Between the 1870s and 1910s, the Austro-Hungarian Navy built a series of cruisers of various types, including small torpedo cruisers, protected cruisers, fast scout cruisers and large armored cruisers. The first modern cruisers were the three Zara class begun in the late 1870s; a fourth vessel, Lussin, followed in the early 1880s. These ships proved to be unsatisfactory in service, and so to gain experience building effective vessels, the Navy ordered the two Panther-class cruisers from Britain. These were used as the basis for the domestically-built Tiger. Toward the end of the 1880s, the Navy shifted from building small torpedo cruisers to larger protected and armored cruisers, the first of which were the two Kaiser Franz Joseph I-class cruisers. These provided the basis for the armor