>I did a little looking into this, and it looks like the Sweden-Norway
>union was a system not entirely unlike the Austro-Hungarian one, in
>that Norway and Sweden were still nominally separate countries with a
>common monarch. They shared a foreign service, because that was
>directly subordinate to the Crown, but had separate everything elses,
>including armies. In practice, that probably worked about as well for
>them as it did for Austria-Hungary, although at least, unlike
>Austria-Hungary, they didn't go ahead and have a third army for
>the union-as-a-whole. :)

Formally the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway was...more than a bit of a mess. It was something of a compromise between the desire for independence of Norway, which had been Danish, and the Swedish demands for restitution for the Napoleonic wars, where Denmark had been on the 'wrong' side. Denmark handed over Norway, and a significant chunk of change, and Sweden handed over Pomerania, a part of what is now Germany and Poland, a significantly smaller amount of real estate.

Sweden, all through the union, tried to increase the "one nation" sentiment, and the Norwegians, ungrateful bastards that they were, were VERY much of the "Norway as an independent country without Swedish intervention" bent. Cue massive surprise in Sweden, and no-where else in the world.

Foreign service was indeed shared, about 20 years after the creation of the union Norway even got to be a part of the decision-making there. One of the large issues that made the major cracks appear was that Norway didn't have a real leadership of it's own for the majority of the union, instead having a Governor-General, which was seen as a blatant flaunting of the Swedish control of Norway.

There was also a union-mark in the flags, so that each nation had it's own flag, and the upper, inner quarter would be a 'combined' flag, sort of how the Brit flag is in the Australian one. This, however, bred resentment in Norway, seen as a reminder that they weren't free. Also, the mark was heniously ugly(my opinion), and was generally referred to as the

And no, there was no third unified army.

>Anyway, that may explain why the Norwegian Army didn't get around to
>adopting the homegrown rifle until a few years after the Danes and the
>Americans did, and why they ended up using the same ammunition for it
>as the completely different rifle the Swedes adopted—logistical
>concerns and all that. Certainly they didn't wait for the dissolution
>of the Union before adopting the Krag, since the final break didn't
>happen until more than 10 years later.

Well, the ammo was decided on first, in an actual bi-nation committee, the desire was a flatter trajectory and more ammo brought along(much like the 7.62 vs 5.56). The previous round had been the 10.15mm Jarmann. Each nation then picked the rifle they wanted to have shoot that round. The committee decided on the 6.5x55mm, Sweden went and bought Mausers, before then making licensed versions domestically, using high-grade Swedish tool steel(even in the German-produced ones), and Norway decided on the Krag, rechambered.

>(I was amused to find a note that the Norwegian and Swedish 6.5x55
>ammunition were slightly different in practice, with the Norwegian
>cartridges tending to be just a little bit oversized, and that some
>people assumed—evidently wrongly—that this was so the
>Norwegians could use captured Swedish ammunition in the expected civil
>war but not the other way around. Seems more likely it was just one
>or the other ammunition plant getting it slightly wrong. Ockham's
>razor and all that. :)

Not a bad thought. :) It's actually due to a (mis-)interpretation of the specs, where the Krag used the maximum chamber pressure and the Mauser the minimum. The Norwegian ammo still worked in the Swedish gun, it just required a bit more push on the bolt. Both ammos were within the specifications, just not on the same end of it. It's because Josef Alm was a moron perpetuating a rumor(Alm was a Swedish "weapon-historian" of the '30s) that the idea still pops up. Incidentally, spitzer rounds took nearly 50 years to arrive. The original designation was the m/94, where the number means what you think. The spitzer was the m/94-41. Again, the numbers mean what you think.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"