SMS Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf
Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf
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| History | |
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 Austria-Hungary
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| Name: | Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf |
| Namesake: | Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria |
| Laid down: | 25 January 1884 |
| Launched: | 6 July 1887 |
| Commissioned: | September 1889 |
| Fate: | Transferred to Royal Yugoslav Navy, 1919 |
 Kingdom of Yugoslavia
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| Acquired: | 1919 |
| Renamed: | Kumbor |
| Struck: | 1922 |
| Fate: | Broken up for scrap, 1922 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 6,829 metric tons (6,721 long tons) |
| Length: | 97.6 m (320 ft 3 in) o/a |
| Beam: | 19.27 m (63 ft 3 in) |
| Draft: | 7.39 m (24 ft 3 in) |
| Installed power: |
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| Propulsion: | 2 × triple-expansion steam engines |
| Speed: | 15.5 kn (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph) |
| Crew: | 447–450 |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: | |
SMS Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf was a unique ironclad warship built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the 1880s. The last ironclad completed for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf was laid down in January 1884, launched in July 1887, and completed in September 1889. She was armed with a main battery of three 30.5-centimeter (12.0 in) guns and had compound steel plating of the same thickness on her armored belt. The ship had an uneventful career, in large part due to her rapid obsolescence. She made trips to foreign countries to represent Austria-Hungary, but was reduced to a coastal defense ship by 1906. She continued in this role through World War I, based at Cattaro Bay, where her crew took part in the Cattaro Mutiny in early 1918. After the war, Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf was transferred to the Royal Yugoslav Navy and renamed Kumbor, but she remained in the Yugoslav inventory for only three years, being sold for scrap in 1922.
In the decades that followed the Austrian victory at the Battle of Lissa in 1866, naval expenditure in the Austro-Hungarian Empire were drastically reduced, in large part due to the veto power the Hungarian half of the empire held. Surrounded by potentially hostile countries powers on land, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was more concerned with these threats, and so naval development was not prioritized. Admiral Friedrich von Pöck argued for several years to improve the strength of the Austro-Hungarian fleet, finally winning authorization to build the center battery ship Tegetthoff in 1875. He spent another six years trying in vain to secure a sister ship to Tegetthoff. Finally, in 1881, Pöck succeeded in securing funding for a new ironclad, authorized as "Ersatz Salamander", a replacement for the earlier ironclad frigate. The new ship, to be named Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf, cost 5.44 million gulden. The design for the new ship was prepared by Josef Kuchinka, the Director of Naval Construction for the Austro-Hungarian Navy; a second ship, Kronprinzessin Erzherzogin Stephanie, was authorized at the same time. Nearly another decade would pass before the Austro-Hungarian Navy secured funding for new capital ships, the three Monarch-class coastal defense ships begun in 1893.
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Wikipedia