SMS Custoza
SMS Custoza
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| History | |
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 Austria-Hungary
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| Name: | Custoza |
| Namesake: | Battle of Custoza |
| Builder: | Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino |
| Laid down: | 17 November 1869 |
| Launched: | 20 August 1872 |
| Commissioned: | February 1875 |
| Fate: | Ceded to Italy, 1920, broken up |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 7,609 to 7,730.99 metric tons (7,488.83 to 7,608.89 long tons; 8,387.49 to 8,521.96 short tons) |
| Length: | |
| Beam: | 17.7 m (58 ft) |
| Draft: | 7.9 m (26 ft) |
| Installed power: | 4,158 ihp (3,101 kW) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 13.75 knots (25.47 km/h; 15.82 mph) |
| Crew: | 548–567 |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: |
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SMS Custoza was an ironclad warship built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the 1870s, the only member of her class. She was the first Austro-Hungarian ironclad to be built after the navy studied the results of the Battle of Lissa of 1866; she was also the first iron-hulled capital ship to be built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. She was laid down in November 1869, launched in August 1872, and completed in February 1875. Her career was fairly limited, in part due to reduced naval budgets in the 1870s that also delayed her completion. Custoza was somewhat more active in the 1880s, taking part in an international naval demonstration against the Ottoman Empire in 1880, being modernized in 1882, and a trip to Spain for the Barcelona Universal Exposition in 1888. The ship became a training ship in 1902, was converted into a barracks ship in 1914, and after World War I, was awarded as a war prize to Italy. Custoza was immediately broken up.
In 1869, the Austro-Hungarian navy asked its foremost naval designer, Chief Engineer Josef von Romako, who had designed all of the earlier ironclad vessels, to prepare designs for two new ironclads. The first became the Custoza, and the second became Erzherzog Albrecht, the latter built to a slightly smaller design owing to budgetary shortages. Romako had studied the Battle of Lissa, fought in 1866, and decided the new ships should favor heavy armor and the capability of end-on fire to allow it to effectively attack with its ram. This required compromises in the number of guns and the power of the ship's machinery; to make up for carrying fewer guns, Romako adopted the same casemate ship design adopted with the previous vessel, Lissa. Unlike the wooden-hulled Lissa, however, Custoza's hull would be constructed with iron, the first major Austro-Hungarian warship with an iron hull.
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