SMS Viribus Unitis

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SMS Viribus Unitis
Vu1912.JPG
Ship data
flag Austria-HungaryAustria-Hungary (naval war flag) Austria-Hungary
Ship type Battleship
class Tegetthoff class
Shipyard Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino , Mulgs
building-costs 82,000,000 gold crowns
Launch June 20, 1911
Commissioning October 6, 1912
Whereabouts Sunk on November 1, 1918
Ship dimensions and crew
length
152.2 m ( Lüa )
151.0 m ( KWL )
width 27.3 m
Draft Max. 8.6 m
displacement Construction: 22,000 t
Maximum: 22,860 t
 
crew 962 to 1,050 men
Machine system
machine 12 steam boilers
2 Parsons turbines
Machine
performance
25,000 PS (18,387 kW)
Top
speed
20.8 kn (39 km / h)
propeller 4th
Armament
  • 12 × 30.5 cm L / 45 Sk
  • 12 × 15.0 cm L / 50 Sk
  • 18 × 7.0 cm Sk
  • 2 × torpedo tube ∅ 53.3 cm (sides, under water)
Armor
  • Belt: 100-280 mm
  • Citadel: 180-200 mm
  • Armored deck: 48 mm
  • Torpedo bulkhead: 36 mm
  • Towers: 205 mm
  • Barbettes: 280 mm
  • Casemates: 100 mm
  • front command tower: 250-360 mm
  • aft command tower: 250 mm

The SMS Viribus Unitis was the first battleship of the Tegetthoff class of the Austro-Hungarian Navy . The name (dt. = With united forces ) was the motto of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I. The ship was launched on June 20, 1911 in Muggia and began its service in the Austro-Hungarian Navy on October 5, 1912. It was sunk at the end of the First World War on November 1, 1918 by Italian combat swimmers to prevent the navy from taking possession of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes .

construction

The construction, which began in 1910 at the insistence of the kuk admiral Count Rudolf Montecuccoli , cost around 82 million gold crowns. An average of 2,000 workers were employed during the roughly 25-month construction period. The plans for the ship were drawn up by the kuk shipbuilding general engineer Siegfried Popper .

Construction data

The ships of the Tegetthoff class were smaller than the dreadnoughts of other great powers, they had a displacement of only about 22,000 tons. They had a total of twelve heavy 30.5 cm guns in four triplet turrets , which were mounted in an elevated position. There was no need for a tower amidships. The armament was just as strong as that of its Italian counterpart Dante Alighieri and even stronger than that of the German König class with only ten 30.5 cm guns. The twelve Škoda guns were of excellent quality, range and accuracy, as was the fire control technology, which was superior to that of many other countries. The underwater protection was designed to be relatively weak; Torpedo protection was provided by steel nets, which could only be used when the ship was stopped. They were expensive and difficult to maintain. The engines were not overly powerful, the ship, like the rest of the fleet, was designed as a coastal defender. They built on the construction plans of the Radetzky class - they were more or less an enlarged design.

History of the ship

The baptism of the Viribus Unitis took place on June 20, 1911 in Trieste by Archduchess Maria Annunziata, who did not break the bottle of champagne used for this purpose on the bow of the ship in the conventional way , but instead burst the bottle already attached to the bow by means of a switch. Emperor Franz Joseph I could not take part in the launch due to illness; The highest-ranking attendant was therefore the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand . After his murder in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, the ship transferred his body from Metkovic to Trieste.

During the First World War , the ships of the Tegetthoff class, in accordance with the strategic concept of a fleet-in-being, had no significant enemy contact for most of the time. It was only in June 1918 that the naval commander in chief Miklós Horthy decided to attack the Otranto barrier using all heavy units. This venture was canceled after the torpedoing of the sister ship SMS Szent István and the Viribus Unitis, which had left the day before with the Prinz Eugen, had to return to Pola .

Shortly before the end of the First World War (Austria-Hungary signed the armistice on November 3, 1918) the ship - like the entire kuk war fleet stationed in Pola - was ordered by Vice Admiral Miklós Horthy on October 31, 1918 by Emperor Karl I. from Nagybánya to the newly founded state of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (which included the southern Slavs of Austria-Hungary), as Austria had lost its share of the Adriatic coast through the establishment of this state. The Viribus Unitis was to be renamed Jugoslavija , but this actually did not happen. Although the previous commander of the Viribus Unitis , Janko Vuković-Podkapelski , who had been appointed head of the SHS Navy, had declared the fleet to be neutral, the ship was defeated on November 1st by two Italian combat swimmers, Raffaele Rossetti and Raffaele Paolucci , using a converted torpedo , the so-called Mignatta , attached an explosive device to the hull and detonated, sunk in the morning hours. Italy did not want a new sea power on the east coast of the Adriatic. Over 400 sailors died in the sinking, including Janko Vuković-Podkapelski, in whose honor a memorial plaque was set up in Pola.

Museum exhibition

Viribus Unitis anchor in front of the Palazzo della Marina in Rome
Model of the SMS Viribus Unitis in the Army History Museum
Model of the SMS Viribus Unitis in the Imperial and Royal Marine Museum in Novigrad, Croatia

To commemorate Italy's victory in the war against Austria-Hungary, the anchors of the Viribus Unitis and the sister ship SMS Tegetthoff have been placed in front of the Naval Museum in Venice , the Naval Ministry in Rome and at the “Monumento al Marinaio d'Italia” in Brindisi . There is also a Viribus Unitis gun in Brindisi .

A cut-away model of the Viribus Unitis on a scale of 1:25 and a total length of six meters is exhibited in the Marinesaal of the Army History Museum in Vienna . It was built by eight skilled workers from the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard from 1913 to 1917. Friedrich Prasky restored the model from 1997–1999 and wrote a comprehensive work on this work as well as the technology and history of all four ships of the Tegetthoff class.

literature

  • Ludwig Bühnau: Ships and their fate. A book about the adventure of seafaring. Arena Verlag Georg Popp, Würzburg 1968.
  • Wladimir Aichelburg : Register of the k. (u.) k. Warships. From Abbondanza to Zrinyi . Neuer Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Vienna a. a. 2002. ISBN 3-7083-0052-1 .

Web links

Commons : SMS Viribus Unitis  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b Ludwig Bühnau: Ships and their fates. A book about the adventure of seafaring. Arena Verlag Georg Popp, Würzburg 1968.
  2. Warships from 1900 to today: technology and use . Buch und Zeit Verlagsgesellschaft mbh, Cologne 1979, p. 10 .
  3. Fred Hennings : As long as he lives. Volume 4: “I always get angry when I read your memoranda!” Herold-Verlag, Vienna 1970, p. 20.
  4. Fate of the absurd kind - The end of Viribus Unitis - a grotesque tragedy. In: The Standard. October 29, 2007, accessed March 25, 2012 .
  5. ^ Manfried Rauchsteiner : The Army History Museum in Vienna. Photos by Manfred Litscher. Verlag Styria, Graz et al. 2000, ISBN 3-222-12834-0 , p. 91.
  6. Friedrich Prasky : The Tegetthoff class. Model making - technology - history. Verlag Österreich ua, Wien u.a.2000, ISBN 3-7046-1481-5 , with cutting plan 1: 200.