Yeah this battle was ramming galore. Austrians had less ironclads so their commander thought only chance for victory was to quickly close to melee range and ram the hell out of Italians.
He was lucky that Italian Admiral was incompetent political appointment and Austrian warships sunk two Italians ironclads by ramming them and forced Italian fleet to retreat.
Austrian ramming succes and victory led to ram craze in Europe with almost every ship in next 30 years or so being built with naval ram.
Maimailai
Majority of sailors on Austrian warships were Croats from coastal Dalmatia and ironically Italians too (from Austrian controlled Venice and Trieste).
Austrian navy drawn tradition from old Venetian navy and its name for some time was Austro-Venetian navy
Borosin0710
Lost bow and main front mast (I don’t know the specific name). The damage is very serious.
Nikephorus_peltas
The last victory of a wooden ship over an iron one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Kaiser_(1858)
Uncle1724
Yeah this battle was ramming galore. Austrians had less ironclads so their commander thought only chance for victory was to quickly close to melee range and ram the hell out of Italians.
He was lucky that Italian Admiral was incompetent political appointment and Austrian warships sunk two Italians ironclads by ramming them and forced Italian fleet to retreat.
Austrian ramming succes and victory led to ram craze in Europe with almost every ship in next 30 years or so being built with naval ram.
Maimailai
Majority of sailors on Austrian warships were Croats from coastal Dalmatia and ironically Italians too (from Austrian controlled Venice and Trieste).
Austrian navy drawn tradition from old Venetian navy and its name for some time was Austro-Venetian navy
Few paintings of the battle
https://imgur.com/a/NRYCh0x
HerrasKissa
For the record, the Austrians won the battle.