SMS Kaiser Max (1875)

{{main|Kaiser Max-class ironclad (1875)|l1=Kaiser Max-class ironclad}}

File:SMS Kaiser Max after 1892.jpg

Kaiser Max was {{convert|75.87|m|ftin|sp=us}} long overall and {{convert|73.23|m|ftin|abbr=on}} long at the waterline; she had a beam of {{convert|15.25|m|abbr=on|0}} and an average draft of {{convert|6.15|m|ftin|abbr=on}}. She displaced {{convert|3548|LT|lk=on}}. As was common for ironclads of the period, she had a pronounced ram bow. She had a crew of 400 officers and enlisted men.{{sfn|Sieche & Bilzer|p=270}}

Her propulsion system consisted of one single-expansion marine steam engine that drove a single screw propeller. The number and type of her coal-fired boilers have not survived, but they were vented through a single funnel placed slightly forward of amidships. Her engine produced a top speed of {{convert|13.28|kn|lk=in}} from {{convert|2755|ihp|lk=in}}. The ship was fitted with a three-masted sailing rig to supplement the steam engines.{{sfn|Sieche & Bilzer|p=270}}

Kaiser Max was a casemate ship, and she was armed with a main battery of eight 21 cm RK L/19 20-caliber (cal.) guns manufactured by Krupp mounted in a central casemate, four on each broadside. She also carried four {{convert|9|cm|abbr=on}} 24-cal. guns, two {{convert|7|cm|abbr=on}} 15-cal. landing guns, six {{convert|47|mm|abbr=on}} 35-cal. quick-firing guns, three {{convert|47|mm|abbr=on}} Hotchkiss revolver cannon, and two {{convert|25|mm|abbr=on}} guns. Kaiser Max also had four {{convert|35|cm|abbr=on|1}} torpedo tubes, one in the bow, one in the stern, and one on each broadside.{{sfn|Sieche & Bilzer|p=270}}

The ship's armor protection consisted of an armored belt that was {{convert|203|mm|abbr=on|0}} thick and was capped with {{convert|115|mm|abbr=on}} thick transverse bulkheads on either end of the citadel. The casemate battery was protected with {{convert|125|mm|abbr=on}} thick plates.{{sfn|Sieche & Bilzer|p=270}}

File:Pula naval yard.jpg]]

Kaiser Max was laid down at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard on 14 February 1874. The ship was ostensibly the same vessel that had been laid down in 1861, as the Austro-Hungarian parliament had approved a so-called reconstruction program of that {{SMS|Kaiser Max|1862|2}}. The head of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Vice Admiral Friedrich von Pöck, had resorted to subterfuge to circumvent parliamentary hostility to new ironclad construction; he requested funds to modernize the earlier vessel, but in fact, he had that vessel broken up, with only the machinery, parts of the armor plate, and other miscellaneous equipment being incorporated into the new ship. She was launched on 28 December 1875 and completed by 26 October 1876, when she was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian fleet.{{sfn|Sieche & Bilzer|p=270}}{{sfn|Sondhaus|p=46}} The ship began her sea trials on 8 May 1877.{{sfn|Pawlik|p=63}}

The government placed a low priority on naval activities, particularly in the 1870s; as a result, the shortage of funds precluded an active fleet policy. The ironclad fleet, including Kaiser Max, was kept out of service in Pola, laid up in reserve; the only vessels to see significant service in the 1870s were several screw frigates sent abroad.{{sfn|Sondhaus|pp=37, 40–41}} In 1880, Kaiser Max had her sailing rig reduced.{{sfn|Sieche & Bilzer|p=270}} In 1888, Kaiser Max and an Austro-Hungarian squadron that included the ironclads {{SMS|Custoza||2}}, {{SMS|Tegetthoff|1878|2}}, {{SMS|Don Juan d'Austria|1875|2}}, and {{SMS|Prinz Eugen|1877|2}} and the torpedo cruisers {{SMS|Panther|1885|2}} and {{SMS|Leopard|1885|2}} travelled to Barcelona, Spain, to take part in the opening ceremonies for the Barcelona Universal Exposition. This was the largest squadron of the Austro-Hungarian Navy that had operated outside the Adriatic.{{sfn|Sondhaus|p=107}} In June and July 1889, Kaiser Max participated in fleet training exercises, which also included the ironclads Custoza, {{SMS|Erzherzog Albrecht||2}}, Tegetthoff, Prinz Eugen, and Don Juan d'Austria.{{sfn|"Foreign Items"|p=913}}

During the 1893 fleet maneuvers, Kaiser Max was mobilized to train alongside the ironclads {{SMS|Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf||2}}, {{SMS|Kronprinzessin Erzherzogin Stephanie||2}}, Prinz Eugen, and {{SMS|Don Juan d'Austria|1875|2}}, among other vessels.{{sfn|Garbett|p=412}} A new construction program in the late 1890s and early 1900s required the Austro-Hungarian Navy to discard old, obsolete vessels to reduce annual budgets. These ships were largely reused in secondary roles.{{sfn|Sondhaus|p=155}} Kaiser Max was stricken from the naval register on 30 December 1904 and withdrawn from service.{{sfn|Sieche & Bilzer|p=270}} Between August and November 1906, Kaiser Max was used in underwater explosion tests under the direction of the naval engineer Siegfried Popper. Popper hoped the tests would allow him to design an effective underwater protection system for what would become the {{sclass|Radetzky|battleship|1}}s, but the experiments did not produce useful results.{{sfn|Sieche|p=333}} Kaiser Max was converted into a barracks ship in 1909 and was assigned to Cattaro Bay to serve the Arsenal Teodo, where she remained through World War I.{{sfn|Sieche & Bilzer|p=270}}{{sfn|Greger|p=137}}

In 1920, having lost the war, the now-defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire ceded the ship to the newly formed Royal Yugoslav Navy. The ship's fate after entering Yugoslav service is unclear. She was renamed Tivat, according to Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships later became Neretva, serving through 1941; her ultimate fate after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941 is unknown.{{sfn|Sieche|p=426}} According to the naval historian Milan Vego, however, the Yugoslav Navy sold the ship for scrap in 1924.{{sfn|Vego|p=347}}

{{reflist|20em}}

• {{cite journal

|title=Foreign Items

|page=913

|journal=The United States Army and Navy Journal and Gazette of the Regular and Volunteer Forces

|volume=24

|year=1889

|location=New York

|publisher=Army and Navy Journal, Inc.

|oclc=1589766

|ref={{sfnref|"Foreign Items"}}

}}

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|location=London

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}}

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| last = Greger

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| year = 1976

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|ref={{sfnref|Greger}}

}}

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|trans-title=The Kaiser's Floating Fortresses: The Casemate Ships of Austria-Hungary

|year=2003

|publisher=Neuer Wissenschaftlicher Verlag

|location=Vienna

|isbn=978-3-7083-0045-0

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}}

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| last2 = Bilzer

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| editor2-last = Chesneau

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| title=Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905

| year=1979

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| isbn=978-0-85177-133-5

| url-access = registration

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|name-list-style=amp

}}

• {{cite book

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|pages=326–347

|editor1-last=Gardiner

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|editor2-first=Randal

|title=Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921

|year=1985

|location=Annapolis

|publisher=Naval Institute Press

|isbn=978-0-87021-907-8

|name-list-style=amp

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| url=https://archive.org/details/allworldsfightin00rgre

}}

• {{cite book

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| first=Lawrence

| title=The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918

| year=1994

| location=West Lafayette

| publisher=Purdue University Press

| isbn=978-1-55753-034-9

|ref={{sfnref|Sondhaus}}

}}

• {{cite journal

| last = Vego

| first = Milan

| year = 1982

| title = The Yugoslav Navy 1918–1941

| journal = Warship International

|volume=XIX

| issue = 4

|pages = 342–361

| issn = 0043-0374

|publisher = International Naval Research Organization

| location = Toledo

|ref={{sfnref|Vego}}

}}

• {{cite journal|last=Freivogel|first=Zvonimir|year=1998|title=Question 25/95: ex-Austro-Hungarian Warships in the Italian Navy|journal=Warship International|publisher= International Naval Research Organization|volume=XXXV|issue=3|issn=0043-0374|pages=320–321}}

{{Kaiser Max class ironclads 1875}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaiser Max}}

Category:Kaiser Max-class ironclads (1875)

Category:1875 ships

Category:Ships built in Trieste