Italian Avisios
Each of the three Italian Ironclad divisions and wooden frigate squadron of Albini had a paddle steamer Avisio attached so that flag signals could be repeated at greater distances and despatches carried throughout the fleet. These vessels were generally fast paddle steamers like the Esploratore and Messaggere built by Wigram & Sons, of Blackwall London, both of these vessels, although only lightly armed could steam at 17 knots which was very fast for the day and they were probably the most elegant vessels in either fleet. The twin stack Governolo was an older paddle frigate attached to Albini’s squadron as was the small frigate San Giovanni.
Austrian Third Division
At Lissa the Austrian navy committed every vessel that they had to the battle including seven gunboats that made up the 3rd division. These vessels were small flush decked screw steamers and were in reality unsuited for the line of battle but never the less they were committed to the action. The gunboats were made up of two classes of vessels, Reka, Seehund, Streiter and Wall of the “Reka Class” and Dalmat, Hum and Velebich of the "Dalmat Class". These vessels can be distinguished from each other by the larger bridge structure aft of the funnel which was an improvement only fitted to the later . Each vessel was lightly armed compared to the similar sized USS Unadilla class that mounted a huge 11 inch smoothbore pivot gun, these vessels only carried 4 x 24lb rifled cannons and 2 x 24lb and 2 x 48lb smoothbores respectively.
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