Author Topic: THE TEGETTHOFF CLASS OF BATTLESHIP.  (Read 671 times)

Haddock

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THE TEGETTHOFF CLASS OF BATTLESHIP.
« on: August 29, 2021, 09:26:28 AM »
The Tegetthoff class of ship were four Dreadnaught type of ships built for the Austro-Hungarian navy.

Armed with twelve twelve inch guns in four tripple turrets, a lenght of five hundred feet, a displacement of twenty thousand tons and a speed of twenty knots, these were powerfull ships, as powerfull as any other at the time.
They were :-

SMS Viribus Unitis.  Commissioned Oct 1912, sunk by frogmen in 1918.

SMS Tegtthoff.  commisioned July 1913, scrapped in 1924.

SMS Prinz Eugen.  Commisioned July 1914, sunk as a target ship in 1922'

SMS Szent Istvan. Commisioned Dec 1915, sunk by an Italian toepedoe boat in1918.
There is a video of the sinking on U-tube, taken from another ship in the class, the only film of the sinking of a Battleship till that
of HMS Barham in WW2.

The first three were built at the same yard, a different yard was chosen for the final ship.
 
Below is a picture taken at Pola harbour of three of the ships, the one in the foreground is SMS Szent Istvan, identified by the lack
of anti-torpedoe nets and the searchlight platform high up on the superstructure.

This is followed by one shot of SMS Viribus Unitis, the next perports to be Viribus Unitis but if you look closely, the wings on the bridge have moved up a level making me think it's another ship in the same class. The final two are of SMS Szent Istvan.

The difference between Szent Istvan and the rest of the class were:-

The absence of torpedoe nets.
The addition of the searchlight platform high on the superstructure.
The bridge wings were removed.
The ventilator trunk just for'ard of the mainmast was of a different design.
The funnels were increased in height.
Twin propellors were fitted instead of four.
There are other smaller differences.
Haddock.

« Last Edit: August 29, 2021, 09:38:35 AM by Haddock »