User:White Shadows/SMS Monarch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SMS Monarch ("His Majesty's ship Monarch") was a pre-dreadnought battleship and coastal defense ship of the Monarch class that was constructed by the Austro-Hungarian Navy at the end of the 19th century. The Monarch was laid down in the Naval Arsenal in Pola as the last ship of the class that shared her name on 31 July 1893. She was the first ship of the class to be launched on 9 May 1895. Despite being launched about two months before her sister ship the Wien, the Monarch was the second ship of the Monarch class to be commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy, on 11 May 1898.
SMS Wien at anchor in Cattaro. Austro-Hungarian battleship Wien | |
History | |
---|---|
Austo-Hungarian Empire | |
Name | SMS Monarch |
Owner | Austro-Hungarian Navy |
Builder | Naval Arsenal, Pola |
Laid down | 31 July 1893 |
Launched | 9 May 1895 |
Commissioned | 11 May 1898 |
Fate | Sunk in Trieste on the night of 9–10 December 1917 |
General characteristics [1][2] | |
Type | Pre-dreadnought battleship, Coastal defense ship |
Displacement | 5,878 tonnes (5,785 long tons) |
Length | 99.22 m (325.5 ft) |
Beam | 17 m (55 ft 9 in) |
Draught | 6.6 m (22 ft) |
Propulsion | Coal-fired cylindrical boilers; inverted vertical triple expansion engines outputting 8,500 hp (6,338 kW) |
Speed | 15.5 knots (17.8 mph; 28.7 km/h) |
Range | 2,200 nmi (4,100 km) |
Complement | 469 |
Armament | list error: <br /> list (help) • 4 × 240 mm (9 in) L/40 guns (2×2) • 6 × 150 mm (6 in) L/40 guns • 10 × 47 mm (1.9 in) L/44 guns • 4 × 47 mm (1.9 in) L/33 guns • 1 × 8 mm (0.31 in) MG gun • 4 × torpedo tubes |
Armour | list error: <br /> list (help) Harvey armour Belt: 270 mm (11 in) Turrets: 11 in (280 mm) Conning tower: 220 mm (8.7 in) Deck: 60 mm (2.4 in) |
After her commissioning, the Monarch, along with her sister ships the Wien and the Budapest, cruised around the Adriatic and Aegean seas in a display of the Austro-Hungarian flag around the Mediterranean Sea in 1899. The Monarch, along with her sister ships, formed the I Battleship Division of the Austro-Hungarian Navy until they were replaced by the newly commissioned Habsburg class at the turn of the century. Thereafter, the Monarch and her sister ships were given increasingly diminished roles in the Austro-Hungarian Navy with the successive commissioning of the Erzherzog Karl class and later the Radetzky class. By the beginning of World War I the Monarch was in the V Battleship Division, serving as a coastal defense ship.
During the war, the Monarch initially served as a training ship and a floating battery. In early August 1914, the Monarch participated in Shelling French and Montenegrin radio stations in Montenegro along the Adriatic coast. However, these early operations were to be the only action that the Monarch was to see in World War I and she soon served as a harbor defense ship there-after for the remainder of the War.[2]