A website devoted to excruciatingly detailed 3D renderings of a World War One Austro-Hungarian dreadnought, the Viribus Unitis. It doesn't get much geekier.
(Incidentally, the bell of her sister ship, the Tegethoff, was presented by the Italians to the Jerries, who installed it on the heavy cruiser KMS Prinz Eugen. Demonstrating the toughness typical of the capital ships of that time, during WWII the Prinz Eugen was variously bombed by the RAF, had her stern shot away by a torpedo from HMS Trident, and survived a collision with an 8,400 ton light cruiser. Presumably the bell was irradiated along with the rest of the then-USS Prinz Eugen during the two atomic bomb tests she survived at Bikini Atoll. Too radioactive to be of further use, she was finally towed to Kwajalein and sunk.)
Jurgens to Bikel: "We build them good in Germany, no, Heinie?"
ReplyDeleteOf Kriegsmarine, you might say that never in history was such excellent semanship and tradition rewarded with so little victory (three guys from Hood might disagree). Of Austria-Hungary, maybe not so much.
Tough customers. That's why the British called them Dreadnoughts - and the German ships were larger than the British.
ReplyDelete@ Comatus
ReplyDeleteI really hope this was inadvertant:
never in history was such excellent semanship and tradition rewarded with so little victory
As is, all I can say is, they should have tried the PI instead. I - vaguely - recall some truely outstanding semanship in the shoals and backwaters of Olongapo.
Followed by some remarkably underwhelming examples of seamanship, I should point out.
Ah, the parts they left out of "South Pacific." To take nothing away from Our Boys, there was a [brief] time when Kriegsmarine thought of the coasts of three continents (and most of France) the way you remember Subic. Heh. Matey.
ReplyDeleteI have to confess absolute ignorance, though, of the pleasure ports of the Austrian fleet, and those details have been left out of the 3-D section of this (now that it comes up) rather suggestively-named vessel.
To me, that says salvage!
ReplyDeleteIs that the ship Captain Von Trapp was supposed to commander? ;-)
ReplyDeleteHeh, the thing has a greater draft than the entire Neusiedlersee - "No playing with boats in the tub Franz-Ferdinand!"
Actually, the Germans wanted to name Prinz Eugen Tegethoff, but in consideration of their Italian ally's feelings went for a less provocative name.
ReplyDeleteAnd comatus, the KuK navy was extraordinarily effective considering its size relative its opponents and the strategic position it was stuck with. For most of the First World War they kept the Italians completely buffaloed and scared to poke their noses into the Adriatic, even after the latter were heavily reinforced by French and British ships.
And one final pedantic note: Georg von Trapp was never in any danger of being press ganged into the Kriegsmarine, having taken Italian citizenship at the end of the first war.