Comments on how the austrian navy fared

[hauptmannn]

I jst want to know some people's opinions on how AH's navy fared. Was it good? I think i read somewhere that the AH navy did sunk many Italian ships.

[Basileios]

The Austrian Battleships were not of much use, because the British, French and Italian navies blockaded the Otranto Strait.

At the beginnig of the war with Italy the Austrian Navy bombarded the Italian coast, without causing too much damage.
After that the battleships stayed in port, due to lack of coal.

On 15. May 1917 the old Austrian battlecruisers Novara, Helgoland and Saida attacked the allied blockade ships the in Otranto Strait sinking several of those.
This was the only great victory of the Austrian navy in WW1.
When trying to repeat this maneuver on 10. June 1918 an Italian torpedoboat managed to sink the viribus unitis class battleship Szent Istvan, after which the other units returned to port.
Both times the units were commanded by Admiral Miklos Horthy, who became Hungarian head of state after the war.

The Austrian submarines were more successful, but they never managed to be as effective as the German submarines.

[hauptmannn]

How many submarines did AH posses during the years and do you think Admiral Horthy was a good commander?

[FW]

The Austrians only had 6 subs at the outbreak of the war and another 6 being built in Germany. They were very effective in keeping the French from penetrating deep into the Adriatic. The first sub to be sunk by aircraft was a French sub sunk by an Austrian aircraft. Also the Austrians did a great job of raiding the Otrento Barrage (sp?), a British defensive web in the Adriatic, sinking 14 British ships.

[agibaer]

As far as I recall in the last week of the war an italian plane sunk an austrian battleship with a torpedo. That's the first time a torpedo was succesfully used to sink a battleship

[FW]

That is true about the Italians sinking an Austrian ship, but the Austrians were the first to sink a sub from the air.

[Orok]

... do you think Admiral Horthy was a good commander?

I think Admiral Horthy was a competent naval commander, but of course he was not of the same calibre as Admiral Yamamoto and other first class naval strategists the 20th centry had seen. The main difference is that Horthy was a very conservative type of old school officer, he lacked the ability to inovate.

Just my 2 cents.

Best Regards!

[Jon Sutton]

Looking through 'Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921' I can't find any reference to the Italians sinking an A/H battleship with a torpedo from an aircraft during the war. S.M.S Wien and S.M.S Szent Istvan were sunk by torpedos from MAS boats and S.M.S Viribus Unitis by a limpet mine. Several of the A/H Pre-Dreadnoughts and S.M.S Tegetthof were ceded to and scrapped by Italy and it is possible that the Italians used one or more for torpedo experiments, but Conway's simply says that they were broken up. The French submarine sunk by A/H aircraft was 'Foucault' on 15th Sept 1915; I would think that she was bombed because I doubt that any A/H aircraft at that period of the war was able to lift a torpedo.

[agibaer]

I'll have a look at it it was in the DAMALS one or two months ago, should find it...

regards
robert