SMS Kaiser Karl VI
![]() SMS Kaiser Karl VI
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Class overview | |
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Preceded by | Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia |
Succeeded by | Sankt Georg |
History | |
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Builder | Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino |
Laid down | 1 June 1896 |
Launched | 4 October 1898 |
Commissioned | 23 May 1900 |
Decommissioned | 1918 |
Fate | Ceded to Britain as a war prize ; scrapped in 1920 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Armored cruiser |
Displacement | |
Length | 118.96 m (390 ft 3 in) |
Beam | 17.27 m (56 ft 8 in) |
Draft | 6.75 m (22 ft) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion |
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Speed | 20.83 knots (38.58 km/h; 23.97 mph) |
Complement | 535 |
Armament |
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Armor |
SMS Kaiser Karl VI ("His Majesty's Ship Kaiser Karl VI")[a] was the second of three armored cruisers built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy. She was built by the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino in Trieste between June 1896 and May 1900, when she was commissioned into the fleet. Kaiser Karl VI represented a significant improvement over the preceding design—Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia—being faster and more heavily armed and armored. She provided the basis for the third design, Sankt Georg, which featured further incremental improvements. Having no overseas colonies to patrol, Austria-Hungary built the ship solely to reinforce its battle fleet.
Kaiser Karl VI spent the first decade in service rotating between the training and reserve squadrons, alternating with Sankt Georg. In 1910, Kaiser Karl VI went on a major overseas cruise to South America, visiting Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina; this was the last trans-Atlantic voyage of an Austro-Hungarian warship. After the outbreak of war, she was mobilized into the Cruiser Flotilla, which spent the majority of the war moored at
Design
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/KuK_Maria_Theresa.png/220px-KuK_Maria_Theresa.png)
Starting in the mid-1880s, the new Austro-Hungarian Marinekommandant (Navy Commander), Vizeadmiral (Vice Admiral) Maximilian Daublebsky von Sterneck, began a reorientation of Austro-Hungarian naval strategy. The fleet had until then been centered on large ironclad warships, but had been unable to continue building vessels of that type under the direction of the previous Marinekommandant, Vizeadmiral Friedrich von Pöck, owing to the refusal of the Imperial Council of Austria and the Diet of Hungary to grant sufficient naval budgets. Sterneck decided to adopt the concepts espoused by the French Jeune École (Young School), which suggested that flotillas of cheap torpedo boats could effectively defend a coastline against a fleet of expensive battleships. The torpedo boats would be supported by what Sterneck termed "torpedo-ram-cruisers", which would protect the torpedo boats from enemy cruisers.[1][2]
In his fleet plan for 1891, Sterneck proposed that the future Austro-Hungarian fleet would consist of four squadrons, each consisting of one torpedo-ram-cruiser, a smaller
Those opposed to Sterneck believed the new cruisers should be formed into their own squadron to serve with the main battle fleet, and so in 1894, began preparations to build another armored cruiser. Three competing designs were submitted, two by the naval architect Josef Kellner and the third by Viktor Lollok. Kellner's initial design was for a 5,800-long-ton (5,900 t) ship similar to Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia, armed with the same battery of two 24 cm (9.4 in) guns and eight 15 cm (5.9 in) guns. The second was broadly similar with the same but differently arranged armament, and displacement increased to 6,000 long tons (6,100 t) and two funnels instead of the one in his other design. Lollok's proposal was also 6,000 tons, and instead of carrying all eight 15 cm guns in main-deck casemates, four would be moved up to open mounts on the upper deck.[4]
The naval command selected Kellner's second design, although it mandated a change to water-tube boilers for increased engine power, which in turn necessitated the addition of a third funnel. She also received the latest version of 24 cm guns manufactured by the German firm Krupp: the longer-barreled SK L/40 C/94 version. The new cruiser, named Kaiser Karl VI, was about 1,000 long tons (1,000 t) larger than her predecessor, Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia, and was a significantly more effective vessel as a result, being a knot faster, mounting more powerful guns, and carrying heavier armor.[5]
General characteristics and machinery
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Kaiser-Karl-VI_Brassey%27s1915.png/290px-Kaiser-Karl-VI_Brassey%27s1915.png)
Kaiser Karl VI was 117.9 meters (386 ft 10 in)
The ship's propulsion system consisted of two 4-cylinder
Armament and armor
Kaiser Karl VI was armed with a
The ship's armor consisted of Harvey armor.[5] She was protected by a main armored belt that was 220 mm (8.7 in) thick in the central portion that protected the ammunition magazines and machinery spaces, and reduced to 170 mm (6.7 in) on either end. She had an armored deck that was 40 to 60 mm (1.6 to 2.4 in) thick. Her two gun turrets had 200 mm (7.9 in) thick faces, and the 15 cm guns had 80 mm (3.1 in) thick casemates. The conning tower had 200 mm thick sides and a 100 mm (3.9 in) thick roof.[6]
Service history
Named for the 18th-century
In mid-1910, Kaiser Karl VI conducted the last trans-Atlantic cruise of an Austrian vessel, when she visited Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. On 25 May, she represented Austria-Hungary at the centennial of Argentina's May Revolution, which won the country's independence from Spain.[13]
World War I
On 28 June 1914, Archduke
On 8 August, Montenegrin gun batteries on
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cf/SMS_Kaiser_Karl_IV_1917.jpg/220px-SMS_Kaiser_Karl_IV_1917.jpg)
By the end of August, the mobilization of the fleet was complete; Kaiser Karl VI was assigned to the Cruiser Flotilla, which was commanded by Vice Admiral Paul Fiedler.[16] For most of the war, the Cruiser Flotilla and based at Cattaro, though the armored cruisers were too slow to operate with the newer Novara-class cruisers that carried out the bulk of offensive operations.[17] In May 1915, Italy declared war on the Central Powers. The Austro-Hungarians continued their strategy of serving as a fleet in being, which would tie down the now further numerically superior Allied naval forces. Haus hoped that torpedo boats and mines could be used to reduce the numerical superiority of the Italian fleet before a decisive battle could be fought.[18]
By early 1918, the long periods of inactivity had begun to wear on the crews of several warships at Cattaro, including Kaiser Karl VI. On 1 February, the
Fate
In the aftermath of the Cattaro Mutiny, most of the obsolete warships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, including Kaiser Karl VI, were decommissioned to reduce the number of idle warships.
Notes
Footnotes
- Seiner Majestät Schiff" (German: His Majesty's Ship).
Citations
- ^ Sondhaus, pp. 51–53.
- ^ Dodson, p. 46.
- ^ Dodson, pp. 46–47, 66.
- ^ Dodson, pp. 47, 66.
- ^ a b Dodson, p. 66.
- ^ a b c d e f g Sieche & Bilzer, p. 273.
- ^ Dodson, pp. 47, 170.
- ^ Sondhaus, p. 160.
- ^ a b c Dodson, p. 170.
- ^ Sondhaus, pp. 172–173.
- ^ Garbett 1900, p. 808.
- ^ Garbett 1901, p. 1130.
- ^ Sondhaus, p. 185.
- ^ Sondhaus, pp. 245–249.
- ^ Noppen, pp. 28–30.
- ^ Sondhaus, p. 257.
- ^ Sondhaus, p. 303.
- ^ Halpern Cattaro Mutiny, pp. 49–50.
- ^ Sondhaus, pp. 318–324.
- ^ Halpern Cattaro Mutiny, pp. 52–53.
- ^ Sieche 1985, p. 329.
References
- ISBN 978-1-4738-9216-3.
- Garbett, H., ed. (1900). "Naval Notes". Journal of the Royal United Service Institution. XLIV. London: J. J. Keliher & Co.: 803–813.
- Garbett, H., ed. (1901). "Naval Notes". Journal of the Royal United Service Institution. XLV. London: J. J. Keliher & Co.: 1124–1139.
- Halpern, Paul (1994). A Naval History of World War I. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-266-6.
- Halpern, Paul (2004). "The Cattaro Mutiny, 1918". In Bell, Christopher M.; Elleman, Bruce A. (eds.). Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective. London: Frank Cass. pp. 45–65. ISBN 978-0-7146-5460-7.
- Noppen, Ryan (2012). Austro-Hungarian Battleships, 1914–18. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84908-688-2.
- Sieche, Erwin F. (1990). "Austria-Hungary's Last Visit to the USA". Warship International. XXVII (2): 142–164. ISSN 0043-0374.
- Sieche, Erwin (1985). "Austria-Hungary". In Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. pp. 326–347. ISBN 978-0-87021-907-8.
- Sieche, Erwin & Bilzer, Ferdinand (1979). "Austria-Hungary". In Gardiner, Robert; Chesneau, Roger & Kolesnik, Eugene M. (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 266–283. ISBN 978-0-85177-133-5.
- Sondhaus, Lawrence (1994). The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press. ISBN 978-1-55753-034-9.
Further reading
- Greger, René (1976). Austro-Hungarian Warships of World War I. London: Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0623-7.
- Sieche, Erwin (2002). Kreuzer und Kreuzerprojekte der k.u.k. Kriegsmarine 1889–1918 [Cruisers and Cruiser Projects of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, 1889–1918] (in German). Hamburg. ISBN 978-3-8132-0766-8.)
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