SMS Aspern

SMS Aspern was the second of three s built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the 1890s.

Design and description
Aspern had an overall length of 96.88 m, a beam of 11.73 m and had a designed draft of 4.43 m. The ship displaced 2350 t at normal load and 2667 t at deep load.

She had two four-cylinder vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a single propeller shaft. Steam for the engines was provided by eight Yarrow boilers.

Aspern's main armament consisted of eight 40-caliber Škoda 12 cm quick-firing guns. Two of these were mounted fore and aft of the superstructure in single pivot mounts protected by gun shields while the other six guns were mounted in casemates on the sides of the hull. Her secondary armament comprised eight 44-caliber 47 mm Škoda guns and two 33-caliber 4.7-centimeter Hotchkiss guns. Four of these guns were mounted on pivot mounts in the superstructure and the remaining guns were in casemates in the hull. She was also armed with two 45 cm torpedo tubes mounted in the hull above the waterline.

The ship was lightly protected by an armor deck that consisted of two layers of 12.5 mm plates. Over the engine and boiler rooms the thickness doubled to a total of 50 mm. The casemates were protected by 35 mm of armor and the conning tower by two layers of 25 mm armor plates.