page_title: List of ironclad warships of Austria-Hungary
section_title: Lissa
hierarchical_section_title: List of ironclad warships of Austria-Hungary / Lissa
caption_attribution_description: English: The SMS Lissa. Photo taken before the 1875-1877 modernization. Funnel is lowered. Cropped by uploader.
context_page_description: Between the 1860s and the 1880s, the Austro-Hungarian Navy acquired a fleet of seventeen ironclad warships, including broadside ironclads, central battery ships and barbette ships. The first generation of ships, the seven broadside ironclads of the Drache, Kaiser Max and Erzherzog Ferdinand Max classes, formed the core of the Austrian fleet that was involved in an ironclad arms race with Italy in the 1860s and defeated the Italian Regia Marina at the Battle of Lissa in July 1866. The Austrian commander, Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, used ramming tactics to win the battle, which influenced the second generation of ironclads that he ordered in the late 1860s and early 1870s. These ships—Lissa, Custoza, Erzherzog Albrecht and the rebuilt ship of the line Kaiser—were central battery ships; this placed an emphasis on end-on fire capabilities, a necessity for ramming attacks since broadside guns could not be brought to bear when ramming.
  Following Tegetthoff's death in 1871, Friedrich von Pöck succeeded him as the head of the Austro-Hungarian Navy; Pöck lacked Tegetthoff's prestige and had great difficulty in securing funds from the Austro-Hungarian parliament for new ironclads.
context_section_description: Lissa was the first of the second generation of Austro-Hungarian ironclads; these ships were built after the experience at the Battle of Lissa. At the battle, Tegetthoff had emphasized aggressive ramming tactics to make up for the numerical inferiority of his armored squadron compared to the Italian fleet. These tactics made the traditional broadside arrangement difficult to use, since they could not easily be brought to bear. The recently developed casemate ship solved the problem. This design concentrated the armored gun battery in the central portion of the ship, allowing a thicker but overall lighter scale of armor protection, and permitting angled casemates so the guns could fire ahead and astern. Tegetthoff pressed for a construction program to acquire fifteen ironclads, which would have placed the Austro-Hungarian Navy at parity with its Italian rival. Romako based the design for Lissa on the British HMS Hercules, though unlike Hercules, which mounted her battery in a single deck, Lissa incorporated a second casemate atop the main battery with two of the heavy guns placed there. These guns could be fired ahead, astern, and one to each side. Despite having lost the Seven Weeks' War to Prussia just a year before, the Austro-Hungarian government ordered the ship's breech-loading guns from the Prussian Krupp firm.
  Budgetary shortfalls delayed completion of the ship, which was constructed by Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino, thus limiting her career once she entered service. She was laid up in reserve throughout the 1870s, though she was nominally assigned to the ironclad squadron. During this period, the only event of note was a major fire aboard the ship in 1872. In 1880, her hull was found to have rotted badly, so she was drydocked, stripped of most of her armor plate and re-timbered. After completing the reconstruction, she returned to the ironclad squadron, where she served until 1888. Lissa was finally stricken from the register in 1892 and broken up for scrap between 1893 and 1895.
caption: Lissa before 1875
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