A or (also ) was a type of warship built for the Swedish

archipelago fleet The archipelago fleet (), officially the "fleet of the army" (), was a Navy, maritime branch of the Swedish Armed Forces which existed between 1756 and 1823. Its purpose was to protect the coasts of Sweden, which was surrounded by a natural barrie ...

in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was developed for warfare in the

Archipelago Sea The Archipelago Sea (, ) is a part of the Baltic Sea between the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland and the Sea of Åland, within Finnish territorial waters. By some definitions it contains the List of archipelagos by number of islands, larges ...

and along the coasts of

Svealand Svealand (), or Swealand, is the historical core region of Sweden. It is located in south-central Sweden and is one of the three historical lands of Sweden, bounded to the north by Norrland and to the south by Götaland. Deep forests, Tive ...

and

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

against the

Russian navy The Russian Navy is the Navy, naval arm of the Russian Armed Forces. It has existed in various forms since 1696. Its present iteration was formed in January 1992 when it succeeded the Navy of the Commonwealth of Independent States (which had i ...

. The was designed by the prolific naval architect

Fredrik Henrik af Chapman Fredrik Henrik af Chapman (9 September 1721 – 19 August 1808) was a Swedish shipbuilder, scientist and naval officer. He was vice admiral in the Swedish Navy, and manager of the Karlskrona shipyard from 1782 to 1793. Chapman is credited a ...

for use in an area of mostly shallow waters and groups of islands and islets that extend from Stockholm all the way to the Gulf of Finland. The was intended to complement and partially to replace the existing

galley A galley is a type of ship optimised for propulsion by oars. Galleys were historically used for naval warfare, warfare, Maritime transport, trade, and piracy mostly in the seas surrounding Europe. It developed in the Mediterranean world during ...

s of the Swedish inshore squadrons, but were designed as hybrid sailing vessels that could also be rowed.

Background

In the early 18th century, the establishment of

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

naval power in the

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

challenged the interests of Sweden, at the time one of the major powers in the Baltic. The

Swedish empire The Swedish Empire or the Great Power era () was the period in Swedish history spanning much of the 17th and early 18th centuries during which Sweden became a European great power that exercised territorial control over much of the Baltic regi ...

at the time included territory in Northern Germany, all of modern Finland and most of the

Baltic states The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...

, a dominion held together by the Baltic sea routes. Russian Tsar

Peter the Great Peter I (, ; – ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...

had established a new capital and naval base in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

in 1703. During the

Great Northern War In the Great Northern War (1700–1721) a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern Europe, Northern, Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the ant ...

Sweden lost its Baltic state territories, and experienced destructive Russian raiding in Finland and along the chain of islands and

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

s that stretched all the way from the

Gulf of Finland The Gulf of Finland (; ; ; ) is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland to the north and Estonia to the south, to Saint Petersburg—the second largest city of Russia—to the east, where the river Neva drains into it. ...

to the capital of

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

. The traumatic experience led to the establishment of inshore flotillas of shallow-draft vessels. The first of these consisted mainly of smaller versions of the traditional Mediterranean warship, the

s. Most of these more akin to

galiot A galiot, galliot or galiote, was a small galley boat propelled by sail or oars. There are three different types of naval galiots that sailed on different seas. A ''galiote'' was a type of French flat-bottom river boat or barge and also a fla ...

s and were complemented with gun pram. The disastrous war against Russia 1741–1743 and the minor involvement in

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

in the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...

1757–1762 showed the need for further expansion and development of the inshore flotillas with more specialized vessels. Traditional galleys were effective as troop transports for amphibious operations, but were severely under-gunned, especially in relation to their large crews; a galley with a 250-man crew, most of whom were rowers, would typically be armed with only one 24-pounder

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during th ...

and two 6-pounders, all in the bow. However, they were undecked and lacked adequate shelter for the rower-soldiers, great numbers of which succumbed to illness in the war of 1741–1743. The Swedish military invested considerable resources into the establishment of the "

" (''skärgårdsflottan''), a separate branch of the armed forced that organizationally belonged to the army. In 1756, it was even officially designated ''Arméns flotta'', "Navy of the Army", though it was in many ways a highly independent organization that attracted a social and cultural elite and enjoyed the protection of

Gustav III Gustav III (29 March 1792), also called ''Gustavus III'', was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of King Adolf Frederick and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden. Gustav was a vocal opponent of what he saw ...

after his 1772 coup that empowered him as an absolute monarch. Several new ships were designed by the naval architect

to bolster the hitting-power of the new Swedish arm, to provide it with better naval defense and greater

fire support Fire support is a military tactics term used to describe weapons fire used to support friendly forces by engaging, suppressing, or destroying enemy forces, facilities, or materiel in combat. It is often provided through indirect fire, though th ...

capabilities during amphibious operations. The result was four new vessels that combined the maneuverability of oar-powered galleys with the superior rigs and decent living conditions of sailing ships: the , , and , named after the Finnish regions of

Uusimaa Uusimaa (; , ; both lit. 'new land') is a region of Finland. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland, Tavastia Proper (Kanta-Häme), Päijänne Tavastia (Päijät-Häme), and Kymenlaakso. Finland's capital and largest city, Helsinki, alo ...

(''Uudenmaan'' in

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

form), Pohjanmaa, Turunmaa and Hämeenmaa ( Tavastia). All four have been referred to as ''skärgårdsfregatter'', "archipelago frigates", in Swedish and English historical literature, though the smaller and are also described as "archipelago corvettes" originally. The name "" has been carried on (in its more modern variant) as a traditional vessel name in the Finnish navy, with the previous flagship and the future class of corvettes in development as of 2019 named after the type.

Design

The first was built in 1764 (the same year as the larger version and the earliest ). It was a low-hulled vessel with two masts, a main and a mizzen, rigged like a

bomb ketch A bomb vessel, bomb ship, bomb ketch, or simply bomb was a type of wooden sailing naval ship. Its primary armament was not cannons ( long guns or carronades) – although bomb vessels carried a few cannons for self-defence – but mortars mount ...

with two square sails, a

lug sail The lug sail, or lugsail, is a fore-and-aft, four-cornered sail that is suspended from a spar, called a yard. When raised, the sail area overlaps the mast. For "standing lug" rigs, the sail may remain on the same side of the mast on both the port ...

, and three staysails supported between the mainmast and the

bowsprit The bowsprit of a sailing vessel is a spar (sailing), spar extending forward from the vessel's prow. The bowsprit is typically held down by a bobstay that counteracts the forces from the forestay, forestays. The bowsprit’s purpose is to create ...

. The first was 23.8 m (78 ft) long, 5.5 m (18 ft) wide, with a draft of 1.8 m (6 ft). The three later built for the Swedish navy varied in size from 20 m (65.5 ft) up to 27.6 m (90.5 ft). Its main armament was two heavy guns in the bow and stern (ranging from 12-pounders up to 24-pounders). These could also be dragged towards the center of the vessel and aimed sideways, though with considerable effort. It also had up to 10

swivel gun A swivel gun (or simply swivel) is a small cannon mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Another type of firearm referred to as a swivel gun was an early flintlock combination gun with two barrels that rot ...

s along the railings for close-range defense. For maneuverability, it carried 14 pairs of oars which operated through oarports attached to a rectangular

outrigger An outrigger is a projecting structure on a boat, with specific meaning depending on types of vessel. Outriggers may also refer to legs on a wheeled vehicle that are folded out when it needs stabilization, for example on a crane that lifts he ...

which improved the leverage for the oarsmen.

Service

Only four were built for the Swedish navy and their use was often limited to reconnaissance and dispatch duties. The saw limited action in the archipelago navy's operations in the war of 1788–1790. A single participated in the first battle of Svensksund in 1789, a minor Russian victory, but none in the second battle, Sweden's greatest naval victory ever. Like the other specialized archipelago vessels, the proved to have only limited advantages. While its firepower that was equal or superior even to larger galleys, they were slow even under oars. The second battle of Svensksund showed that the smaller gunboats and gunsloops were far more efficient for inshore operations and eventually replaced the "archipelago frigates" by the

Finnish War The Finnish War (; ; ) was fought between the Gustavian era, Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire from 21 February 1808 to 17 September 1809 as part of the Napoleonic Wars. As a result of the war, the eastern third of Sweden was established a ...

of 1808–09, where Sweden eventually lost all of its Finnish possessions.

Ships

Four were built, all of them for the Swedish archipelago fleet. They are listed in the table below with basic information where it is actually known.Berg, "Appendix: Skärgårdsflottans fartyg" in Norman (2012), p. 397; Nikula (1933), pp. 364–365. *''Gamla'' (1760) *''Disa'' (1764) *''Fröja'' (1764) *''Brynhilda'' (1776)

Notes

References

* Anderson, Roger Charles, ''Oared Fighting Ships: From classical times to the coming of steam.'' London. 1962. *Berg, Lars-Otto, "Development of the Swedish archipelago fleet in the 18th century, construction technology and weaponry" in ''The war of King Gustavus III and naval battles of Ruotsinsalmi: VIII International Baltic Seminar 5–7 July 1990.'' Provincial Museum of Kymenlaakso, Kotka. 1993. * Berg, Lars Otto, "Skärgårdsflottans fartyg: Typer och utveckling under 1700- och 1800-talet" in Hans Norman (editor), ''Skärgårdsflottan: Uppbyggnnad, militär användning och förankring i det svenska samhället 1700-1824.'' Historiska media, Lund. 2000. , pp. 50–75. * Glete, Jan, "Kriget till sjöss" in Gunnar Artéus (editor) ''Gustav III:s ryska krig.'' Probus, Stockholm. 1992. * Nikula, Oscar, ''Svenska skärgårdsflottan 1756-1791.'' octoral dissertationHelsingfors. 1933.

External links

Information on af Chapman at the Sveaborg official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pojama Class Galley Age of Sail naval ships of Sweden Frigates of Sweden Naval history of Sweden Swedish Navy Swedish Army