SMS Balaton

SMS Balaton was one of six s built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy (kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine) shortly before the First World War.

Design and description
The Tátra-class destroyers were faster, more powerfully armed and more than twice as large as the preceding. The ships had an overall length of 83.5 m, a beam of 7.8 m, and a maximum draft of 3 m. They displaced 870 LT at normal load and 1050 LT at deep load. The ships had a complement of 105 officers and enlisted men.

The Tátras were powered by two AEG-Curtiss steam turbine sets, each driving a single propeller shaft using steam provided by six Yarrow boilers. Four of the boilers were oil-fired while the remaining pair used coal. The turbines, designed to produce 20600 shp, were intended to give the ships a speed of 32.5 kn. The ships carried enough oil and coal to give them a range of 1600 nmi at 12 kn.

The main armament of the Tátra-class destroyers consisted of two 50-caliber Škoda Works 10 cm K10 guns, one each fore and aft of the superstructure in single mounts. Their secondary armament consisted of six 45-caliber 66 mm guns, two of which were on anti-aircraft mountings. They were also equipped with four 450 mm torpedo tubes in two twin rotating mountings amidships.

Construction and career
Balaton was laid down by Ganz-Danubius at their shipyard in Porto Ré in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on 6 November 1911, launched on 16 November 1912 and completed on 3 November 1913.