SMS Viribus Unitis
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Career | |
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Laid down: | 24 July 1910 |
Launched: | 24 June 1911 |
Commissioned: | 5 December 1912 |
Status: | Sunk 1 November 1918 |
General Characteristics | |
Displacement: | 20,000 t standard |
Length: | 152 m |
Beam: | 27.9 m |
Draught: | 8.7 m |
Propulsion: | 12 Yarrow fitted with 4 Parsons steam turbines, totalling 27,000 hp on 4 shafts |
Speed: | 20.4 knot (38 km/h) |
Range: | 4,200 nautical miles (7,800 km) at 10 knot (19 km/h) |
Complement: | 1,087 |
Armament: | 12 × 305 mm guns in triple turrets 12 × 150 mm guns in single casemates |
Armor: | 280 mm belt, barbettes, turrets and conning tower; 48 mm deck |
SMS Viribus Unitis was an Austro-Hungarian dreadnought battleship of the Tegetthoff class.
Viribus Unitis was built at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino yard, Trieste.
After it was clear that Austria-Hungary had lost World War I, the Austrian government decided to give the ship, along with much of the fleet, to the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. This move would have avoided handing the fleet to the Allies, since the new state had declared neutrality. However, Viribus Unitis and the rest of the former Austrian fleet were soon targeted by the Regia Marina. Viribus Unitis was sunk at anchor at Pula by a mignatta carried by an Italian human torpedo, on 1 November 1918, three days before the end of the war.
Two deactivated shells from the ship's main guns form part of the Faro della Vittoria (Victory Lighthouse) built on a hill above Trieste as a war memorial in the 1920s. This also includes the anchor of the torpedo-boat Audace, the first Italian warship to enter Trieste at the end of WWI. [1]
[edit] See also
- Tegetthoff class battleship
- List of ships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy
- List of ship launches in 1911
- List of ship commissionings in 1912
- List of shipwrecks in 1918
[edit] External links
- Tegetthoff class drednoughts - the primary online source for this topic since 1998
- Austro-Hungarian Navy
Tegetthoff class |
Viribus Unitis | Tegetthoff | Prinz Eugen | Szent István |
List of ships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy |