Above:

Austrian-Hungarian 24,500-ton battleship of the 'improved type TEGETTHOFF', which was not built in 1914 due to the outbreak of the war. 86 cm long model in the scale 1: 200 by Dipl.-Ing. Otto Schetina, Zeltweg. Digital photo for the book by L. Baumgartner / E.Sieche: The ships of the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine im Bild, Volume 2: 1896-1918; Publisher Stöhr, Vienna 2001.

 


CAP RIBBONS: The military chancellery of the heir of the throne prepared in 1911 a list of possible names for future ships. As at least one ship would have to be constructed at the Hungarian yard “Ganz & Co. – Danubius” at least one or may be two ships would have a Hungarian name. The cap ribbons are of course pure fiction, the names taken from the 1911-list. Maybe that in 1914 other names would have been proposed. The last decision made the Emperor himself.


 



History



Improved Tegetthoff Class - Ship Plans


AutoCAD Ersatz Monarch Plans - by Andrew Wilkie

Ersatz Monarch Construction Plans - Andrew Wilkie.pdf
Ersatz Monarch Construction Plans Sections - Andrew Wilkie.pdf

 

Reference Documents - Improved Tegetthoff Class Battleship


File Name(s)

The Two Battleship which were never built in Rijeka Written by Mihály Krámli, PhD Budapest, Hungary
Improved Tegetthoff - Offer Letter Construction offer letter to Skoda, STT and Witkswitzer (German)
Improved Tegetthoff - Protocol Size assembly and armor of the to be built Battleships and Cruiser (German)
Improved Tegetthoff - Changes 26 design changes to the battleship (German)
Improved Tegetthoff - Ship Specifications Description of the ship's design, armament and dimensions (German)

 

 


The 35cm guns of the Improved Tegetthoff class Battleships - by Erwin Sieche


 

 


9 cm Anti-Torpedo Boat Gun - by Erwin Sieche


A new 9 cm gun was envisaged for the improved Tegetthoffs. (Hypothesis: as the foregoing 7 cm gun in fact had the calibre of 66 mm maybe that the 9 cm gun would have a calibre of 88 mm.) This gun did not exist, when the ship’s keel laying was scheduled. According to the war it was postponed and developed late in the war. These are scans of the original Skoda plans. In A-H nomenclature TAG means ‘Torpedoboot Abwehr Geschuetz”, e. g. Anti torpedoboot gun. In consequence BAG means “Ballon Abwehr Geschuetz”, a somehow antiquated name, it was simply a AA gun. L/45 means the length of the barrel, in English described as cal 45.


 

Official files and plans

Oesterreichisches Staatsarchiv/Kriegsarchiv, Vienna

Files II GG 1911 4D/4 2/7, 2/21, 7/9; I GG 1913 I-4/11; II GG 1914 47 C 6/4-9/5, II GG 1914 IV B 1/7

Collection of ship’s plans

Sch IV/1-2 to Sch IV/1-6

 

Reference books

Gray Randal (Editor), Conway's all the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921, London 1985, page 335

Prasil, Michal, Skoda Heavy Guns, Atglen, PA/USA, 1997

Schirmer, Hermann, Das Geraet der schweren Artillerie vor, in und nach dem Weltkrieg, Berlin 1937, page 374

 

Periodicals

Die Flagge, Vienna, August 1913, pages 294, 295

HADITECHNIKA, Budapest, 3/1972, page 54

MARINE - Gestern, Heute, Vienna, 4/1977, page 118

Marine Rundschau, Germany, October 1938, page 752f

Warship International, Toledo USA, 2/1971, page 186, 1/1972, page 85, 4/1972, page 443, 2/1974, page 173ff, 3/1980, page 281, 1/1984, page 120f, 3/1985 page 320f

 

TEST BED - Explosive Object

Type of ship: Test object, a fuselage section of the ship to be tested

Shipyard Place Construction time: Arsenal, Pola, 1867 - 1914

Curriculum Vitae: Floating experimental objects for artillery experiments and seaman experiments to test the armor and the torpedo protection. Completely made of iron or steel according to the floor and the side wall of the projected ship. The earliest known objects of this type were used for artillery experiments of Armstrong muzzle-loaders from sections FERDINAND MAX and HABSBURG. Later, other objects for the casemate ship CUSTOZZA and following were made, the last, most famous, for the battleships type ERSATZ MONARCH 1914. With the elevation of 1875 submerged object was due to the excessive weight greater problems, so that it only after the expansion of 290 tonnes of ballast in February 1877 could be lifted. The work then led to the emergence and systemization of the divers training courses.
Shipbuilding plans z.T. in the war archive Vienna available.

To optimize the underwater protection scheme of the abortive super-dreadnoughts of the ‘improved TEGETTHOFF-type’, dubbed ‘Ersatz MONARCH-class’ of 1914/15 a special TEST BED was built and underwent blast tests in March 1914. The complete technical documentation of these tests –filed as II GG 4 K-1 in 1914– was probably sacked immediately after the war by one of the Allied fact-finding missions as ‘prize of outstanding technical importance’ and are missing today in the files of the Austrian State Archive/War Archive. Only a handful of photographs survived, as shown here.


More news and pictures in: K. u. k. Fleet, p. 46. Baumgartner / Sieche: Kriegsmarine in picture 2, p. 250. Navy Yesterday Today 1980, p. 110.