In the course of its history Austria has had to fight a number of battles on the sea. Find out how the Austrians managed to face their enemies with the different naval guns that they had installed on their battle ships.
The Austrians have a long war history. When it comes to battling on the sea we find Austrians had their navy fighting the Italian and French fleets along with the Royal Navy on the Adriatic Sea during WW1. The Austrians had their destroyers, submarines and the light cruisers as part of their fleet with which they hoped to take on the enemies. The Austrian submarines were further aided by the German U-boats which further increased when Germany and Italy had gone to war. The Austrians made quite an impact on the French forces mostly because of the naval guns that they possessed.
The big guns
Since there were different kinds of water vehicles making up the navy the Austrians had specific guns to fit each type of floater. The bulk of the damage was caused by the battle ships which had specially crafted guns. Amongst the main guns of the battle ships was the 30.5cm K10 Skoda. These guns were especially built by Pilson works and were designed to fit onto Austria-Hungary’s last remaining pre-dreadnoughts along with the one and only fully completed dreadnought that they had. This particular gun used a horizontal wedge breech while the propellant charge was in a brass case. Unfortunately however these guns along with the ships that they were on were ceded to Italy after the war who continued to use them as coastal artillery.
The K10 skoda was developed in the year 1910 and measured a staggering 13.750 meters in length. The hefty gun weighed around 116, 070 lbs. It had an amazing ability to fire three rounds in the first minute and one to two rounds per minute after that. At a tilt of 20 degrees the gun had an impressive range of 21, 870 yards. There were however certain fundamental technical flaws with the design of the K10 Skoda that made it an easy gun to disfigure with a single hit. They often became oxygen starved when operated intensively under battle conditions.
The Austrians made use of their destroyers and cruisers during their battles on the sea. These too had specially designed guns such as the 19cm 42 Skoda. Just like its bigger version the gun was ceded to Italy during after war and used as coastal artillery. It was essentially used on the armored cruisers of the Italian army although there are reports of it being mounted upon the pre-dreadnoughts as well. These guns were mounted on the casemate mountings and amid ship turrets.
The smaller guns
Another Austrian naval gun of German origin was the SK L/40. These were used as secondary armament on some of the pre-dreadnoughts and large cruisers towards the end of the 19th century in Germany and later it was exported to Austria-Hungary where it appeared on quite a few ships. In fact this gun was even used to arm certain transport and supply ships during WW2. The K16 is yet another important Austrian navy gun considered as a small caliber anti aircraft gun.
