"Radetsky" - the ideal battleship
Austria-Hungary was a land empire, so most of its military budget was predictably eaten up by the army. Fleet not that much was received. But there were some advantages to this situation. Firstly, the Empire was forced to rely on its own strength: its naval department could not afford to buy ships abroad. Secondly, the chief engineer of the fleet, Siegfried Popper, did not have the money for risky experiments, so only well-tested ship models were built for the Kaiserliche und Köningliche Kriegsmarine. When Great Britain began the "dreadnought race", in which all other countries cheerfully joined, the Austrians were initially able to scrape together money only for the construction of classic squadron battleships. But these became the best squadron battleships in the world!
Field Marshal Radetzky, the Man and the Steamship
The first of the ships in the series was named after Field Marshal Count Joseph Wenzel Radetzky von Radetz, the victor over the Italians at Custozza and Novara. The same one in whose honor Strauss wrote his famous march, which everyone heard without even knowing what kind of music it was. The ships were built in Trieste, at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard, and artillery The battleships were supplied by the Czech Skoda, the main supplier of all shooting weapons in the dual monarchy.
Battleship King Edward VII - British analogue
"Radetzky" was laid down on November 26, 1907. Of course, by that time "Dreadnought" was already sailing the oceans, but, on the other hand, in Russia "Evstafiy" was laid down in 1911, the French were busy churning out "Dantons", and the British, together with the dreadnoughts, were completing eight battleships of the "King Edward VII" type. However, the Austrian shipbuilders had no need to orient themselves on "Evstafiy", "Dantons", or "King Edwards"! The fact is that the Danube Monarchy had one extremely rare advantage: it had only one theater of military operations and only one enemy.
"Sardinia" - battleship of the "Re Umberto" class
Of the entire World Ocean, Austria-Hungary was interested in only 0,04 percent called the "Adriatic Sea", and of all the world's fleets, only the Italian one. Accordingly, the imperial and royal engineers had the opportunity to build ships whose coal reserves were sufficient for operations only in the Adriatic, and for which special seaworthiness was unnecessary. The ships against which the battleships of the "Radetzky" type could theoretically go out were two battleships of the "Regina Margherita" type and four battleships of the "Regina Elena" type. Three old battleships of the "Re Umberto" type also had a certain share of combat capability.
Bob Kernahan Armadillo "Regina Margherita"
The Regina Margherita-class ships were small battleships with a full displacement of 14093 tons. They could travel at a speed of 20,3 knots and were armed with 4x305 mm main caliber guns in twin turrets fore and aft, 4x1 203 mm guns in casemated mounts at the corners of the superstructure, and 12x152 mm guns in casemates on the main deck. Anti-mine armament consisted of 20x76 mm, 2x47 mm, and 2x37 mm guns and a pair of machine guns. It should be noted right away that this caliber was clearly too small for defense against destroyers of the early 152th century... The armor of the Italian ships was sad: the belt thickness was 76 mm in the central part and XNUMX mm at the ends.
Battleship "Regina Elena"
The Regina Margherita-class ships did not satisfy the Italian admirals: they were equally poorly suited for both long-range and close-range combat. The design errors were taken into account in the next project, Regina Elena. The ship's displacement shrank to 12550 tons, the speed increased to 21 knots, the armor became much more solid: 250 mm - main belt, 250 mm - beams, 100 mm - deck, 200 mm - main caliber turrets, 150 mm - intermediate caliber turrets... But the armament was significantly reduced: 2x1 305-mm guns in the bow and stern turrets, 6x2 203-mm guns in the side turrets, 16x1 76-mm anti-torpedo guns.
"Re Umberto" was the largest of the ships described - full displacement - 15454 tons. Armament - 4x343-mm guns in the bow and stern barbettes, 8x152-mm guns behind armor shields on the upper deck, 4 barrels per side, anti-torpedo battery - 16x120-mm in casemates on the sides, all artillery by 1907 was thoroughly outdated. The armor of the ships of the "Re Umberto" type was even weaker than that of the "Regina Margherita" type - the main belt - 102 mm, deck - 76 mm, barbettes - 349 mm, conning tower - 300 mm, armor - Schneider-Creusot. The ship's maximum speed was 18,3 knots.
The ideal battleship "Radetsky"
What did the Austro-Hungarian engineers decide to counter their Italian opponents with? The Radetsky had a small displacement of 14700 tons. But the ship was armored well, but not excessively: belt - 230 mm, deck - 48 mm, bulkheads - 54 mm, main caliber turrets - 250 mm, auxiliary caliber turrets - 200 mm, casemates - 120 mm, conning tower - 250 mm. But the armament...
Main caliber…
As the main caliber, the Austrians chose 4x305-mm Skoda guns with a barrel length of 45 calibers, which contemporaries often described with words like "excellent." And the guns were worth it: with a rate of fire of 3 shots per minute (in the first minute, then the rate of fire decreased to 2 shots), they sent a 450-kg armor-piercing projectile to a distance of 20 thousand meters.
For comparison, the rate of fire of the main caliber of the Regina Margherita was one shot per minute, and the weight of the projectile was 417 kg. And the intermediate caliber of the Radetsky was a masterpiece: 8x240 mm guns in four turrets - two per side. The anti-mine battery - 20x100 mm rapid-fire guns, 10 per side. Their rate of fire reached 8-10 shots per minute, and the weight of the projectile was 26,2 kg. This was enough to protect against destroyers of the Second World War, and in 1907 ... There was also small-caliber artillery - two 66 mm landing guns, five 47 mm guns. And three torpedo tubes - two on the sides and one in the bow.
How did the imperial and royal engineers manage to achieve such high performance? Well, firstly, financial constraints make the brain work harder, and secondly... The Austrians had something to cut. They did not need a long cruising range! The Radetsky had a cruising range of only 4000 miles. For comparison, the Italians, as the happy owners of African colonies, had to build a cruising range of up to 10 miles into the Regina Margherita, and 11 into the Regina Elena. Even the Re Umberto could travel 6 miles. But the Radetsky did not need that in the Adriatic.
The Radetsky received its baptism of fire during the Balkan Wars: an international squadron under the command of British Admiral Cecil Burney, which also included Austro-Hungarian ships, tried to block the coast of Montenegro in order to prevent the Serbs from sending reinforcements. True, the battleships did not manage to shoot, the Radetsky and its sister ships were assigned the role of a seaplane base.
"Radetsky" is firing
But the ship did fight in World War I! Well, how did it fight... The Austro-Hungarian fleet was not particularly active, however, already in 1914 the ship was involved in the operation to cover the German cruisers Goeben and Breslau during their breakthrough through the Mediterranean Sea. Then the Radetsky took part in the shelling of the French landing on Mount Lovcen on October 21, 1914. The shelling was effective: the French troops abandoned their positions. And in 1915, what the ship was built for happened - Italy entered the war!
On May 23, 1915, the Radetsky began bombarding the coast of Italy and Montenegro, with the naval base in Ancona as its main target. The ship then shelled the Termit Islands and several cities. The Italians sent two destroyers to intercept the battleship, but the Radetsky's anti-torpedo battery showed its best performance: one destroyer escaped, and the second was badly damaged and lost its power. The Austrians decided to take it in tow and take it to Pula as a trophy, but upon learning of the approach of reinforcements, they abandoned this idea and retreated. On the way home, the battleship destroyed a railway bridge near the city of Fermo, which resulted in the deaths of 63 soldiers and civilians. The shelling of Ancona delayed the Italian offensive for two weeks, which allowed the Austrians to strengthen their positions by withdrawing troops from the Eastern Front and the Balkans.
However, this was the end of both the successes and combat activities of the Austro-Hungarian fleet in general and the battleship Radetzky in particular. Fuel supplies ran out, and then the fleet was blockaded in the Gulf of Otranto. In October 1918, the end was coming for Austria-Hungary. Logically, the entire imperial and royal fleet should have gone to Italy - who else? But the Austrians were not going to give the ships to the enemy with whom they had been preparing to fight and had fought all their lives. In this situation, the Germans sank the ships in Scapa Flow. But the admirals of the dying dual monarchy, as they thought, found another way out - they gave the ships to the newly formed Yugoslavia. Yugoslav crews boarded the Radetzky and took it out of Pula. Along the way, the Italians tried to stop them, but the Yugoslavs raised American flags. The trick worked, but not for long. As a result of the negotiations, Austria-Hungary was obliged to partially hand over the ships to the Italians. In 1920, the "ideal battleship" fell into their hands and was scrapped.
"Radetsky" became one of the best representatives of "pre-dreadnoughts" - a fairly large class of ships laid down before the dreadnoughts came into being and completed. Like most of its classmates, it did not have the chance to participate in the main naval battles of the First World War (the Germans tried to use six of their battleships in the Battle of Jutland, nothing good came of it): in a linear battle with dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts, they had no chance. But it was on their shoulders that the main share of combat work in the "secondary theaters" fell: the Dardanelles landing operation, the pursuit of "Goeben" and "Breslau" and the shelling of the Turkish coast on the Black Sea, the Battle of Moonsund in the Baltic. And they bore this burden with honor...
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