The Italian Navy during World War II

For the third time, I have read the sites provided by you and they state nothing along the line of what you said.

 

Ridicolous or thick are not compliments, instead deluded is just an adjective that means that somebody could be simply misinformed.

I think always more that it is not possible to have global free discussions on this site.

 

I have doubts that we have the same idea of freedom.

 

You can think what you want, you can deny, like others, also the WW2 italian naval winning battles if you desire. It's not my problem, I know the truth, and the sites posted say it very clearly.

I have been persecuted because I have expressed different views about the history, this is the lack of freedom. You don't concern anything in this question, no faults.

 

Now he managed to raise the Deep the ghost of Otto the Forum Owner!

Congrats, you win the t-shirt for the Stubborn of the Month

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I will attempt to get this thread back on track, however vain it currently appears


Never completed, but man she looked close to it.

A brief analysis of the Italian Navy
during World War II



In the Mediterranean, the situation of military power, in terms of quantity, appeared to be balanced. The Italian Fleet, of some importance for the number of surface and submarine forces, could have withstood the heavy weight of the opposing French and English forces. After Italy's entry into the war, June 10 1940, this apparently balanced situation was gradually compromised by several factors, including

• The stronger British power in naval aviation.
• Italian lack of instruments of detection (radar) and fuel.
• British ability to easily resort to naval and industrial power from other sectors of operation to replace losses in the Mediterranean.

Despite these adversities, the Italian Navy, in more than three years of hard engagement, was able to reach the peace table with all of its battleships.

Italian naval forces fought on all seas. The men from the special forces, submariners, naval aviators, crew from small and large ships and marines from the regiment San Marco, clearly distinguished themselves for their perseverance and valor in obeying the law which states that "when the Motherland is at war, everyone must obey up to the ultimate sacrifice".

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July 9th, 1940. Cruisers of the 2nd Squadron on route to Calabria
(Photo USMM)

Between 1940 and 1943, along with the Merchant Marine, the Italian Navy , despite the bitter opposition from British naval and aerial forces, was able to deliver to North Africa 86% of all war material and 92% of all troops shipped.

Some data eloquently summarizes the Italian effort in the war at sea: 3 million hours of operations for a total of 37 million miles sailed, equal to 2000 trips around the equator. 126,000 hours of aerial observation with 31,107 missions.

The naval routes with Albania, Greece and North Africa were always operational, averaging four concurrent convoys at sea. Transportation between the areas of operation was never interrupted. Such a result must be considered admirable especially considering the limited forces in place and the presence and location of the British military base of Malta. British traff on the prescribed routes toward Africa could have easily been considered an absurdity.

Nevertheless, the Mercantile Navy completed its assignment at the incredibly high price of 2,513 ships sunk between June 10,1940 and September 8, 1943.
The "Medaglia d'Oro al Valor Militare" awarded to the flag of the Italian Navy, to the Special Forces, the cruiser San Giorgio, and the submarine Scire along with 158 "Medaglie d'Oro al Valore" and the 4 "al Valore di Marina", clearly represent the highest possible measurement of the sacrifice and the devotion to the Motherland shown by the Italian Navy between 1940 and 1945.
http://regiamarina.net/ref/analysis/analysis_us.htm
In white for now to see if TTH calls me a liar again

 

Seeing the pic of the "Aquila" reminded me of this.




"Prior to World War II, the Italian high command saw no reason to build aircraft carriers as they already had an unsinkable one, their own country, sitting smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. The daring strikes undertaken by the British aircraft carriers soon proved them wrong. It certainly didn’t help that the Italian Air Force was not especially good at over water navigation and they seemed to bomb Italian ships as often as British ones! On mature consideration, it might be nice to have an aircraft carrier that can accompany the other ships and have airmen who can tell the difference between British and Italian ships. \ Taken in hand for conversion from the civilian liner Roma during 1941, Aquila, which means “Eagle”, was never commissioned as an aircraft carrier. She nearing the completion of her conversion in 1943 when Italy surrendered to the Allies. The Germans captured the hull, but before they could act on her, the Allies initiated air and human torpedo attacks that kept her immobilized. Plans for the ship’s airgroup were to use modified Re 2001 fighter aircraft. Initially they would consist of aircraft with non-folding wings, though plans were made to create a folding-wing version that would have allowed more aircraft to be carried. Various ordnance loads were contemplated for the Re 2001s including a torpedo option, the Re 2001G. Scuttled by the Germans, Aquila was raised and broken up in 1951-52."

Aquila, Ships of Battlegroup

 

The Allies would be better off leaving the Aquila alone and let the Germans make a mess of it

 

That figure looks high to me, are you sure it's not "ships lost" and so includes the ships that were lost because cought outside the Med at the time of the decalaration of war.

Some sources I have (as usual I can't find the one I'm really looking for which is the one from Ufficio Storico Della Marina) :
"Le battaglie navali del mediterraneo" [A. Petacco]
Merchants lost in the Med.
672 ships for 2.916.000 tonns.
"Match pari fra due grandi flotte" [V. di Sambuy}
Ships lost because "out of the med" on 10/6/40
212 ships for 1.213.637
Ships available on 10/6/40 excluding above
574 ships for 2.101.492
Losses 1940-1943 about 2.000.000 tonns

While I found the whole tread up to your intervention painful, some of the points he made are not totally devoid of truth. You said "with all it's battleships", some other members quoted Cavour sunk at Taranto, does this look "sunk"?
View attachment 4004

BTW I think you failed to mention the biggest handicap the Regia laboured under, they routinely comunicated the ships movemets to the Germans (to avoid accidental bombing by the Luftwaffe) and the Germans used ULTRA so the allies where aware of practically all Italian ship movements. This generated a lot of controversy in Italy after the war and traitors in high places were suspected after analizing the way the British always managed to catch the Italian convoys and usually sortied within minutes of the Italian fleet leaving harbour. It's impossible to wage a successful naval war if your opponent has perfect intelligence of your movements and you have to guess theirs.

 

Here and here a nice chronology of the Italian naval campaigns that I found in an interesting site.

Quite pretty ships, here's the Caio Duilio!

 

Well in the total scheme of things one carrier would not have made much difference either way. Especially with the huge amount of carriers and ships that the Aliies were able to produce even at that time of the war.

 

That's not what I had in mind, I was thinking of the mess the Germans would make of it as a Graf Zeppelin II, not to mention the airgroup. And to sail where, Lake Costance?

 

I figured thats what you meant LOL. But in 1943 even to the Germans it would not have really been of any use. And like you said where would it go? LOL

 

I do have to admit that they did make some pretty looking ships .

 

This is not completely correct, the idea was examined time and again but between the "big gun" lobby in the admilalty and opposition by the very politically powerful air force to having any sort of naval aviation no ship was actually laid down. I have seen at least half a dozen aircraft carrier projects fron the 20s and 30s though none got further than the wooden mockup stage. I've recently seen some photos of the Sparviero, it was, on paper, a much less radical conversion than Aquila so I wonder why it went so much slower. Aquila was nearly completed, some photos show her engines were working, while Sparviero just had the old superstructure removed.

 

I agree .The Italians had quite a few designs but none really got anywhere and when the Italians did start it was way too late. One design IIRC had no island and retractable smokestacks. And then there is the,

Bolzano aviation & transport cruiser

Concept/Program: A former heavy cruiser, extensively damaged by submarine torpedoes and proposed for reconstruction to a hybrid carrier/transport design. The vessel was intended to serve as a fast military transport for ferry runs to Africa, and to provide minimal air cover for the fleet and convoys. The aircraft would have been catapulted off to land ashore; she had no landing deck. In the event litte or no work was undertaken.

Design/Conversion: Torpedoes caused massive fires which totally gutted the forward half of the ship; the forward funnel melted and the bridge superstruture was destroyed. The conversion would have removed two boilers and rearranged the remaining eight to make space for cargo holds; all superstructure from the aft funnels to the bow would have been removed. An aircraft platform, wide enough for a single aircraft, would run from the aft funnel to the bow, with two catapults angled out at the bow. Aircraft would be stored on deck, rolled forward to the catapults for launch, and would land ashore. The forward funnel would have been replaced by a pair of smaller funnels to either side of the aircraft platform. The original armament was to be removed and replaced with intermediate and light AA batteries.



World Aircraft Carriers List: Italy