Tegetthoff class
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The Tegetthoff class (also known as the Viribus Unitis class ) was a battleship class of the Kuk Kriegsmarine . It consisted of
Since the sister ship Viribus Unitis was launched before the type ship Tegetthoff , the class is named after the first ship as the Viribus Unitis class in many publications .
The ships of this class were the only capital ships in Austria-Hungary when the First World War broke out and remained so for the duration of the war. The successors of the replacement Monarch class did not get beyond the planning stage due to the war.
As the most modern units of the Austrian Navy, they formed the backbone of the Mediterranean fleet on the one hand, but were only used very cautiously on the other hand, since they would practically not have been replaced in the event of a sinking. On their rare missions they did not leave the Adriatic and mainly undertook shelling of Italian coastal towns, avoiding skirmishes with Italian battleships as much as possible.
Construction data
The ships of the Tegetthoff class were slightly 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 made by Škoda in four triplet turrets , which were mounted in an elevated position. This construction method with triplet towers was implemented for the first time in the world in the Tegetthoff class and was later to become generally accepted in battleship construction. The armament was just as strong as that of its Italian counterpart Dante Alighieri . The underwater protection was 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 ships, like the rest of the fleet, were designed as coastal defenders.
The first three ships were built at Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino in Mulgs . The Szent István , on the other hand, was built at the Danubius shipyard in Fiume .
Since the danger posed by aircraft bombs had not yet been recognized at the time of construction, the ships of this class lacked the later mandatory armored grating in the chimney necks, which prevented bombs from penetrating the boiler rooms. As a makeshift, the chimney openings were spanned with wire nets, which were later supplemented by conical sheets that were supposed to act as bomb deflectors.
The Szent István was equipped with a platform wreath encompassing both funnels, which was connected to the front of the bridge deck and which her three sister ships did not have.
literature
- Wladimir Aichelburg: Kuk Fleet 1900-1918 . Österreichische Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-8132-0573-8 .
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905-1970 . JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 .
- Bernhard Ireland / Tony Gibbons: Jane's 20th Century Warships . Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-86047-592-4 .
- Friedrich Prasky: The Tegetthoff class: model making technology history , Hamburg [u. a.], mediator [u. a.], 2000, ISBN 3-7046-1481-5 , ISBN 3-8132-0712-9 .
- Christoph Ramoser: K. uk battleships in the Adriatic - Austria-Hungary's Tegetthoff class , Vienna, ÖBV, Pädag. Ed., 1998.
- Friedrich Prasky: The distinguishing features of the ships of the "Tegetthoff" class . In: Marine - yesterday, today (1987), 2, pp. 51-56.
- Erwin Sieche: The history of the development of the "Tegetthoff" class . In: Marine - yesterday, today (1984), 4, pp. 109-152.
- Wladimir Aichelburg: The "Tegetthoff" class. Austria-Hungary's largest battleships , Munich 1981.
- Keyword Tegetthoff , in: Wladimir Aichelburg: Register of the k. (U.) K. Warships. From Abbondanza to Zrinyi , Vienna 2002, pp. 427–429.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm M. Donko: Pola: a historical travel guide through the former main war port of Austria-Hungary in Istria (Croatia) . epubli, 2015, ISBN 978-3-7375-2418-6 ( google.at [accessed on September 21, 2017]).