against torpedo boats was provided by ten quick-firing (QF) Škoda guns and four 47-millimeter QF Hotchkiss guns. The ships also mounted two torpedo tubes, one on each broadside. Each torpedo tube was provided with two torpedoes. In 1917 a Škoda 7 cm K10 anti-aircraft gun was installed. The ship's nickel-steel waterline armor belt was thick, and the gun turrets were protected by of armor. The casemates had thick sides while the conning tower had of armor. Budapests deck armor was thick. The Monarch-class ships were ordered in May 1892 with Budapest and Wien to be built at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in Trieste. Both ships were laid down on 16 February 1893, the first ships in the class to be laid down. Budapest was launched on 27 April 1896 by Countess Marie Széchényí-Andrássy, wife of the Governor of Fiume, and commissioned on 12 May 1898. Service history Peace time Budapest and her sisters formed the Navy's 1st Capital Ship Division (I. Schwere Division), and Budapest conducted the first wireless telegraphy trials in the Navy when she was briefly fitted with a Marconi radio in December 1898. In late 1899 the division made a training cruise to the Eastern Mediterranean where they made port visits in Greece, Lebanon, Turkey and Malta. In early 1902 they made another training cruise to the Western Mediterranean with port visits in Algeria, Spain, France, Italy, Corfu, and Albania. The ship was fitted with a Siemens-Braun radio early the following year. The ships of the division were inspected by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne, in March 1903 at Gravosa. Shortly afterwards, Budapest, Wien, the battleship and the destroyer made a cruise to the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1904, the Monarch-class ships formed the 2nd Capital Ship Division, and they took part in the 1904 cruise of the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas as well as training exercises in which the three s engaged the Budapest and her sisters in simulated combat. Those maneuvers marked the first time two homogeneous squadrons consisting of modern battleships operated in the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The Monarchs were relegated to the newly formed Reserve Squadron on 1 January 1906 and were only recommissioned for the annual summer exercises. They participated in a fleet review by Archduke Franz Ferdinand in September conducted in the Kolocepski Channel near Šipan. The ships were briefly recommissioned at the beginning of 1913 as the 4th