John Ericsson-class monitor
John Ericsson in 1867, as originally built
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name: | John Ericsson class |
| Builders: | Motala Verkstad, Norrköping |
| Operators: | |
| Preceded by: | None |
| Succeeded by: | HMS Garmer |
| Built: | 1864–1871 |
| In service: | 1865–1922 |
| Completed: | 5 |
| Scrapped: | 5 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Monitor |
| Displacement: | 1,522 metric tons (1,498 long tons) |
| Length: | 60.88 m (199 ft 9 in) |
| Beam: | 13.54 m (44 ft 5 in) |
| Draft: | 3.4 m (11 ft 2 in) |
| Installed power: | 380 ihp (280 kW) |
| Propulsion: | 1 shaft, 1 Vibrating lever steam engine, 4 cylindrical boilers |
| Speed: | 6.5 knots (12.0 km/h; 7.5 mph) |
| Range: | 950 nautical miles (1,760 km; 1,090 mi) |
| Complement: | 80–104 |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: |
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The John Ericsson-class monitors were a group of five iron-hulled monitors; four were built for the Royal Swedish Navy and one for the Royal Norwegian Navy in the mid to late 1860s. They were designed under the supervision of the Swedish-born inventor, John Ericsson, and built in Sweden. Generally the monitors were kept in for the majority of the year and were only commissioned for several during the year. The ships made one foreign visit to Russia (visits to Norway did not count as foreign as that country was in a personal union with Sweden) in 1867, but remained in Swedish or Norwegian waters for the rest of their careers. Two of the monitors, Thordon and Mjølner, ran aground, but were salvaged and repaired. Most of the monitors were reconstructed between 1892 and 1905 with more modern guns, but one was scrapped instead as it was not thought cost-effective to rebuild such an old ship. The surviving ships were mobilized during World War I and sold for scrap afterwards.
The John Ericsson-class ironclads were designed to meet the need of the Swedish and Norwegian Navies for small, shallow-draft armored ships capable of defending their coastal waters. The standoff between USS Monitor and the much larger CSS Virginia during the Battle of Hampton Roads in early 1862 roused much interest in Sweden in this new type of warship as it seemed ideal for coastal defense duties. A parliamentary committee set up earlier to investigate the state of the Swedish navy had already concluded that the existing fleet was obsolete and new construction would have to be steam-powered and built of iron. John Ericsson, designer and builder of the Monitor, had been born in Sweden, although he had become an American citizen in 1848, and offered to share his design with the Swedes. In response they sent Lieutenant John Christian d'Ailly to the United States to study monitor design and construction under Ericsson. D'Ailly arrived in July 1862 and toured rolling mills, gun foundries, and visited several different ironclads under construction. He returned to Sweden in 1863 having completed the drawings of a Monitor-type ship under Ericsson's supervision.
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