SMS Kaiser Max (1875)

Kaiser Max c. 1880–1889
History
Austria-Hungary
NameKaiser Max
BuilderStabilimento Tecnico Triestino
Laid down14 February 1874
Launched28 December 1875
Commissioned26 October 1876
Stricken30 December 1904
FateCeded to Yugoslavia, 1920
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
NameTivat
Acquired1920
FateUnknown
General characteristics
Class and typeKaiser Max class
Displacement3,548 long tons (3,605 t)
Length
  • 75.87 m (248 ft 11 in) o/a
  • 73.23 m (240 ft 3 in) lwl
Beam15.25 m (50 ft)
Draft6.15 m (20 ft 2 in)
Installed power2,755 ihp (2,054 kW)
Propulsion
Speed13.28 knots (24.59 km/h; 15.28 mph)
Crew400
Armament
Armor

SMS Kaiser Max was an ironclad warship built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the 1870s, the lead ship of the Kaiser Max class. The ship was purportedly the same vessel that had been laid down in 1861, and had simply been reconstructed. This was a fiction, however; the head of the Austro-Hungarian Navy could not secure funding for new ships, but reconstruction projects were uncontroversial, so he "rebuilt" the three earlier Kaiser Max-class ironclads. Only the engines and parts of the armor plate were reused in the new Kaiser Max, which was laid down in February 1874, launched in December 1875, and commissioned in October 1876. The ship's career was fairly limited, in part due to slender naval budgets that prevented much active use. She made foreign visits and took part in limited training exercises in the 1880s and 1890s. Long since obsolete, Kaiser Max was removed from service in 1904 and converted into a barracks ship. After World War I, the ship was transferred to the Royal Yugoslav Navy as a war prize and renamed Tivat. Her fate thereafter is uncertain, either being sold for scrap in 1924 or retained through 1941.