Austro- Hungarian Battlecruiser Designs
Austro- Hungarian Battlecruiser Designs
My impression of the Series I, Design F,
as she would have appeared if built..
Just as in the Tegetthoff and Improved Teggetthoff
Classes of battleships,
light pole masts have replaced the tripods
of preliminary designs.
Minimal bridgework has been added.
Without an overseas empire or long sea lanes of supply to protect, the Navy of Austria-Hungary showed little interest in the battlecruiser type until 1915. In September of that year, a design for a battlecruiser carrying the same triple, 35cm L/45 (14.8') turrets as the "Improved Tegetthoff" battleships, which had just been ordered, was drawn up. It is reminiscent of the Russian Gangut and Italian Dante Alighieri class battleships, but with only one amidships turret.
Production difficulties for the Skoda 35cm guns led to a December 1916 redesign, using twin turrets instead of triples. The twins were designed to be manufactured from existing armor plate already produced for the triple mounts. Four different main battery layouts were drawn up, the most promising being design "1F", with its two-forward, two-aft centerline arrangement. Design B had one turret forward and one aft, with two amidships turrets, all on the centerline. Design C had one forward, one aft, and two en-echelon turrets like HMS Invincible, and Design D had two turrets superfiring aft, with one amidships, and one forward. However, all design work was halted while a team of Navy officers and engineers visited Germany to investigate the Battle of Jutland.
In March 1917, after studying the "Jutland Report", the design board released a new set of specifications for all future capital ships. They wanted higher speed and larger guns for both battleships and battlecruisers, as the advantages of heavier shells and higher speed were evident from Jutland. But displacement was limited to the same 30,000 tons standard as the Series I designs. Two design sketches were drawn up by July, apparently more to give a general idea of what type of vessel could be produced on a given tonnage with a given main armament than as anything else. The Series II design was identical to Series I, Design A, but with three twin 38-cm turrets instead of the triple 35cm turrets. Series III also had twin 38cm turrets in a much better layout, identical to Series I, Design F, but it would have been a very cramped design. The final 38cm design, Series IV, was put forward in December, 1917. This series was allowed to break the tonnage restriction, resulting in a much more realistic design. War experience and the increased threat of air attack led to the inclusion of 4 dual-purpose guns in single turrets. However, at this point the possibility of actual construction became slim, as the increase in tonnage made these ships exceed the capacity of existing Navy facilities.
Series V was for a 37,000+ ton battleship,
but Series VI was again a battlecruiser.
42cm (16.5-inch) guns were to be carried,
but at the cost of one turret. With only
four main guns, and an 8.8" main belt,
these vessels are reminiscent of the HMS Courageous and German GK 4021 Class vessels.
The Series IV and VI vessels appear to have been long-term design studies, as they could not have been realistically built during the war. A large investment in slipways, docking facilities, etc would have been needed to construct and support these ships. As it was, no battlecruisers were ever laid down, or even ordered, before the fall of the Austria-Hungary Empire.
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