They were the last broadside armored frigates to be built for the Austrian Empire, and the last vessels completed to see action against the Italians at the Battle of Lissa in 1866.

There, Erzherzog Ferdinand Max served as the flagship of Rear Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff; in the course of the melee, the ship rammed and sank the Italian ironclad Re d'Italia, which proved to be the decisive action in the battle.

After the war, both ships were laid up and did not see much significant activity for the remainder of their careers owing to reduced naval funding in what had become the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The commission had deadlocked by April, but the recent Battle of Hampton Roads in the American Civil War—the first engagement between two ironclads—had demonstrated the ascendancy of the new ships and convinced the Reichsrat (Imperial Council) to grant a significant increase for the naval budget, which allowed two new ironclads to be ordered in 1863, which became the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max class.

[5][7] The ships of the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max class were broadside ironclads, and they were armed with a main battery of sixteen 48-pounder muzzle-loading guns.

[5] Both ships were still under construction at the outbreak of the Seven Weeks' War in June 1866; the shipyard workers quickly completed the vessels, albeit with old smooth-bore guns instead of the Krupp rifled breech-loaders that were intended.

The two ships saw action at the Battle of Lissa in July 1866, where Erzherzog Ferdinand Max rammed and sank the Italian ironclad Re d'Italia.

This proved to be the turning point of the engagement, forcing the Italian commander, Admiral Carlo Pellion di Persano to withdraw.

Neither ship received significant damage in the battle,[8] and they spent the rest of the war patrolling the Adriatic against a possible sortie from the Italian fleet.