HDMS Peder Skram (1908)

Peder Skram and other ships of the Danish fleet underway, c. 1914
History
Denmark
Name	Peder Skram
Builder	Orlogsværftet
Laid down	25 April 1905
Launched	2 May 1908
Commissioned	24 September 1909
Fate	Scuttled, 1943
History
Germany
Name	Adler
Acquired	1943
Commissioned	1944
Fate	Sunk, April 1945 Raised, sold for scrap 1949
General characteristics
Displacement	3,785 long tons (3,846 t)
Length	87.4 m (286 ft 9 in)
Beam	15.7 m (51 ft 6 in)
Draft	5 m (16 ft 5 in)
Installed power	2 × Thornycroft boilers 5,400 ihp (4,000 kW)
Propulsion	2 × triple-expansion steam engines 2 × screw propellers
Speed	16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Complement	257–258
Armament	2 × 240 mm (9.4 in) guns 4 × 150 mm (5.9 in) guns 10 × 75 mm (3.0 in) guns 2 × 37 mm (1.5 in) guns 4 × 457 mm (18 in) torpedo tubes
Armor	Belt armor: 155 to 195 mm (6.1 to 7.7 in) Deck: 45 to 65 mm (1.8 to 2.6 in) Conning tower: 190 mm (7.5 in) Gun turrets: 160 to 190 mm (6.3 to 7.5 in) Barbettes: 185 mm (7.3 in)

HDMS Peder Skram was the third and final 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; Peder Skram was delayed significantly compared to her sisters, and was laid down in 1905, after her two sister ships had already been completed. The ships 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).

Peder Skram took part in routine training exercises and cruises in northern European waters in the years between her completion in 1909 and the start of World War I in 1914. She thereafter served as part of Denmark's neutrality patrols during the war, and she was involved in an incident between a British submarine and two German torpedo boats in 1915. The 1920s and 1930s saw intermittent activity for Peder Skram, mainly due to tight naval budgets that precluded significant operations. She was reactivated following the start of World War II in 1939, but saw no action when Germany invaded Denmark in April 1940. Initially permitted to retain its ships, the Danish fleet scuttled them in 1943 to prevent Germany from seizing them. The Germans nevertheless raised Peder Skram and commissioned her under the name Adler for use as a stationary anti-aircraft battery in Kiel. Sunk there by Allied bombers in 1945, she was raised again after the war and returned to Denmark, where she was eventually scrapped in 1949.