Wreck of battleship Roma found

There are some good drawings in Bagnasco's book, his guess is that the second bomb exploded in the forward engine room, close to the 6" magazines that in turn ignited the firing charges for B turret that blew up throwing the whole 15" turret overboard

Curious design, with the forward engine room forward of the boilers, under the bridge, and adjacent to the forward 6" and 15" magazines. Presumably the boiler rooms were all clustered amidships with the second engine room aft of them. The chances of both engine rooms being knocked out by a single hit or progressive flooding are essentially nil, but there is still that danger for the boilers, so it's not as good as a unit system. This also increases the length and weight of the propellor shafts for the forward engines, presumably the outer shafts, and causes them to take up more interior volume.

 

it appears without the KTB of the III./KG 40 thta there were 11-12 Do's attacking the Fleet. ToS yes you mnight be right on the aerial films with the Roma trying to evade the Fritz.

somehow I was thinking there was more underwter footage but appears that you are correct with the 90mm original. can we then figure that on each side by the looks of the ships photo that 4-5 90mm turrets each side and in a row ? or larger caliber ?

 

There were four boiler rooms clustered amidship, there were six 90mm single guns and 2 triple 15 (6") turrets each side.

This clip, in Italian, contains some more interviews with survivors (there is a second part but less interesting).

Regia Marina - L'affondamento della Corazzata Roma - parte 1 - YouTube

Some interesting quotes from it:
- The first attack wave was 5 planes.
- The first bomb dropped apparently exploded in front of Eugenio one of the interviewees was a gunner on that ship and reports more than one splash. - The Fritz-x drop angle was actually steeper than a conventional bomb (80 vs 60 so the reverse of what I had found up to now), so when the planes passed the 60 mark without dropping it was believed there would be no attack, (if true calling the Fritz-X a glide bomb is wrong, it's a guided bomb but designed to be dropped at a very steep angle not to glide).
- Roma was still steaming at 16knots after the first hit.
- At 10:30 after the second sighting of a German recon plane Bergamini asked for air cover and four Mc 202 did actually take off but received instructions to search for the fleet East of Corsica not West.
- Many deaths were caused by overheated steam escaping from the fore funnel, that swept the decks, most survivors had burns.

Note that the damage control part of the clip is not Roma but the famous 15" long range hit on Cavour at Punta Stilo.

 

Sadly, my Italian is limited to ordering from a menu, but a great video none the less. Thanks TOS!

 

hey would this be of interest covering the LW formations during the operations in the Med as well as the two missile types and useage..................one can never have enough refrence material(s)

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