. The mortar
longboat was 33 feet (10 m) long and carried 7 pairs of oars.
The gun
longboats were rigged like a schooner and had a length of 42 feet (12.6 m). Their
draughts were 4 feet (1,2 m). They carried 8 pairs of oars so the vessel could sail or
use the oars. The armament of gun longboats was a 12-pound gun.
The
”Skottpråm” (Gun barge?) was a broadside ship. It carried three masts; the
foremast 61.7 feet (18,5 m), main mast 68 feet (20,5 m) and the spanker 56.7
feet (17 m). It was equipped
with 7 pair of oars placed between the gun ports.
The gun barge were built in different sizes but a common size was 127 feet (38 m) long and
33 feet (9,9 m) wide. The draught was 9 feet (2,7 m). The armament was twenty-four 12-pound
and sixteen 4-pound guns. It also carried two guns in the cabin that could fire
alongside if the ship was boarded by the enemy. The cabin was built round the mizzen.
A normal crew was 250 men. The
"skottpråm" did not carry a figurehead, that is no extension in front
of the bow.
Example of gun sloops is The Kämpen
(The Warrior) from 1744 and
The Hector.
The Hector carried a crew of 100 sailors and 300 infantry soldiers in
1751.
Image of the different types of ships in the Army Fleet.
The birth
of the Swedish Navy is considered to be in 1522 when King Gustav Vasa obtained
10 warships.
The navy ships were built in the same manner from the 16th century to
the beginning of the 19th century. However, the size of the ships did
change with an increase in size, and heavier armament. A larger ship could
carry more guns. First there were one gun battery deck ships, then two, and the largest
battle ships even carried three gun battery decks.
A battle ship with three battery decks could normally carry 90 guns and the
ships with two battery decks between 50 – 80 guns.
Example of larger warships:
The British HMS Victory,
Admiral Nelsons flagship in the sea battle of Trafalgar in 1805 was built
between 1759 and 1765. She had three battery decks with 104 guns and a displacement of
2.100 tons. The crew numbered 850 men. The hull was 230 feet (69 m) long and 53
feet (16 m) wide. In
good wind she could do a speed of 10 knots.
The
Swedish warship The King Karl was
launched in 1694 and was the Swedish Navy’s largest ship at the time. She had
a displacement of 2.700 tons. She had three battery decks with a total of 110
guns, ten 36-pound, twenty 24-pound and twenty-eight 18-pound guns per side. The
crew numbered 850 men.
The large
war ships, especially the ones with three battery decks, were very difficult to
steer.
The sailing qualities of the these large ships weren’t very good either. The
heavy hull and the small shallow-draught meant they only could carry
a limited ballast. This had a negative impact on their sailing
qualities.
At the end
of the 17th century a fast war ship could do a speed of 9 – 10
knots.
These ships
didn’t sail to windward very well. They needed the wind from behind. The
relatively small shallow-draught often resulted in the ships being effected much
more by counter productive tides and currents when trying to sail towards
the wind. Often, if the wind was unfavorable, the ships simply had to anchor and wait for
a “better” winds.
The guns
were made of iron, muzzle-loaded and the barrels smooth bored. The cannon balls
were made of solid iron.
The guns were measured by the size of the cannon balls. A 24-pound gun was
firing cannon balls with a weight of 24 pounds (1
pound = 0.454 kg). The caliber of a 24-pound gun was 5.9 inches (15 cm).
Artillery
duels between enemies were normally fought at a distance of 170 to 1700 feet (50 to 500
meters).
The purpose of the bombardments was to break through the hull of the enemy ship.
To do that the ships needed to use the 18 or 24-pound guns. A large ship of the
line had a thickness of the hull at the waterline of about 2.7 feet (80 cm), at the
gunwale only 1.5 feet (45 cm).
In
favorable conditions they could open fire at
2300 feet (700 m). But to get the guns to be effective the ships needed to fire
at a distance of 1700 feet (500 m) or less. The very best result was achieved at a
distance of less then 670 feet (200 m).
If you fired the cannon ball parallel to the water surface you could make the cannon
ball to bounce and thereby achieve a longer shooting range. However, the
penetrating power got weaker and weaker with every bounce. A 24-pound gun could
shoot a cannon ball about 1.25 mile (2000 m) with bouncing.
It
was impossible to score a hit under the waterline. The cannon ball would bounce
as soon it hit the surface. This made it more or less impossible to sink an
enemy ship. You could destroy the rigging, the rudder and the upper decks and
thereby make the enemy ship inoperative. If you could set fire to an enemy ship
it could explode if the fire hit the gunpowder supply.
The
firepower of a war ship depended on how many gun that could be fired
at the same time at a broadside. The larger ships of the line normally carried between 25
and 40 guns per side. Frigates carried about 10 to 20 guns per side.
The
major naval base
for the Swedish Navy was Karlskrona
in the province of Blekinge in the southeastern part of Sweden. However there
were naval stations in both Stockholm on the east coast and in Gothenburg on the
west coast.
At
the end of the 17th century a new battle tactic was introduced in sea warfare.
In battle the ships were formed up into a single column. The reason for this was to
coordinate the fire power from the broadsides of all the ships in the formation. This formation is known as linear
tactics. The classification of the larger ships,
ships of the line, comes from this type of formation in a battle. A ship of the
line was a ship powerful enough to take a position in the line of battle.
The ships of line were normally war ships with two or three battery decks with
24-pound guns at the lower deck and 18-pound guns at upper battery deck.
The
enemy ships met each other in a line, normally sailing in opposite direction.
See
the image to the right.
After a first round the ships had to turn and take its position in the line and
meet each other again. To turn a ship was a very slow procedure and to line up
the ships again took a very long time. It could take hours between each attack.
If you were close to shore or an island or if there were shoals in the area and
if the wind wasn’t favorable it could happen that ships were lost without even
being hit by the enemy fire.
The only way you could send messages between the captains of the ships was by
sending signals by the use of flags. This could be very difficult with all the
smoke of gunpowder surrounding the ships during battle. 
Normally,
a less powerful man of war had to avoid a battle with a more powerful one. A
small fleet had to turn away from a larger fleet. A brig had to stay away from a
frigate and a frigate from a ship of the line. Ships in the galley fleet
normally stayed away from navy ships.
If
an encounter couldn’t be avoided the less powerful ship would often strike
it's flag, that is, surrender. A smaller ship didn’t stand a chance against a more
powerful one. An enemy ship was a transferable resource. So instead of
destroying an enemy ship the winner would confiscated the losing ship.
Even a more powerful force would avoid a battle if they were in a less favorable
position compared to the enemy ships. This may be due to wind, high seas,shoals,
nearby coastline
etc. 
If
a ship became damaged in a way that the crew had to abandon the ship they would
normally blow up the ship to avoid it to falling into enemy hands.
Before the linear tactics the sea battles were more of a close combat between the ships in a less formal order. The combat often ended with a boarding of one of the ships and hand to hand combat.
hogman@algonet.se
Copyright © Hans Högman, granskat 2002-07-11 09:29