in size to around . Final approval came after work on the first unit, Zenta, had already begun. Zenta was long at the waterline and long overall; she had a beam of and a draft of . The ship displaced normally and at full load. The crew of the Zentas numbered 308 officers and enlisted men. Their propulsion system consisted of a pair of triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a screw propeller using steam provided by eight coal-fired Yarrow boilers. Their engines were rated to produce for a top speed of , although Zenta reached a speed of from during her sea trials on 30 March 1899. The ships carried enough coal to give them a range of at . To increase their range, the cruisers were fitted with a brigantine-sailing rig of on their two masts. The Zentas' main battery consisted of eight 40-caliber quick-firing guns manufactured by Škoda. One gun was mounted on the upper deck forward, six in casemates in the hull, and the remaining gun was placed on the upper deck aft. They also carried eight 44-caliber Škoda guns and two 33-caliber 47 mm Hotchkiss guns for defense against torpedo boats. These guns were all mounted individually, with four in the superstructure and the rest in casemates in the hull. The ships also carried a pair of Salvator-Dormus M1893 machine guns. Their armament was rounded out with a pair of torpedo tubes that were carried in the hull above the waterline. The three Zenta-class cruisers were the first major Austro-Hungarian warships to carry an armament entirely manufactured by Škoda. Their armor deck consisted of two layers of steel over the bow and stern. Amidships, where it protected the propulsion machinery spaces, it doubled in thickness to a pair of layers. The casemates for the primary guns had thick sides and the conning tower received two layers of 25 mm plate on the sides. Each of the 120 mm guns was protected by a gun shield, although they were not large enough to provide good cover for the gun crews. Service history Construction and deployment to China, 1896–1901 Zenta, ordered under the contract name Ersatz (replacement) , was laid down at the Pola Navy Yard on 8 August 1896 and was launched on 18 August 1897, the birthday of Kaiser Franz Joseph I. The ship was christened by his sister-in-law, Archduchess Maria Josepha. Fitting-out work was delayed