Preliminary Designs - Viribus Unitis

The history of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy's first and only Dreadnought battleships are a rather interesting and intriguing one!

The first formal meeting of new battleships for the Austro-Hungarian Navy was held on May 7th, 1908 by the MTK (Marinetechnische Komitee - Naval Technical Committee), Pola / Vienna the meeting was led by Rudolf von Montecuccoli degli Erri, and the official design contest was issued on July 6th, 1908 with the following requirements:

Two shipyards were invited to make design studies based on these requirements: Ganz-Danubius (Ganz és Társa-Danubius Villamossági-, Gép-, Waggon- és Hajógyár Rt. - Ganz and Partner-Danubius Electrical- Machine-, Wagon- and Shipbuilding Co.), Fiume/Budapest and STT (Stabilimento Tecnico Triestone), Trieste. Ganz-Danubius refused the invitation as it could not build such large warships and this led the automatic acceptance by STT where the Naval Engineer, Siegfried Popper was working in cooperation. Siegfried Popper was recently retired from the post of the Naval Engineering Office, according to many the whole application was intended exactly for him to get the job of designing the new battleships, this was supported by the fact that the ships construction began well before the entire design contest expired in 1910.

By the spring of next year, the first drafts were made. In February 1909, MTK presented the first, followed by 7 versions of STT Popper in March. Of the total of 8 plans, 5 were equipped with ten, 2 equipped with eight and 1 equipped with 12 main guns. The MTK designed its ship with triple expansion engines while STT used the modern Parsons steam turbine propulsion units. The plans had an important common feature: none of them were similar to later-built battleships. The MTK commented on the plans on April 14, 1909 and, according to their report, the plans were divided into three groups:

On April 16, STT was interested in receiving plans. Although the plans included mainly 30,5cm L/50 calibre cannons, the 30,5cm L/45 calibre ones were too included. Skoda, who produced the cannons, had problems with the development of a longer calibre cannon, so the shipyard of Trieste redesigned the plans of the VI and VII Projects with L/45 calibre main guns. On April 20, MTK asked STT to produce another 12 gun in 6 turrets armed design which was completed on the 27th in 2 versions. Shortly thereafter, on May 5th, at Montecuccoli's personal request, STT Trieste prepared another 12 gun L/45 calibre main gun armed design in 4 triple turrets which became Project VIII and which was used as a basis for the final version.

This last project was the first to use triple turrets, with the idea was likely to emerge in designers' minds in January that year, as it turned out that the Italians wanted to equip their new battleships (Dante Alighieri) with such turrets. In the spring of 1909, the Navy was allowed to check the plans of the newest German battleships then under construction (Kaiser class). With this task, the secretary of Montecuccoli, Frigate Captain Alfred von Koudelka, was sent to Berlin on the evening of 29th April. Koudelka was personally greeted by none other then Grand Admiral Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz, who with surprising openness even presented with German plans and commented on the Austrian plans taken by Koudelka. Tirpitz objected in particular to the thin belt armour and insufficient torpedo protection on the Austrian plans.

The British were also strongly interested in the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought plans, as Koudelka was followed by an English spy at the time of his stay in Berlin. At the beginning of the conversation, Koudelka, appearing on the 29th in his uniform, Tirpitz called him to the window and showed him the spy on the other side, then asked him to come in civilian the next day. (Those nasty British spies! :D ) Koudelka returned home with a detailed and extensive information of the meeting which, however, was partly accepted due to the secrecy involved and such the designers knew little about it. The Belt armour was indeed thickened with some calculations even showing 290 and 300mm Belt but in the end it was finalised with 280mm due to the capacity of the Austro-Hungarian shipyards (displacement directly effects ship size).

On June 9, 1909, the final design contest was issued under the amended terms. The proposed displacement was increased to 20.500 tons, main guns were of 30,5cm L/45 calibre ones (The the 50 calibre ones had construction errors and thus not chosen) the secondary and tertiary guns were chosen of 15 and 7cm (66mm) ones with the increased armour belt of 280mm. For propulsion steam turbines were chosen with auxiliary oil fired boilers next to the coal ones. Popper had submitted six more proposals a few weeks later (varying in tripod or polemast arrangements) and of these, the design "F" was finally selected. In addition to Popper, two engineers, Franz Pitzinger and Theodor Novotny, presented their own drawings in the spring of 1910 when the original deadline expired. At this point, however, the detailed design of the Popper Plans was completed, and in November of last year, the contract was signed with STT for the construction of two ships. The designs of Pitzinger and Novotny were shoved to the depths of the archives, but they received cash compensation for their work.

In 1910, the Joint Finance Minister of the Monarchy did not support the construction of new warships, so the Navy started to build ships at its own risk. In addition to the problems surrounding the construction costs of the ships, their names did not go smoothly either. At first the Navy proposed SMS Tegetthoff, SMS Prinz Eugen, SMS Don Juan and SMS Hunyadi for the ships while Archduke Franz Ferdinand wished to name the 4th ship SMS Laudon, but the Hungarians did, of course, start a fierce protest, as part of the cost of the ships was provided by the Hungarian parliament, so they expected that one of the ships receive a Hungarian name. This was a common practice in the Austro-Hungarian Navy (SMS Budapest, SMS Zrínyi, SMS Árpád etc). In the end Emperor Franz Joseph I ended the debate with an iron fist naming the ships as follows:

As a sidenote, for the 4th ship the following names were proposed:

Montecuccoli dictated a forced pace for the designers, as the start of construction was planned for the spring of 1910. The cause was the peaceful rivalry between the KuK Kriegsmarine and the Regia Marina as the Austro-Hungarians wanted to build their battleships first and hence the construction was finally begun in the summer of 1910 even when the entire design documentation of the ships had not even been completed!