HDMS Olfert Fischer (1903)

Painting of Olfert Fischer with a seaplane nearby in 1922
History
Denmark
Name	Olfert Fischer
Builder	Orlogsværftet
Laid down	20 October 1900
Launched	9 May 1903
Fate	Sold for scrap, October 1936
General characteristics
Displacement	3,592 long tons (3,650 t)
Length	82.88 m (271 ft 11 in) pp
Beam	15.39 m (50 ft 6 in)
Draft	5.00 m (16 ft 5 in)
Installed power	6 × water-tube boilers 4,200 ihp (3,100 kW)
Propulsion	2 × triple-expansion engines 2 × screw propellers
Speed	15.5 knots (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph)
Complement	254
Armament	2 × 240 mm (9.4 in) guns 4 × 150 mm (5.9 in) guns 10 × 6-pounder guns 6 × 3-pounder guns 2 × 1-pounder Hotchkiss revolver cannon 2 × 1-pounder automatic guns 3 × 457 mm (18 in) torpedo tubes
Armor	Belt armor: 178 to 203 mm (7 to 8 in) Gun turrets: 170 to 190 mm (6.5 to 7.5 in)

HDMS Olfert Fischer was the second member of the Herluf Trolle class of coastal defense ships built for the Royal Danish Navy. The Herluf Trolle class was built in response to a naval construction program in neighboring Imperial Germany. The Danish ships were built in the late 1890s and early 1900s. They were armed with a main battery of two 240 mm (9.4 in) guns and were capable of a top speed of 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph). Because she was intended to operate as part of a solely defensive naval strategy, Olfert Fischer had a fairly uneventful career. She visited Britain in 1911 to represent Denmark at the coronation of George V and Mary. During World War I, Denmark remained neutral and Olfert Fischer was assigned to the defense forces that guarded Danish territorial waters. Sharply reduced naval budgets in the 1920s and 1930s curtailed further activities, and Olfert Fischer saw little activity during this period, apart from testing a reconnaissance aircraft in 1922. She was eventually converted into a target ship and used for tests of aerial bombing of a ship underway in October 1936, before being sold for scrap immediately thereafter.