page_title: Austro-Italian ironclad arms race
section_title: Emergence of the battleship
hierarchical_section_title: Austro-Italian ironclad arms race / End of the arms race / Emergence of the battleship
context_page_description: A naval arms race between the Austrian Empire and Italy began in the 1860s when both ordered a series of ironclad warships, steam-propelled vessels protected by iron or steel armor plates and far more powerful than all-wood ships of the line. These ships were constructed to establish control over the Adriatic Sea in the event of a conflict between the two countries.
  The unification of much of Italy in this time period resulted in the amalgamation of the various navies of the former Italian states into the Regia Marina. The Sardinian component included two Formidabile-class ironclads, ordered from France in 1860, which became Italy's first broadside ironclads. The country quickly began a substantial construction program to bolster the Regia Marina, as the Italians believed that a strong navy would play a crucial role in making the recently unified kingdom a great power.
  These actions captured the attention of the Austrian Empire, which viewed Italy with great suspicion and worry, as irredentist claims by Italian nationalists were directed at key Austrian territories such as Venice, Trentino, and Trieste.
context_section_description: By the 1880s, the concept of the ironclad was giving way to that of the battleship. This decade marked the beginning of the era of the "Pre-dreadnought battleship", sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late 1880s and 1905. The distinction however between the era of the ironclad and the era of the pre-dreadnought is blurred by the fact that ironclad designs evolved into battleships over time. This can be seen in the outline of the last ironclads built by Austria-Hungary and Italy, which when contrasted with each nation's oldest ironclads, illustrate major differences in design and construction. The ironclads and pre-dreadnoughts of the 1870s and 1880s were largely built from steel, and protected by hardened steel armor, as opposed to the iron plating and casemate designs of older ironclads. The distinctions between later ironclads and pre-dreadnought battleships can also be found in the armament and propulsion systems of each ship. Pre-dreadnoughts carried a main battery of very heavy guns in barbettes in either open or armored gunhouses which were supported by one or more secondary batteries of smaller guns. They were also powered by coal-fuelled triple-expansion steam engines.
  The distinction between ironclads and pre-dreadnought battleships became blurred in foreign navies outside of Italy and Austria-Hungary as well, most notably in the British Royal Navy with the Admiral class, ordered in 1880. These ships reflected developments in ironclad design, being protected by iron-and-steel compound armor rather than wrought iron. Equipped with 12–16-inch (305–406 mm) breech-loading guns, the Admirals continued the trend of ironclad warships towards gigantic weapons. The guns were mounted in open barbettes to save weight. Some historians see these ships as a vital step towards pre-dreadnoughts; others view them as a confused and unsuccessful design.
  In contrast to the chaotic development of ironclad warships in preceding decades, the 1890s saw navies worldwide start to build battleships to a common design as dozens of ships essentially followed the design of the British Majestic class. The similarity in appearance of battleships in the 1890s was underlined by the increasing number of ships being built. New naval powers such as Germany, Japan, the United States, and Italy and Austria-Hungary, began to establish themselves with fleets of pre-dreadnoughts, while the navies of the United Kingdom, France, and Russia expanded to meet these new threats. The decisive clash of pre-dreadnought fleets was between the Imperial Russian Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Battle of Tsushima in 1905.
  The pre-dreadnoughts themselves would later be made obsolete by the arrival of HMS Dreadnought in 1906. Dreadnought followed the trend in battleship design to heavier, longer-ranged guns by adopting an "all-big-gun" armament scheme of ten 12-inch guns. Her innovative steam turbine engines also made her faster. The existing pre-dreadnoughts were decisively outclassed, and new and more powerful battleships were from then on known as dreadnoughts while the ships that had been laid down before were designated as pre-dreadnoughts.
caption: The pre-dreadnought Austro-Hungarian battleship Habsburg
exif: {}