Austria-Hungary Becomes A First Class Naval Power 1890-1914

[NOMISYRRUC]

A-H has a limited coastline, and the infrastructure to support a navy is primarily near the northern end of the Adiratic, ports further down the coast are not well supplied with infrastructure for a navy and also have limited rail capacity to bring goods in. Building the infrastructure to support a navy out of more than a port or two will add to the cost (including beefing up rail lines to bring in munitions, heavy equipment etc.). Even using the most southern ports along the A-H coast, the Adriatic is incredibly constricted. If Italy and/or Greece are hostile then the A-H navy is completely bottled up. If both are neutral, it is still relatively easy for the French or British navies to keep the A-H navy from any sort of breakout in to the Med as such. Finally once the A-H navy does break out, they are still in restricted waters and what do they do for re-supply/repair etc except go back to where they came from.

If the KuK Kriegsmarine is allied with France/Britain, they are really a third wheel. If they are fighting the MN & RN they are screwed. Submarines do make sense, though they have a tough time getting through to the more open waters. As far as large ships...why??

According to Battleships of World War One by Anthony Preston the Austro-Hungarian Empire had 3 shipyards capable of building battleships, which were: the Ganz Danubis shipyard and machinery works at Fiume; Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino at Trieste; and the Pola Naval Yard. The guns were built by Skoda of Pilsen. ITTL guns, armour and fire control equipment would also be built by Ganz factories in Hungary-proper.

The main Austrian bases were Pola (also the principal dockyard) in Istria and Cattaro (Kotor) which at the time was in Dalmatia, but since 1945 has been part of Montenegro. The Anthony Preston book includes the deployment of the battleships in October 1918. The First and Second Divisions consisting of the Tegetthoff and Radetzky classes respectively were at Pola. The Third Division with the Erzherzog Karl class was at Cattaro. The older Monarch and Hapsburg classes were at Pola serving in second-line roles or not in commission.

If battleships were operating from Cattaro IOTL they could operate from there ITTL. The geography in the Adriatic worked in favour of the Austro-Hungarians. The Dalmatian Islands acted as a shield for the warships and supply ships travelling between Pola and Cattaro. Meanwhile the Regia Navale didn't have a major base between Brindisi and Venice.

 

[Namayan]

34,000 tons for the Caracciolo class was the full load displacement. The displacements I was quoting were normal displacements, which are smaller. E.g. according to Wikipaedia, which I got the Caracciolo information from, said they displaced 32,000 tons, normal. However, Conway's says their normal displacement was 31,400 tons.

The ALT Erstaz Monarch is 7 knots slower than the Caracciolo, but I dispute that twelve 14" are significantly inferior to eight 15". Furthermore the ALT Monarch would be better protected than the Caracciolo because less powerful engines = more armour.

In terms of displacement, armament, armour and speed the ALT Erstaz Monarch are the same as the US Pensylvania, New Mexico and Tennessee classes.

A more valid comparison with the Caracciolo would be the Erstaz Maria Theresa described in the Cruiser section of the OP. That is:

Except that all the above had normal displacements of 26-28,000 tons and a maximum speed of around 28 knots. The Erstaz Maria Theresa would be 30-32,000 tons. The extra displacement would be used for thicker armour while maintaining a maximum speed of 28 knots.

Check navweapons.

The 15 inch has longer range penetrating power which the Italian can use effectively with its speed. While the shorter range of the 14 inch and the Italian by armored and speed means the AH battleship will be at a disadvantage. The only way for the 14 inch to hit the Italian BB effectively is less than 12k yards which Italian most likely wont let happen due to its superior speed. While doing that the Italian bb due to its longer range will hit the Ah bb effectively.

Your BC you didn't put any stats for it except 8 14 inch guns. If it has the same stat Other BCs it means it has less armor with less, less strking power, range. If your BC is like a hidden fast battleship like G3 battlecruiser, it would be vastly superior, larger, heavier than any ship even your dread.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Check navweapons.

The 15 inch has longer range penetrating power which the Italian can use effectively with its speed. While the shorter range of the 14 inch and the Italian by armored and speed means the AH battleship will be at a disadvantage. The only way for the 14 inch to hit the Italian BB effectively is less than 12k yards which Italian most likely wont let happen due to its superior speed. While doing that the Italian bb due to its longer range will hit the Ah bb effectively.

Your BC you didn't put any stats for it except 8 14 inch guns. If it has the same stat Other BCs it means it has less armor with less, less strking power, range. If your BC is like a hidden fast battleship like G3 battlecruiser, it would be vastly superior, larger, heavier than any ship even your dread.

Dr Clarke's recent video on the Ersatz Monarch class prompted me to re-read this thread.

I checked navalweapons and according to that the Austro-Hungarian gun had the longer range (27,340 yards v 21,650 yards). The range of 29,850 yards for the Italian 15in gun upon which I think you based your assertion was for the World War II coast artillery version in a mounting that elevated to 30 degrees. Even if the 15in guns fitted to the Francesco Caracciolo class could elevate to 30 degrees instead of 20 degrees is being able to fire 2,510 yards further than the Austro-Hungarian 14in gun that much of an advantage? Especially when considering the low hit probability when firing at a range between 27,340 and 29,850 yards.

Navalweapons has an armour penetration table for the Austro-Hungarian gun, but not one for the Italian gun so I am unable to comment in detail about how much of a disadvantage my ALT-Ersatz Monarch class would have been to the Real-Francesco Caracciolo class in terms of armour penetration. However, as the weights of shell are 1,400lbs v 1,949 the Italian gun aught to have had better armour penetration characteristics than the Austro-Hungarian gun.

On the other hand the guns had about the same rate of fire (circa 2 rounds per minute for the Austro-Hungarian gun and 1.5-2 rounds per minute for the Italian gun) which meant that the Real-Ersatz Monarch class with 10 guns would have fired a 10.21% lighter broadside than the Francesco Caracciolo class (14,000lbs v 15,592lbs) but the ALT-Ersatz Monarch class with 12 guns would have fired a 7.75% heavier broadside than the Francesco Caracciolo class (16,800lbs v 15,592lbs). Therefore, the hitting power of the individual Italian 15" shells would have been offset by the sheer number of lighter Austro-Hungarian shells.

According to Dr Clarke the confined waters of the Adriatic Sea would have prevented the ships of the Francesco Caracciolo class from using their 7 knot speed advantage over the Ersatz Monarch class because there wasn't the room for the Italian ships to manoeuvre.

Correction: the real Ersatz Monarch class along with the ALT-Ersatz Monarch class & Erstaz Maria Theresa class battle cruiser would have been armed with 13.8in guns, not 14in guns.

 

[Karelian]

A lot depends on where exactly does the hypothetical engagement take place, and when.

In general WW1-era faster ships with bigger guns could seldom be forced get uncomfortably close to slower ships with heavier medium-range armament.