SMS Leitha (1872)

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History

SMS Leitha (or Lajta in Hungarian, named after a river in Austria) was launched in 1872 and was the first monitor type ship in Europe. She was built by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and was directly inspired by the USS Monitor. However, Leitha was designed as a river monitor, which means she was much smaller and had a much smaller draught than her American counterpart, to allow her to sail around on the rivers of the Monarchy.
She saw her first action in 1878 when the Monarchy invaded Bosnia-Herzegovina. Following this, she preformed routine duties until 1892 when she and her sister ship Maros (named after a river in Hungary) were scheduled to be refitted. Their superstructure was enlarged and they received modern 120mm cannons.
By 1914, Leitha and Maros were the oldest serving warships in the K.u.K. Kriegsmarine (the Austro-Hungarian Navy) and were scheduled to be scrapped, however at the outbreak of WW1 it was decided to send them into action. They engaged in multiple battles during the war and Leitha was even assigned as the flagship of the Danube flotilla
After the end of the war in 1919, the ship (now renamed "Lajta") saw action in the "Monitor rebellion" against the short lived communist government of Hungary. By 1921, the Entente powers deemed that there was no need for such an aging vessel. Her weaponry and machinery was removed and she was sold at an auction. A Budapest based enterprise bought her and converted her into an elevator ship, under the name "József Lajos elevator ship". It was like this that she was serving until 1992 (she was renamed once again after WW2 when the enterprise was nationalized by the communist government, her new name being "FK-201") when the enterprise, along with her, was sold to a Swiss company. However, during the 1970s, a Hungarian naval historian, Károly Csonkaréti discorvered her and with the help of others, got her back from the Swiss company. In 2005, funds were finally allocated to begin her conservation works and she was restored into her original form to become a museum ship. She was even titled the honorary flagship of the Hungarian Army's river warship regiment and she has been serving as the Lajta Monitor Museum Ship ever since.

the only known photo of Leitha's original form

Leitha as an elevator ship

Now about my build!

I started working on this ship all the way back in 2021 and the project was in and out of development hell up until December of 2024 when I decided to finally finish her.
This build features:
- Accurate size and accurate speed (with functional propellers and rudder)
- Usable Primary cannons with recoil
- Usable Nordenfelt machine guns
- Full Superstructure interior including the turret, the galley and the toilets
- A walker model to walk around on the bridge
- Centralized aiming system with a detailed rangefinder HUD inside the walker's binoculars (so you don't have to switch cameras)
- Highly detailed exterior
- Waving flag at the stern
- Modeled crew performing tasks around the ship

Controls:

Activation Groups:

AG1 - Activate guns + raise binoculars to the walker's eyes
AG2 - Disable guns and reset them to default position
AG5 - Walker activate/deactivate (deactivation will make him stay at where he is and won't move)
AG6 - Galley door
AG7 - Lower masts and funnel

Ship Controls:

VTOL - Propulsion
Trim - Steering

Cameras:

CAM1 "Korvettenkapitaen Gergely" - Walker first person view
CAM2 "Korvettenkapitaen Gergely (Orbit)" - Walker third person view (note: you can't turn him in this view)

Info for the Gunnery HUD:

Colors:
- RED - Gun is not capable of reaching the set bearing
- ORANGE - Gun is capable of reaching the set bearing but is still doing so (they turn a bit a slow)
- GREEN - Gun is aiming at the set bearing
- BLUE - Guns are reset to default position (won't train to set bearing)

The guns can hit your own ship, especially if you are aiming down (setting the ranging to a negative %) so be careful with that.

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Range setting:
On this HUD, you can find two buttons "+%" and "-%" and a value between them. These buttons can be used to fine tune what percentage the "Range+" and "Range-" buttons will increase/decrease the range. For example, if you use the "+%" to set its value to 2%, then if you press the "Range+" button, the range will be increased by 2%

Other info:

Since Leitha doesn't have an Engine Order Telegraph like other ships I've built do, you have to control the ship's engines using a logbook that I placed next to the ship's wheel on a box. In the logbook, on the left page, you'll find a red slider that you can slide left (for reverse speed) or right (for forward speed) with the text above it indicating what speed you selected. On the right page, you'll find information regarding the current angle fo the rudder, as well as a button that allows you to switch between "masts up" and "masts down" modes.

You can use the Steering wheel and the ship's logbook on the bridge both in VR and with your mouse on screen, just click and hold the handles on them
The text in the logbook is in Hungarian for the sake of authenticity, but I included English translations below the texts.

Credits:

• ShiroNeko for testing and feedback.
• MisterT for the FPS Walk Camera

Gallery:

Be careful in the galley, there is a little rodent problem on the ship

As always, I hope you like this build and have fun with it!