Monarch class
The Monarch class was a class of ships of the line in the Austro-Hungarian Navy , built in the late 19th century. They were the first tower ships of the imperial and royal navy . Three ships were built, the SMS Monarch , SMS Wien , and SMS Budapest .
design
The ships were relatively small with a tonnage of only 5878 t. They had belt armor made of Harvey steel 270 mm thick, turret armor from 203 to 220 mm and deck armor from 64 mm.
Armament
The main armament of this class consisted of two twin turrets with a caliber of 24 cm / L40, one pointing forward and one aft. Six pieces of 15 cm / L40 caliber were used as medium artillery. The light artillery was ten pieces of Skoda 4.7 cm L / 44 and four Hotchkiss cannons of 4.7 cm L / 33 on board. In addition, the ships were each equipped with two sideways, permanently installed overwater torpedo tubes and a machine gun (caliber 8mm). Two Uchatius guns in 7 cm L / 15 caliber were available to arm the dinghies.
Machine and crew
The ships of the Monarch class had coal-fired steam engines and usually had a coal supply of 300 tons of coal , if necessary 500 tons of coal could also be loaded. The crew usually consisted of 26 officers and 397 men. The ships had a maximum speed of 15.5 knots (Monarch / Vienna), the Budapest 17.5 knots.
Use in peace
The Monarch and the Vienna were launched in 1895 and the Budapest a year later. After commissioning as the first division, maneuvers in the Adriatic followed in 1899. SMS Vienna took part in the naval parade for the diamond jubilee for Queen Victoria in 1897, subsequently she was involved in the international blockade of Crete in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. In the course of the construction of newer units, further maneuvers and training of the crews followed and finally the assignment as coast guard and training ships.
Use in war
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During the First World War, the old ships formed the Fifth Division of the Navy. Budapest and Vienna shot at coastal positions near Venice , the Montenegrin coasts (Lovcen) and in the Adriatic Sea . On August 9, 1914, SMS Monarch shelled a French radio station in Budva and two Montenegrin radio stations in Bar and Volovica . In December 1915, SMS Budapest took part in an attack on Durazzo . In 1917 SMS Budapest and SMS Wien were sent to Trieste to bombard Italian positions in the Gulf of Trieste.
In 1917 the SMS Wien was sunk in the port of Trieste by Italian torpedoes. The Italian motor torpedo boats MAS 9 and MAS 13 under the command of Luigi Rizzo had previously entered the port unnoticed. SMS Budapest then served from 1917 as a depot ship and accommodation for German submarine crews. In June 1918, the old ship was rebuilt again and received a 380-mm howitzer for coastal bombardment, but was no longer used. The two remaining ships were given to Great Britain at the end of the war and scrapped in Italy in 1920/1922.