so well received that when the time came to plan for the replacement of Austria-Hungary's old s, the navy elected to simply take the layout of the Tegetthoff class and enlarge them to have a slightly greater tonnage and larger main guns. Despite these praises, criticisms of the Tegetthoff-class design exist. Friedrich Prasky refers to the ships in his article The Viribus Unitis class "The ships were too small and had a very low range of stability." Erwin Sieche writes in his article S.M.S. Szent István: Hungaria's Only and Ill-Fated Dreadnought "There had been much quibbling about the bad design of the Tegetthoff class and the bad workmanship and riveting of the Szent István in particular." Poor riveting has been blamed for the sinking of Szent István, and Karl Mohl, chief non-commissioned officer of Szent Istváns machinery, reported that the rivets from the ships snapped loose during the battleship's sinking. Furthermore, reports emerged following the ship's gunnery trials of rivets in the double bottom of the hull being blown out of their sockets. The sinking of Szent István revealed several flaws in the design of the ships' armor. The naval commission investigating the loss of the battleship ultimately concluded: "The distance between mine armor and 15-cm-ammunition magazines is too small and a major design failure, which most probably caused the widening of the leak." Following Szent Istváns sinking, it was also discovered that her propeller shafts had such a high degree of resistance that the ship's rudder could only be laid at a maximum angle of 10° at full speed or else she would suffer from a heavy list. Ships Construction Secrecy Montecuccoli's plans for the battleships gained approval from Emperor Franz Joseph I in January 1909, and by April plans for the ships' design, construction, and financing in the face of the ongoing budget crisis in Budapest were already being laid out. Upon learning that Austria-Hungary was planning or currently building a class of dreadnoughts, the British Admiralty considered the project "as a concealed addition to the German fleet" and interpreted the ships as Austria-Hungary's way of repaying Germany for her diplomatic support during the former's annexation of Bosnia in 1908. During the spring and summer of 1909, the United Kingdom was locked in a heated naval arms race with Germany which led the Royal Navy to look upon the Austro-Hungarian ships as a ploy by German Grand Admiral