SMS Wien

SMS Wien

A painting showing SMS Wien and the other ships of the Monarch class on maneuvers
History
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Name:	SMS Wien
Namesake:	Vienna, Austria
Ordered:	May 1892
Builder:	Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino, Trieste
Laid down:	16 February 1893
Launched:	7 July 1895
Sponsored by:	Countess Kielmannsegg
Commissioned:	13 May 1897
Fate:	Sunk, 10 December 1917, salvaged and scrapped 1920s
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:	8,600 ihp (6,400 kW) 5 × cylindrical boilers
Propulsion:	2 × Shafts 2 × Vertical triple-expansion steam engines
Speed:	17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 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 Wien  ("His Majesty's Ship Vienna") was one of three Monarch-class coastal defense ships built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the 1890s. After her commissioning, the ship participated in an international blockade of Crete during the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. Wien and the two other Monarch-class ships made several training cruises in the Mediterranean Sea in the early 1900s. They formed the 1st Capital Ship Division of the Austro-Hungarian Navy until they were replaced by the newly commissioned Habsburg-class predreadnought battleships at the turn of the century. In 1906 the three Monarchs were placed in reserve and only recommissioned for annual summer training exercises. After the start of World War I, Wien 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. Wien and her sister Budapest were sent to Trieste in August 1917 and bombarded Italian fortifications in the Gulf of Trieste. On the night of 9–10 December, while Wien and Budapest were at anchor in Trieste, two Italian torpedo boats managed to penetrate the harbor defenses undetected and fired several torpedoes at the two ships. Budapest was not hit, but Wien was struck by two torpedoes and sank in less than five minutes with the loss of 46 of her crew. The wreck was salvaged sometime during the 1920s by the Italians.