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The Battle of Lissa (sometimes called ''Battle of Vis'') took place on 20 July 1866 in the Adriatic Sea near the Dalmatian island of Lissa ("Vis" in Croatian) and was a decisive victory for an outnumbered Austrian Empire force over a numerically superior Italian force. It was the first major sea battle between ironclads and one of the last to involve deliberate ramming. The Italian navy fired roughly 1450 shots during the engagement, but failed to do any serious damage to any Austrian ship while losing two battleships. One of the main reasons for this poor performance was internal rivalry between the Italian fleet commanders: for example, Italian Vice Admiral Albini, with his ships, did not engage the enemy during the battle.〔(The Italian "mistakes" in Lissa battle (in Italian) )〕 The engagement was made up of several small battles: the main battle was between seven Austrian and four Italian ironclads and showed the ability of Austrian commander Tegetthoff to divide his more numerous opponents and then destroy the isolated ironclads. ==Historical situation== The battle occurred as part of the Third Italian Independence War, in which Italy allied with Prussia in the course of the conflict against Austria. The major Italian objective was to capture Venice and at least part of the former Venetian territory from Austria. The fleets were composed of a mix of unarmoured sailing ships with steam engines, and armoured ironclads also combining sails and steam engines. The Italian fleet of 12 ironclads and 17 unarmoured ships outnumbered the Austrian fleet of 7 and 11 respectively. The Austrians were also severely outmatched in rifled guns (276 to 121) and total weight of metal (53,236 tons to 23,538 tons).〔Stevens (1942), p. 257〕 A single turret ship took part in the action — the Italian ''Affondatore''. Piedmontese Count Carlo di Persano commanded the Italian fleet, while the Austrian fleet was commanded by ''Konteradmiral'' Wilhelm von Tegetthoff. The Fort of Lissa was put under the authority of the ''Oberst'' David Urs de Margina, Romanian of Transylvania. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Lissa (1866)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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