At 7 o'clock in the morning on July 20, 1866, Adriatic Sea Heavy rain poured down near a small island called Risa, and there was an atmosphere of uneasiness in the air. It seemed that God was not in a good mood today. Italian Fleet Commander Pesano felt nervous for no reason. This is not a good bald head!
He ordered all ten ironclad ships under his command to assemble immediately and form a battle line. Soon after, he felt something was wrong, so he decided to form a rear formation so that he could maximize the advantages of the ship's artillery . After cruising like this for a long time without finding any trace of the enemy, the crew could not help but feel a little slack. The formation slowly loosened up and divided into three teams.
Suddenly a warship sent out a signal, "Enemy ships are attacking from the northwest!" It was exactly 9:30 in the morning. At this time, the Italian fleet had no formation to speak of, even the formation was gone. The fleet was divided into three parts and headed northeast. The battle groups were far apart and unable to support each other. This was simply a perfect opportunity for the Austrians to take action.
The Austrian victor, Rear Admiral Tegetthoff (1827-71)
Persano's opponent, Rear Admiral Tegetthoff, had arranged the seven ironclad ships of the Austrian fleet into a wedge formation and charged toward the Italians menacingly. His wooden warships followed as auxiliary forces. But there was no trace of the Italian wooden warships, and even their two small ironclads, the "Awe" and the "Terror", had no chance to participate in the battle. Tegetthoff led a wedge-shaped formation that was embedded directly between the three leading Italian ironclads ("Carlinano", "Castlefield" and "Ancona") and the main force, with a distance of 3,200 meters. The Italian main force included the flagships "Italia" and "Afondatri", "Pellesto" and "San Martino", followed by "Porto Garo" and "Maria Pia", and finally "Valles" was chasing the main force at full speed.
At this time, a strange scene happened on the battlefield. Only a quarter of an hour before the battle between the two armies, Posano quietly transferred to the "Afenda Tri" without saying anything. This saucy move immediately confused most Italian captains: Now that the war has begun, where is the commander? This kind of weird behavior is much more serious than changing generals before the battle, and it's just as bad as running away from the battle. (It’s just that escaping at sea is very inconvenient. Could it be that Posano had a prediction before the battle that the battle would be unfavorable? So it’s important to save your life!)
In contrast, Tegetthof was much more decisive in killing and ordered all the ironclads to charge the enemy ships, ramming them and sinking them without discussion. Here, the warship equipment of both Italy and Austria determines the tactics they adopt: Italian ships are strong and powerful, so they naturally want to rely on their artillery superiority to kill enemy ships; while Austria's clever women can't make a living without straw, and their cannons are not as good as others, so they can only rely on their bloody courage to fight in close quarters. At 10:43, when the two armies were about 900 meters apart, the Italian warship opened fire first, and the huge shells flew towards the Austrian warship with the roar of the cannon. Unfortunately, due to the lack of training of the Italian artillery, very few shells were able to hit enemy ships. No matter how good the cannon is, if it hits the enemy, it will be nothing more than a pile of scrap metal, taking up so little space!
Since the Italian army did not have smokeless gunpowder at this time, they fired smoke bombs at the same time. As a result, when the Austrian ironclads rushed into the Italian formation ten minutes later and prepared for a killing spree, no one was left. This makes Austrian army very angry. Is it easy to have the passion that we have been brewing for so long? I can only lament that it is not that our army is too incompetent, but that the enemy is too cunning and actually engages in hide-and-seek. After sighing, the battle still had to be fought, so Tegetthoff could only lead the armored fleet to turn around and fight again, looking for traces of the enemy. At this time, the wooden warships at the rear of the Austrian army had entered the battlefield and charged towards the last three ironclads of the Italian army.
When the two sides are fighting hand-to-hand, it is a big problem to distinguish between ourselves and the enemy on the chaotic battlefield. In a naval battle, the easiest way is to look at the painting colors of both sides. The Austrian warships are black, while the Italian warships are gray. So Tegetthoff sent a message to the whole army to hit the gray ones when they saw them. Due to the smoke caused by the cannon fire, both sides could only fire at close range.In a melee, the rudder of the "Italian" suffered damage and was unable to turn. Tegetthoff's flagship, the Archduke Ferdinand Max, seized the opportunity and crashed into it. After the "Italy" luckily escaped the first impact, the people on the ship had no time to rejoice when the second impact directly kissed her port side. Then the Archduke Ferdinand Max retreated calmly, leaving the Italia, which was seriously injured and died, and sailed away.
The "Archduke Ferdinand Max" collided with the "Italy"
The "Pelesto", which was violently beaten at the same time, braved the fire and began to flee the battlefield, while the "Anchorna", which was covered in fire, also made the same choice. At this moment Tegetthoff ordered the ironclads to "support the second detachment", the Austrian wooden battleships. When the results of the first close battle came out, the Austrian wooden warships were engaged in a fierce battle with the "Porto Garo", "Maria Pia" and "Valles". The Austrian wooden line ship "Caesar" happened to have just boarded the "Porto Garo", and the ship's jewelry statue was left on the side of the Italian armored ship as a souvenir. This close contact certainly caused serious injuries to the "Caesar", but the Italian battleship was not unscathed. Persano, who was on the Afendatri, tried his best to protect the remaining ironclads, but in the end he led the remaining troops to evacuate the battlefield.
The price of Austria's victory was that 38 sailors were killed, while 408 Italians sank with the "Italia", and another 204 died when the "Pellesto" ammunition depot was detonated by fire. The battle, which lasted for more than two hours, left Persano disgraced and suspended pending investigation. Moreover, this battle also convinced the navies of various countries that ramming tactics were more effective than cannons. This obsession continued for 20 years. In fact, of the several attempts at ramming, only one was truly successful, and that was when the "Italia" was already damaged. The low combat effectiveness of Italian artillery was more attributable to insufficient training than to its underlying firepower. But this battle did stimulate designers to spare no effort in developing more powerful artillery. This can cause greater damage to the enemy ironclad before it approaches, and even fire a fatal salvo when approaching the ship.
Having said that, improvements in artillery and armor in the mid-1870s had rendered ramming tactics virtually useless. As long as the gunners are well trained, they can destroy enemy ships before they get close. By this time many European ironclads had been modernized and modified, mostly equipped with larger caliber guns and thicker armor. These measures effectively extended its service life. After all, not everyone has the industrial strength of the UK to build an ironclad ship in one or two years.
