HDMS Iver Hvitfeldt was a coastal defense ship built for the Royal Danish Navy in the 1880s.

As she was intended to serve as part of the defense of Copenhagen, she was fairly small, but was heavily armed and armored for her size.

Iver Hvitfeldt had a relatively uneventful career, taking part in routine training exercises in the 1890s and early 1900s.

But the limited Danish naval budget prevented building the ship, as the funds available for construction were directed toward the new unprotected cruiser Fyen.

[2] The design staff grappled with the problem of strengthening the armor to defeat contemporary armor-piercing shells, balanced against carrying an effective armament and retaining a useful top speed, while trying to keep displacement within reason.

The central citadel would retain enough buoyancy to keep the ship afloat even if the bow and stern were flooded; this principle was borrowed from British ironclads in service at the time.

She was fitted with six 400 mm (15.7 in) searchlights, two on the bridge above the conning tower; the rest were on the two pole masts or upper deck.

[5] This enabled Iver Hvidfeldt to steam for 1,600 nautical miles (3,000 km; 1,800 mi) at a cruising speed of 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph).

[2] The ship's main battery consisted of a pair of 260 mm (10.2 in) 35-caliber guns, which were manufactured by the German firm Krupp.

Her belt armor was 292 mm (11.5 in) thick, though it only covered the central portion of her hull, accounting for about half the length of the ship.

Forward and aft, a curved armor deck extended from the citadel below the waterline to provide a degree of protection to the bow and stern.

The fore and aft decks were placed below the waterline, and the bow and stern were heavily subdivided into a total of 55 watertight compartments to reduce the effects of flooding due to damage.

[2] She was launched on 14 April 1886,[7] and after completing builder's sea trials, she was commissioned into the Royal Danish Navy on 1 June 1887.

[2] Throughout much of Iver Hvitfeldt's career, she spent most of the year out of service in reserve, but would be activated in May or June for the annual training cycle that would end in September or October.

During these periods, she would cruise independently to train the crews that had been mobilized for that year's maneuvers, after which she would join the other vessels that had been activated for squadron exercises.

[2] In July 1890, Iver Hvitfeldt led the summer training squadron under the command of Rear Admiral Bragg; the unit also included the screw corvette St Thomas, the protected cruiser Valkyrien, and three torpedo boats.

[8] During the individual cruising period of the 1893 training cycle, Iver Hvitfeldt visited Trondheim, Norway.

[6] The contemporary publication Army and Navy Journal described the ship as having been "destroyed by a fire which originated in her coal bunkers.

By this time, the 356 mm torpedo tubes were removed and half of the Hotchkiss revolvers were replaced with ten 6-pounder guns.

She visited Rotterdam in the Netherlands that year, and when King Frederick VIII of Denmark arrived home after a cruise to the Faroe Islands, Iver Hvitfeldt met his vessel off Helsingør on 21 August.

[7] The vessel was sold to a Dutch firm based in Rotterdam; by July 1919, she had been towed there and dismantling work had begun.