HSMS Asgard (CL-1912 (TS-1935))

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First of the light cruiser classes to populate the Scandinavian navy for the next 50 years, the Asgard class was a good first effort. Based on the British Town class designs of the Bristol class with a single larger gun fore and aft with a set of broadside guns that earned the cruisers of the type with the sobriquet 'broadside cruisers'. The Asgard class had the advantage of fitting the single 5.9" into turrets which provided some protection compared to the shielded open mountings of other navies. Single 100mm/3.9" mountings provided the Asgard class with its broadside guns.

The ships shared the elegant four funnel, tall masted look of the early light cruisers. They were shorter than the Bristols, and sacrificed one 100mm mounting for an extra set of torpedoes, which were the new 21" while the Bristols (having been completed 2 years earlier) had the earlier 18" mountings. The very tall masts of the time were to carry the wireless aerials as high as possible due to the early transmitter/receivers being of a weak nature and needing all the help they could get. As wireless transmissions improved masts got shorter.

Plans had been around to convert the Asgards to match their 1/2 sisters of the Jamtland class with the 100mm being replaced with an extra four 150mm/5.9" guns, with the mountings beside the bridge being replaced with 75mm AA mountings. Four 75mm AA mountings had been added to the ships in 1918. The funds for the upgrade to 5.9" was never made available and the ships saw out their service with their basic armament. The major improvement was to fit the 100mm guns onto a dual purpose mounting to give the eight mountings an AA capability. During the late 1930's the single 75mm AA guns were replaced by two single 40mm between the funnels while the superfiring 75mm guns over A turret were replaced with single 20mm, and the pair beside the bridge were replaced with twin 20mm. A further pair of 20mm being mounted on the aft superstructure.

From 1934 the ships had joined others of the Training squadron based on Goteborg and Malmo, and part of their training duties during the ice free months was the escort of ships transporting iron ore from Lulea through the Oresund and beyond.

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