SMS Budapest

SMS Budapest

A model of Budapest at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna
History
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Name:	SMS Budapest
Namesake:	Budapest, Hungary
Ordered:	May 1892
Builder:	Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino, Trieste
Laid down:	16 February 1893
Launched:	27 April 1896
Sponsored by:	Countess Marie Széchényí-Andrássy
Commissioned:	12 May 1898
Decommissioned:	11 March 1918
Fate:	Scrapped, 1921
General characteristics
Class and type:	Monarch-class coastal defense ship
Displacement:	5,785 tonnes (5,694 long tons) (full load)
Length:	99.22 m (325 ft 6 in)
Beam:	17 m (55 ft 9 in)
Draught:	6.4 m (21 ft 0 in)
Installed power:	9,100 ihp (6,800 kW) 16 × Belleville boilers
Propulsion:	2 × Shafts 2 × Vertical triple-expansion steam engines
Speed:	17.8 knots (33.0 km/h; 20.5 mph)
Range:	3,500 nmi (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) @ 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph)
Complement:	26 officers and 397 enlisted men
Armament:	2 × 2 - 240 mm (9.4 in) Krupp guns 6 × 1 - 150 mm (5.9 in) Škoda guns 1 × 7 cm (2.8 in) anti-aircraft gun 10 × 1 - 47 mm (1.9 in) Škoda guns 4 × 1 - 47 mm (1.9 in) Hotchkiss guns 2 × 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes
Armour:	Waterline belt: 120–270 mm (4.7–10.6 in) Deck: 40 mm (1.6 in) Gun turrets: 250 mm (9.8 in) Casemate: 80 mm (3.1 in) Conning tower: 220 mm (8.7 in)

SMS Budapest  ("His Majesty's Ship Budapest") was a Monarch-class coastal defense ship built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the 1890s. After their commissioning, Budapest and the two other Monarch-class ships made several training cruises in the Mediterranean Sea in the early 1900s. Budapest and her sisters formed the 1st Capital Ship Division of the Austro-Hungarian Navy until they were replaced by the newly commissioned Habsburg-class pre-dreadnought battleships at the turn of the century. In 1906 the three Monarchs were placed in reserve and only recommissioned during the annual summer training exercises. After the start of World War I, Budapest was recommissioned and assigned to 5th Division together with her sisters.

The division was sent to Cattaro in August 1914 to attack Montenegrin and French artillery that was bombarding the port, and they remained there until mid-1917. Budapest and her sister Wien were sent to Trieste in August and bombarded Italian fortifications in the Gulf of Trieste. The ship was briefly decommissioned in early 1918 and became an accommodation ship, but she was fitted with a large siege howitzer for shore bombardment shortly afterwards and recommissioned. A shortage of ammunition caused the gun to be removed before it could be used, and Budapest reverted to her previous role. The ship was awarded to Great Britain by the Paris Peace Conference in 1920. The British sold her for scrap, and she was broken up in Italy beginning in 1921.