HSwMS Sölve
HSwMS Sölve is one of the seven Hildur-class monitors built for the Swedish Navy in the mid-1870s. It had an uneventful career and was sold in 1919 for conversion into a barge. She became a museum ship in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1992.
The Hildur-class monitors were designed by Lieutenant John Christian d'Ailly, from a proposal by John Ericsson, for the defense of Lake Mälaren and the Stockholm archipelago. Sölve was 39.78 meters (130 ft 6 in) long overall and had a beam of 8.72 meters (28 ft 7 in). She had a draft of 2.7 meters (8 ft 10 in) and displaced 460 metric tons (450 long tons). Her crew numbered 48 officers and men. The ship had rudders at bow and stern.
The Hildur-class ships had two horizontal, twin-cylinder steam engines, each driving a single propeller using steam from two cylindrical boilers. The engines produced a total of 155 indicated horsepower (116 kW) which gave the monitors a maximum speed of 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph). The ships carried 23–25 metric tons (23–25 long tons) of coal.
Sölve was equipped with one 240-millimeter (9.4 in) M/69 rifled breech loader, mounted in a long, fixed, oval-shaped gun turret. The gun weighed 14,670 kilograms (32,340 lb) and fired projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 397 m/s (1,300 ft/s). At its maximum elevation of 7.5° it had a range of 3,500 meters (3,800 yd). The ship also mounted two 75-millimeter (3.0 in) guns. She was rearmed with a 120-millimeter (4.7 in) quick-firing gun as well as three 57-millimeter (2.2 in) quick-firing guns sometime in the 1890s or the early 1900s.
Sölve had a complete waterline armor belt of wrought iron that ranged 38 to 76 millimeters (1.5 to 3.0 in) thick from front to rear. The deck was 19 millimeters (0.7 in) thick. The face of the gun turret was protected by 418 millimeters (16.5 in) of armor, while its sides were 356 millimeters (14.0 in) thick. The conning tower protruded from the top of the turret and was protected by 254 millimeters (10 in) of armor.
Sölve, named after Sölve, a semi-legendary King of Sweden, was launched in 1875 by Motala Verkstad at Norrköping. She was decommissioned in 1919 and was converted into an oil barge after it was sold. The ship was acquired by the Gothenburg Maritima Centrum from Mobiloil in 1992. It has been partially restored and is currently moored at the Maritiman marine museum in Gothenburg.
