The Caio Duilio,Class were generally not bad ships compared to the Conte di Cavour Class because received a more extensive rebuilding and had a much better secondary armament. In theory the 320 mm could reach the Dunkerque Class but wouldn't managed to inflicted heavy damage and definitely not against battleships armed with the 380 mm guns let alone with the 406 mm guns. A big issue was that the Italian battleships guns was actually a re-bored 310 mm guns to 320 mm guns I'd subjected to rapid firing it tended to "sag" so it had to cool down. My late father remembered very well this issue when he was serving on the Caio Duilio. Sorry if I'm boring you 😴! Good job👍👍
The problem with shell dispersion appears to the result of lousy shells. Drachenfel (sp) notes that Italian battleships had excellent fire control and performed well bracketing RN ships. However, the shoddy shells indeed had poor dispersal
I would argue that both are worth it. Especially when you consider timing. The modernizations of the Italian dreadnoughts gave Italy effectively as they entered the war four relatively modern fast battleships. If they hadn't modernized the second two they would have only had two. Whilst that may have given them more Vittorio's later on. Italy needed more ships fast. They didn't know when war was coming but they did know that it was happening soon. Britain nearly got involved in their invasion of Ethiopia. And overall they just knew that a war that they would be involved in was happening soon. As such, whilst they might have been able to get some truly modern battleships if they had scrapped them it would have taken too long to matter. France had the two Dunkirk's which the first two could at least on paper counters. But if any of the British fast battleships came in, they would be at a decisive disadvantage. Excluding that France still had three older dreadnoughts in commission with three in commission. As well the courbet's could be brought back online given time. And that's not mentioning the Richelieu's both entering service soon. The first two littorios were going to be ready around the same time. That could not be changed. The next two would be ready before the follow-on French battleships. But that would be following a thin line of staying just barely ahead of the French. By modernizing the last two they gave them battleships multiple years sooner than they would have gotten Roma and impero. With war on the horizon, you need ships fast. Whilst your industry is limited, modernizing all of your old ships, despite the problems that they may have is better. By having all of them the French would need to limit their speed if they were to fight you alone as they would need to bring their old battleships to a fight. As well in general more ships are going to be deployed to you as you have four battleships that are a threat. Whilst even in R class could beat one up, it would be too slow. By simply existing more ships need to be deployed to counter them. In a perfect world with perfect hindsight you could be able to argue that the last two should have just been scrapped. The Italians didn't know when war would break out and they needed ships fast. At the same time knowing one war does break out and how the war goes. If at the start of the war Italy only had two battleships, it would have gone worse for them by the time Roma and impero could have been ready enough time would have already been lost that they wouldn't have had enough of an impact to matter.
Correct, but Italy joined the war early, when no one forced (or even insisted) it to do it. It was done merely because Musso wanted to get his victor's position and spoils against the already collapsing France. He miscalculated it as a low risk, high gain affair. Italy could have, like Franco's Spain, retain a german favouring neutrality all the war. And the result would have been Mussolini dying of the old age decades later, like Franco, and then a gradual shift towards the democrary.
@@Ah01 Franco didn't enter the war because he had barely won the civil war. His possession in the country was still on thin ice and by entering the war he would just give the British an excuse to spend millions of dollars funding another insurrection against him. On the other hand, Mussolini had just won a war with Ethiopia. And looking at the situation he saw an opportunity to grab a slice of the pie. Hindsight 20/20 Hitler should have left Poland alone. But at the time imagine Mussolini saying no. He had promised to restore Italy to the height of the Roman empire. Not doing so would have led to unrest. Especially when the entire populist would have seen this as the perfect opportunity to grab Territories from the collapsing allies. He could get Corsica, parts of Southern France, French North Africa, Egypt the coast of Yugoslavia, and Greece. And how could Britain stop him. They had basically just been defeated. All he had to do was go in, take all the territories and end the war. The only thing that Franco wanted that Germany could provide was Gibraltar. And that was not nearly enough to justify restarting the civil war and having a high risk of losing all of his colonies if not his own job but for doing so. If Mussolini had stayed neutral. He could have been in a decent position. But he never was going to. After falling out of favor with Britain in France in the mid-thirties he was preparing for war with them. No matter what, he would have entered the war at some point. The best case scenario for him would have been against Germany so he could gobble up a bit more of Austria. but that wasn't what he wanted or promised.
@@tsf317 Yeah, I know, all that is correct. Mussolini was a gambler, and a prisoner of his own propaganda. His greed took him to war and was his downfall. And Franco did not enter the war because he was too slow and cautios for that. Luckily for him.
Yes, the rebuilds were entirely worth it. Italy considered France to be it's most likely adversary in the Mediterranean. The rebuilds of the Cavour and Duilio classes made them far superior to the elderly French battleships that had not been significantly modified to any extent.
You are rigth. If France wouldn't have collapsed in 1940, then Italian rebuilds would had mostly pinned the bulk of French navy in the med. Italy was an underdog compared to british+French combined force. So having more somehow capable ships on the hurry was more important than having the Best ships possible. 4 rebuilds + 4 Littorios would had been a major contendant on the med, Even against combined Allied force that was expected to face
While not great the refitted Italian Dreadnaughts were effective and gave the RN a lot to think about my only real criticism of the refits is the decision to rebore the 300mm guns to 320mm as yes the 320mm shell did make the shell almost 20% higher it introduced issues with dispersion. While the the Littorio's are much better ships than the refits an extra hull gives you capabilities that can't be discounted especially as it can be in two places at once. Your analysis is massively wrong as it doesn't take into account the massive effect they had on RN planning the simple presence of 2 additional reasonably fast reasonably powerful vessels caused no end of headaches for the RN in operational planning it meant much more significant RN forces had to be tied down doing Convoy missions. They also massively complicated any RN attempts to disrupt Italian Convoys and in the Early war the only real threat to them wasn't Warspite but Renown or Repulse which they always outnumbered. The presence of these ships is what drove Cunningham to base so much of his tactics around the use of Aircraft Carriers and to use Malta as a strike base for submarines and Swordfish bombers against Italian convoys (the Submarine base was quickly neutralized by the Italians).
I generally agree with your analysis of the Italian rebuilds. My problem is with your comment at the end, that Dunkerque and Strasbourg (the small French battleships) did not get a lot of use. That was not because of their design, but because of the fall of France in 1940. This neutralized most of the fleet, other than those ships that joined De Gaulle. Prior to that, they had been active in their designed role of hunting German surface raiders, and if France had stayed in the war, at least through its empire and fleet, they would have been very useful in reinforcing the British Home Fleet to deal with surface raiders (by being at Scapa Flow and/or escorting convoys). Later they could have been refitted (more AA, as well as deck armor for Dunkerque) and join Allied forces in the Indian Ocean and finally the British Pacific Fleet for 1945.
The comment on Dunk (the general point on medium battleships aside) was less on the utility of the design, and more on the fact that they ended up not seeing much use. Not through fault of their own, no, but as it turned out... Well, the ships the rebuilds were intended to counter- and built to counter as a 'quick' option compared to a new design -ended up being rendered largely moot. Past the first year of the war, anyway. The point on medium battleships was more in relation to the idea of the Italians building ships of that kind at all, instead of jumping right to something like Littorio. Which, naturally, they couldn't have known at the time.
@@skyneahistory2306 So, from a wargaming/counterfactual point of view, the question is what value would those ships have been if France had not fallen, but rather we have more of a WWI western front for some time? Would Italy have entered the war at all as a German ally, or would it have backed out and even eventually joined the other side, as it had in the last war? Churchill talked about precisely that point in his memoirs. If it had still joined in on the Nazi side, to try and get more African colonies from France and Britain, would the Italian fleet have been aggressive enough to force action with the rebuilt battle line against the French in the Western Med, before British forces from Gibraltar or Alexandria could have intervened? Considering its actual record in WWII, probably not, but that would have been its best chance. In any case, nice work on your production.
It's worth bearing in mind that one factor in the rebuilding of the Dorias is that it would give the Italian navy a homogenous squadron of four ships with similar capabilities. Combine that with the four Littorios and the Regia Marina would have had a very tidy battlefleet going forward while they designed a Littorio successor that would have replaced the rebuilds. This alludes to the problem with the "build new medium battleships" argument - they don't make much sense as an interim solution whilst occupying the same industrial resources that are required for full sized ships - slipways, gun pits, armour foundries, etc. In theory at least the rebuilds give the Regia Marina a quartet of modern ships fairly quickly and for not too much money without occupying the essential facilities required to build their 40,000+ ton battleships. Of course, the problem is that the rebuilds came in late and over budget and then had inglorious war careers so it's easy to write them off as unnecessary. I also think claiming the Doria pair cost the Regia Marina a third Littorio ignores the industrial realities of Italian shipbuilding in the late 30s. The Italians were manifestly capable of reconstructing Doria and Duilio at the same time as they were constructing Littorio and Vittorio Venetto. However, Impero and Roma had to be laid down in the slips that had been vacated by their half sisters because there wasn't a third slip in Italy big enough to build a 40,000 ton battleship, so with the best will in the world the Italians were NEVER going to be able to substitute the two Doria rebuilds with a third Littorio in time to make a difference in the war. The "best" that could have happened was first pair of Littorios getting launched and the second pair of being laid down sooner - but still probably too late to matter - and in the meantime the Italians have just the two Cavours and two Littorios to work with making their battlefleet significantly weaker than historical.
It’s not that they cost the Italians a third Littorio in the sense of ‘they could have built a third one instead of doing the rebuilds’. That was talking about the *monetary* cost. More specifically, that the Dorias cumulatively cost about 605 million lire, while one of the first pair Littorio cost about 800 million, individually. So they ‘cost nearly as much as a third Littorio’ in the words of Bagnasco and de Toro.
@Skynea History yes very true but remember that Italy was facing already acute shortage of heavy oil and in fact in 1942 most of the fleet stayed at the harbours so it didn't make any sense building another Littorio Class battleship also because of shortage of raw materials..
@@skyneahistory2306 That it true and it is a valid point to make, but with no third slip how was the Regia Marina to best use that 605 million lira in 1937? If they did not spend it then, then for better or worse the money almost certainly have been spent on something else (and possibly on the army or air-force) by the time the government was ready and able to order new battleships. It is easy to criticize with the benefit of hindsight, but there is definitely logic to what the Regia Marina did and the outlay did deliver two reasonably capable surface units in time for the main part of the Mediterranean campaign. Putting the money aside for later construction (if that were even possible - national budgets rarely work that way) would not have achieved that and they could well have been worse off for it.
I think one point that folks miss is that these could handle anything less than another battleship. Having these in the Mediterranean limited the ability of cruisers to be deployed by opposing powers against Italy. They could run from most ships that could outgun them which was a huge advantage. Limited, yes. Could they have been done better? Yes. But they would have gotten a lot more good use out of these ships if Taranto hadn’t happened.
You completely underestimate the political situation of 1935: due to the Washington treaty, nobody really wanted to build new as there was a genuine trend to avoid spending sums that could bankrupt a large nation. Refitting old ships was a way to keep tensions low. Even with Littorio, there was no real intention to break the treaty limits(as the Germans did with the Bismark). The Pugliese system (which was filled wit water at times) was considered by the British full tonnage and the Italians were not able to fit an engine as light and powerful as the french had in the Richelieu (nobody else actually could). In the end, scrapping the Caracciolo and the Austrian battleships while refitting old dreadnought,albeit VERY extensively, was a way to keep tensions down with France in the Mediterranean. As the French started designing the Richelieu class, everything changed but that was against the directives if the government.
As a Naval Architect with 35 years experience, it is my opinion that the rebuilt Italian WW1 battleships were example of one of the best rebuild of all the WW1 battleship rebuilds. The end product of the Cesare class was at least the equal of the British battlecruiser HMS Repulse, and the rebuilt Doria class were at least the equal of the more modernized battlecruiser HMS Renown. Both classes of rebuilt WW1 Italian battleships were clearly superior to the lightly modernized WW1 British 15" battleships of the 'R' class, and the older French WW1 battleships.
A fair and reasonable review. Perhaps another point worth mentioning, it would not have been clear to Italy that the British would have the resources to deploy the Queen Elizabeths and R's to the Mediterranean. I doubt if the Italian navy expected the German surface fleet to accomplish as little as it did.
Had the Italians had proper radar and flashless powder, and did some proper quality control on their heavy armament ammunition, their navy would have been excellent. The 15" on the Littorio class, and the 8" on their heavy cruisers, were, with proper ammunition, among the best guns of any navy. Their rangefinders were not the best, but by no means deficient. Poor shell quality resulted in their salvos having unpredictable spreads. Flashless powder and lack of radar meant the Italians were limited in their night combat abilities. The guns on the Doria and Cavour rebuilds suffered even more. They were 12" guns bored out to 12.6", without enforcing the barrel. This further exasperated the dispersion issues due to poor ammunition. On paper, the guns seemed excellent--they slightly outranged the British 15" on the modified QE class, and had better reload dynamics allowing a faster rate of fire. Their penetration dynamics posed a threat to the British ships as well. In ideal sea conditions, the Italian ships held a 2knot speed advantage--just enough to decide the range. As for the French battleship threat-- none of their modern battleships were ever completed. In a stand-up battle, however, the ammunition issues, lack of radar, and the outdated armour on the Italian ships rendered them ineffective against 'equal' opponents, and their slow speed meant that they could not keep an engagement with faster cruisers. Their biggest contribution was simply to tie of British resources in the Med--for as much as they were not effective ships of the line, they would have been a threat to convoys and would have demanded something more than cruisers as a defence, though the Littorios would have done the same just by being present (much the same way the Tirpitz in Norway required the RN to keep several modern battleships and carriers available in the North Sea). So, was it worth it? On a scale of 1-10, they may hit a 5 on value. Better than the IJN Ise and Fuso class (4 and 3), less value than Braham and Malaya (6.5 in their less modified form from the other QE), far less than the Valiant, Warspite, and QE (7.5), and far short of the Kongo (8.5). I rank the Kongo at 8.5 as they came out as very capable ships that would have beaten any of the British or Italian WW1 rebuilds and would have likely matched all but the Colorado rebuilds of the US WW1 ships in a daytime action. Their two draw backs were they still had casement secondary armament and they lacked radar. Had they had radar, things may have been slightly different with Kirishima and its encounter with Washington and South Dakota (she still would have been sunk, but would have been more aware of Washington, better able to evade that threat, and likely poured in a decent number shells into South Dakota).
This is the dilemma I am constantly facing in Rule the Waves. I can modernise an old ship in 14 months at half the price I can build a new ship for in twice the time. Sure, if I dont go to war for 28 month I now have a more capable vessel, but if I end up at war in 14 months I have an old, slow ship that's just waiting to get sunk and one on the slipway that's no use at all.
There seems to be some confusion here. Most of my analysis and argument here comes direct from the authority on Italian battleships in Ermingo Bagnasco and Augusto de Toro. [1] In particular, the argument that the Dorias were an arguable mistake and that Italy would likely have gotten more worth out of scrapping them. This is such a point for them, that they bring it up in both the Littorio book *and* the one on the rebuilds. As well as the comments on the overall utility and actual use of the rebuilds. Did the Cavours get some decent use in the early war? Yes. But the thing to keep in mind is that, save for their speed[2], these ships were outclassed by...just about anything that isn't the antique French dreadnoughts. Even most sources that are positive on the rebuilds acknowledge they were inferior to Dunkerque. While they were getting good straddles on the British before Cesare was hit, the plain fact is that only one shell knocked Cesare out of battle, and it wasn't even a direct hit to her hull, but to her stack. You won't find someone who is higher on the Regia Marina, in general, than me. I love the Italians and find them underrated as all hell. *However*, I do fully acknowledge that the rebuilds, for all their beauty, are flawed designs and while very capable for what they are...are still of questionable utility. Not fast enough to chase cruisers, not armed or armored enough to fight a larger battleship head on. In rough weather, even, they could barely operate their weaponry properly. And when it comes to the Dorias, well, Italy needed steel more than it needed battleships that didn't even enter service until Roma and Impero were soon to come into action. And that's *with* the delays to those ships that the authors above note as being likely. Beautiful ships, I love 'em, but they were a questionable choice in 1937 in a lot of ways. Not least because Britain was obviously an enemy at that point and no amount of rebuilding would make these ships a match for a QE or R in anything but speed. [1] www.amazon.com/Italian-Battleships-Cavour-Classes-1911-1956/dp/1526799871/ [2] The speed of the rebuilds is debatable. They had issues in rough weather and with leakage. While they could operate at 26-27 knots on average, well, the KGVs were a couple knots faster (if one looks at 26 as a reasonable average) and the SoDaks are more or less the same, even by 1945 when they're weighed down with a metric ton of AA weaponry. The only ships the rebuilds outspeed are other battleships of their vintage (refit or not refit) and the Nelsons.
I’d argue they should have spent the money used for the refits on developing better inter service cooperation with the Regia Aeronautica, including allowing them to be the arbiter of dominance in the Med when the weather allowed.
The only problem is that the Regia Aeronautica simply didn't want to coperate with the other armed forces. They were to jelous of their aircrafts to share with anyone else. Many people point out that the italians did not build an aircraft carrier but the fact is that evrey aircraft in Italy was controlled by the airforce and they were defenetly unwilling to give control of their squadrons to somebody else, they were practically force to create a torpedo bomber sqadron in 1939 after years of debate. During the war things got a little bit better but the Regia Aeronautica was always a little reluctant to deploy large numbers in support of both the navy and the army too.
I get a kick out of battleship design studies. Lots of talk about armor protection, torpedo protection, and gun size. With little if any talk about hull subdivision, fire fighting and damage control. Ultimately any hit which causes a fire, is potentially catastrophic. Any hit that results in progressive flooding makes heavy armor, a liability to continued buoyancy. As if the only way to sink a battleship is to penetrate it's heaviest armor. It actually made more sense to build shells designed to inflict very hot, difficult to put out fires. As well as shells which can rupture the widest expanse of hull plating. Lots of battleships were sunk during WW-II. It having been repeatedly demonstrated that penetration of heavy armor is not required, to sink a battleship. So? Were these rebuilds worth the money? The answer is simple. Did they carry out the mission? Delivering accurate shell fire on target is the battleship's mission. If the ship is too slow to accomplish the mission? It's a waste of money.
@@rohanthandi4903 It's been the conventional wisdom that Hood exploded and sank, after a 15" shell penetrated her 15" magazine. Examination of her wreckage on the sea floor. Showed ALL FOUR MAIN MAGAZINES EXPLODED! Something that shouldn't happen. Unless the ship's damage control boundaries were not set. Hood took a hit from Bismarck's escort aft, which started a "minor fire." It was also noted that the fire included the petrol storage for the scouting aircraft. Without the damage control boundaries set? Burning petrol was free to flow below decks. Spreading the fire until the main magazine was reached. No damage control? Boom! It's possible that Bismarck sank the Hood. But it's more likely that the fire from a cruiser shell, caused the explosion. Did you see the film of Yamato sinking? Just as she starts to roll over there is a massive explosion amidships aft. I wonder if that was a boiler explosion like HMS Barham? Or a magazine explosion?
@@rohanthandi4903 Have you ever served onboard a warship at sea? I served onboard a warship at sea. Gravity is a very simple concept. Having had training in ship board fire fighting and damage control? My answer is; much easier than one might think. The hull is composed of metal. Metal rusts. So there is paint, flooring, and a wide variety of other fittings that burn really well. Much too well! There was likely 200 gallons or more petrol in the ruptured tank, to flood below decks. No doubt that you think it's jusr not possible for the fire to spread so far unchecked? That's what damage control boundaries are for. Steel doors are just that. Heat alone can transfer a fire past and uncooled steel door. If personal are running away from fast spreading flames? Those flames can follow them though doors, and down passageways. Anyway the wreckage on the sea floor shows all four main magazines exploded! Something that should never happen! Something only possible if the damage control boundaries were not set. On my ship, most damage control boundaries were not automatic. Because self closing doors can close on personal. So personal are required to close them on command. So for some reason the commsnd to close all damage control boundaries had not been given. That's how a fire can easily spread in a catastrophic fashion. Turning an entire ship into a bomb! FYI there are US Navy training films on UA-cam that you can watch. Want to see how fast a fire can spread? Watch the Forrestal fire, or the Enterprise fire. Fire on a ship can be incredibly terrible, able to kill very quickly, in a very short time. You're right about one thing! It shouldn't have been possible. But that is still the most likely cause of the explosion. Look into the recent case of USS Bon hom Richard. The aircraft carrier that burned in port. So badly damaged, that the navy ordered the remains of the ship scrapped.
@@rohanthandi4903 On a ship at sea? Fire understands heat, fuel, and oxygen. Anywhere and EVERYWHERE those things are? That's where the fire will be. An explosion, is a very fast fire. The heat and energy of the growing fire expanded until the structure of the hull, could no longer contain it.
@@rohanthandi4903 My theory is one of many. Nor am I the first person to propose it. We know scout aircraft were kept on board. We know about fuel for those aircraft was available on deck. How much fuel? Let's be conservative. Let's say that there is only 100 gallons of fuel per aircraft for each mission. Ten missions for each aircraft would take 3,000 gallons of aviation fuel. How much of this, was available on deck? Were there charged fuel lines going to a large tank below decks? I have already acknowledged the conventional expectation that a lucky shell hit, penetrated the magazine. Except that no one is too sure that there was such a hit. Just a mystified expectation of such a hit. MOSTLY because any other cause reflects rather badly on the bridge crew, and especially the ship's captain. As for the wreckage under water. Watch the video for yourself. I think that it's rather clear. Four magazines blew up, and the Hood immediately sank. Leaving only two survivors in the water. Radar sets were new and still considered experimental. It's likely that they were prepared to launch a scouting aircraft to spot the fall of shells. The US Navy lost Lexington, Wasp, and Hornet due to aviation fuel explosions. When there is a pressurized fuel line. A fire on deck turns it into a large fuze, to the main fuel tank below decks. If all the fuel is on deck? Then a flood of flaming fuel is free to wash over the deck edge hatches down below decks. As a battleship fan, I have looked deeply into the loss of the Hood. Not as deeply as some. Yet I was always stuck by all the doubts. The inability to determine EXACTLY which shell hit where? Just the fundamental expectation that one did. What eyewitnesses remember best, is the sudden complete destruction of HMS Hood, in a massive explosion. The uncertainty has been so endemic that I began to suspect it was false. That there was no direct hit, and Hood exploded due to another cause. The pride of the Royal Navy popped like a battle cruiser at Jutland! How shameful is that!? No matter what! Politically it HAS to be a perfect 15" hit! So they still can't quite nail it down. Except for that consideration? This is the most likely cause of the explosion. Damage control boundaries were not set. The fires aft were allowed to spread to the magazine, resulting in the massive explosion. Read the eyewitness reports of Hood's destruction. Fair winds and following seas.
@@rohanthandi4903 No one said anything about the Royal Navy's damage control standards. A command at sea, is just that! I am sure that Hood's captain had a reason for everything he did. Steel doesn't lie. The wreckage on the sea floor simply doesn't support the assumption that Hood's destruction happened the way it's been believed. It's impossible for all four magazines to explode unless the damage control boundaries were not set. The explosion was first notable aft near the "contained" fire. No one from the ship's fire fighting team survived. So what seemed like a small contained fire on deck? Clearly couldn't have seen below decks. The narrative you're so desperately clinging to, just isn't supported by the physical evidence on the sea floor. Sadly the mess on the sea floor indicates an explosion so powerful that determination of it's exact cause will likely be impossible. The accepted version accounts for one of four magazines exploding. Not the incredibly massive ship wide explosion. Described by witnesses and the wreckage on the sea floor. The assumption that Hood's destruction happened the way it's been assumed. Died the day, submarines started taking photographs of the wreckage on the sea floor. All sources of information are British. Who apparently cannot decide if the ship had scout aircraft or not. The Prince of Whales changing course to avoid the suddenly sinking wreckage is a great point! That suggests that the Hood's screws stopped turning before the explosion. Nothing explains that! Perhaps a preheated fuel line exploded in a boiler room. What if that was the cause of the explosion? We can't prove that, but it's an alternative explanation. There was a part of that you tube video that I found extremely distasteful. It was the elite British voice. Blaming the enlisted men for opening up the damage control boundaries! Running from the fire! Except that he wasn't smart enough to realize. That in a fire that intense? They wouldn't have been able to open up, or close the doors!
On paper, it would have been a better solution to scrap the battle line and build more Littorios . But given the limited timeframe and uncertainties about the feasibility of the much more complex new ships, the reconstruction of the old dreadnoughts was a surprisingly brilliant mistake, giving 4 refurbished working hulls available at the start of hostilities, while the much more difficult Littorios slowly came out. To sit as fleet in being, a credible 1938 reconstruction is exactly as useful as a 1940 new ship, but an obsolete ship scrapped in 1936 would have been much, much less useful in battle at punta Stilo in 1940 than newly built ships available in 1943.
Huh, so there *were* plans for the Regia Marina to ditch their old BBs and build new ships. All of a sudden my roleplaying in Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts where Italy fits the Cavour and Doria guns on a couple of brand new battlecruisers doesn't seem so far-fetched.
I wouldn’t say it was a complete waste of money rebuilding them. Though they would’ve been better off just finishing the Francesco Caracciolo-class. They would’ve been semi modern with bigger guns and good speed for their time if they would’ve been completed.
I always thought Italy would have been better off getting on with modern fast battleships or battlecruisers rather than trying to force old hulls of limited protection to stay "relevant" when they only really outclassed the very oldest of French battleships, the neglected Courbets, when all was said and done. For the money spent, I could see at least two modern ships competitive with the French Dunkerques being devised. Ideally, they would have new guns entirely, but one could even consider the possibility of using the old guns of the old battleships to arm them as time/cost savings, fitting the triple 32cm weapons to new hulls that could be better protected and faster for the weight. Whatever the case, instead of a bunch of "battleships" too weakly armed and armored to fight the overwhelming majority of battleships likely to be met in the late 1930s and too slow to really fight cruisers, Italy could have had a couple of modern capital ships with the speed, protection, and firepower to completely outclass the old French battleships still on the books AND be competitive with the more modern designs quickly coming into being at the time. Indeed, the real question would be if they'd be better off with modern battlecruisers aiming for 32-33 knots speed to really threaten cruisers, or battleships of around 30 knots with bigger guns and heavier armor to really take French shells on the chin?
The Italian naval architects had to know that there was no way they were going to refit them to be comparable to the better WW1 battleships like the Queen Elizabeths, Revenges or Nelsons, but at least it could give them the ability to run away from them.
And, keep in mind, these ships were intended to operate in Mediterranean waters rather than the open seas of the Atlantic. Another factor in the rebuild specifications.
The Caio Duilio,Class were generally not bad ships compared to the Conte di Cavour Class because received a more extensive rebuilding and had a much better secondary armament. In theory the 320 mm could reach the Dunkerque Class but wouldn't managed to inflicted heavy damage and definitely not against battleships armed with the 380 mm guns let alone with the 406 mm guns. A big issue was that the Italian battleships guns was actually a re-bored 310 mm guns to 320 mm guns I'd subjected to rapid firing it tended to "sag" so it had to cool down. My late father remembered very well this issue when he was serving on the Caio Duilio. Sorry if I'm boring you 😴! Good job👍👍
The problem with shell dispersion appears to the result of lousy shells. Drachenfel (sp) notes that Italian battleships had excellent fire control and performed well bracketing RN ships. However, the shoddy shells indeed had poor dispersal
I would argue that both are worth it. Especially when you consider timing. The modernizations of the Italian dreadnoughts gave Italy effectively as they entered the war four relatively modern fast battleships. If they hadn't modernized the second two they would have only had two. Whilst that may have given them more Vittorio's later on. Italy needed more ships fast. They didn't know when war was coming but they did know that it was happening soon. Britain nearly got involved in their invasion of Ethiopia. And overall they just knew that a war that they would be involved in was happening soon.
As such, whilst they might have been able to get some truly modern battleships if they had scrapped them it would have taken too long to matter. France had the two Dunkirk's which the first two could at least on paper counters. But if any of the British fast battleships came in, they would be at a decisive disadvantage. Excluding that France still had three older dreadnoughts in commission with three in commission. As well the courbet's could be brought back online given time. And that's not mentioning the Richelieu's both entering service soon. The first two littorios were going to be ready around the same time. That could not be changed. The next two would be ready before the follow-on French battleships. But that would be following a thin line of staying just barely ahead of the French. By modernizing the last two they gave them battleships multiple years sooner than they would have gotten Roma and impero. With war on the horizon, you need ships fast.
Whilst your industry is limited, modernizing all of your old ships, despite the problems that they may have is better. By having all of them the French would need to limit their speed if they were to fight you alone as they would need to bring their old battleships to a fight. As well in general more ships are going to be deployed to you as you have four battleships that are a threat. Whilst even in R class could beat one up, it would be too slow. By simply existing more ships need to be deployed to counter them.
In a perfect world with perfect hindsight you could be able to argue that the last two should have just been scrapped. The Italians didn't know when war would break out and they needed ships fast. At the same time knowing one war does break out and how the war goes. If at the start of the war Italy only had two battleships, it would have gone worse for them by the time Roma and impero could have been ready enough time would have already been lost that they wouldn't have had enough of an impact to matter.
Correct, but Italy joined the war early, when no one forced (or even insisted) it to do it. It was done merely because Musso wanted to get his victor's position and spoils against the already collapsing France. He miscalculated it as a low risk, high gain affair.
Italy could have, like Franco's Spain, retain a german favouring neutrality all the war. And the result would have been Mussolini dying of the old age decades later, like Franco, and then a gradual shift towards the democrary.
@@Ah01 Franco didn't enter the war because he had barely won the civil war. His possession in the country was still on thin ice and by entering the war he would just give the British an excuse to spend millions of dollars funding another insurrection against him.
On the other hand, Mussolini had just won a war with Ethiopia. And looking at the situation he saw an opportunity to grab a slice of the pie. Hindsight 20/20 Hitler should have left Poland alone. But at the time imagine Mussolini saying no. He had promised to restore Italy to the height of the Roman empire. Not doing so would have led to unrest. Especially when the entire populist would have seen this as the perfect opportunity to grab Territories from the collapsing allies. He could get Corsica, parts of Southern France, French North Africa, Egypt the coast of Yugoslavia, and Greece. And how could Britain stop him. They had basically just been defeated. All he had to do was go in, take all the territories and end the war. The only thing that Franco wanted that Germany could provide was Gibraltar. And that was not nearly enough to justify restarting the civil war and having a high risk of losing all of his colonies if not his own job but for doing so.
If Mussolini had stayed neutral. He could have been in a decent position. But he never was going to. After falling out of favor with Britain in France in the mid-thirties he was preparing for war with them. No matter what, he would have entered the war at some point. The best case scenario for him would have been against Germany so he could gobble up a bit more of Austria. but that wasn't what he wanted or promised.
@@tsf317 Yeah, I know, all that is correct. Mussolini was a gambler, and a prisoner of his own propaganda. His greed took him to war and was his downfall.
And Franco did not enter the war because he was too slow and cautios for that. Luckily for him.
Yes, the rebuilds were entirely worth it. Italy considered France to be it's most likely adversary in the Mediterranean. The rebuilds of the Cavour and Duilio classes made them far superior to the elderly French battleships that had not been significantly modified to any extent.
You are rigth. If France wouldn't have collapsed in 1940, then Italian rebuilds would had mostly pinned the bulk of French navy in the med.
Italy was an underdog compared to british+French combined force. So having more somehow capable ships on the hurry was more important than having the Best ships possible.
4 rebuilds + 4 Littorios would had been a major contendant on the med, Even against combined Allied force that was expected to face
@@jotabe1984It would have been, had they actually had enough oil to operate battleships without a constant shortage.
Well the Italian ships were the best looking for sure. - thank you for sharing!
They might not have lived up to their makers' hopes, but the refitted Cavours and Dorias are still very fine-looking battleships.
Those Italian ships - bellissimo... Just like Alfa Romeos, they had heart and soul (even if they weren't as good as they looked)
I (mostly) agree with your point. That said, The Andrea Doria’s are still the best looking battleship refits/rebuilds ever done. (imo)
While not great the refitted Italian Dreadnaughts were effective and gave the RN a lot to think about my only real criticism of the refits is the decision to rebore the 300mm guns to 320mm as yes the 320mm shell did make the shell almost 20% higher it introduced issues with dispersion. While the the Littorio's are much better ships than the refits an extra hull gives you capabilities that can't be discounted especially as it can be in two places at once. Your analysis is massively wrong as it doesn't take into account the massive effect they had on RN planning the simple presence of 2 additional reasonably fast reasonably powerful vessels caused no end of headaches for the RN in operational planning it meant much more significant RN forces had to be tied down doing Convoy missions. They also massively complicated any RN attempts to disrupt Italian Convoys and in the Early war the only real threat to them wasn't Warspite but Renown or Repulse which they always outnumbered. The presence of these ships is what drove Cunningham to base so much of his tactics around the use of Aircraft Carriers and to use Malta as a strike base for submarines and Swordfish bombers against Italian convoys (the Submarine base was quickly neutralized by the Italians).
Again, a fantastic history of the often ignored Italian navy!
Si vis pacem, para bellum
I generally agree with your analysis of the Italian rebuilds. My problem is with your comment at the end, that Dunkerque and Strasbourg (the small French battleships) did not get a lot of use. That was not because of their design, but because of the fall of France in 1940. This neutralized most of the fleet, other than those ships that joined De Gaulle. Prior to that, they had been active in their designed role of hunting German surface raiders, and if France had stayed in the war, at least through its empire and fleet, they would have been very useful in reinforcing the British Home Fleet to deal with surface raiders (by being at Scapa Flow and/or escorting convoys). Later they could have been refitted (more AA, as well as deck armor for Dunkerque) and join Allied forces in the Indian Ocean and finally the British Pacific Fleet for 1945.
The comment on Dunk (the general point on medium battleships aside) was less on the utility of the design, and more on the fact that they ended up not seeing much use. Not through fault of their own, no, but as it turned out...
Well, the ships the rebuilds were intended to counter- and built to counter as a 'quick' option compared to a new design -ended up being rendered largely moot. Past the first year of the war, anyway.
The point on medium battleships was more in relation to the idea of the Italians building ships of that kind at all, instead of jumping right to something like Littorio. Which, naturally, they couldn't have known at the time.
@@skyneahistory2306 So, from a wargaming/counterfactual point of view, the question is what value would those ships have been if France had not fallen, but rather we have more of a WWI western front for some time? Would Italy have entered the war at all as a German ally, or would it have backed out and even eventually joined the other side, as it had in the last war? Churchill talked about precisely that point in his memoirs. If it had still joined in on the Nazi side, to try and get more African colonies from France and Britain, would the Italian fleet have been aggressive enough to force action with the rebuilt battle line against the French in the Western Med, before British forces from Gibraltar or Alexandria could have intervened? Considering its actual record in WWII, probably not, but that would have been its best chance. In any case, nice work on your production.
It's worth bearing in mind that one factor in the rebuilding of the Dorias is that it would give the Italian navy a homogenous squadron of four ships with similar capabilities. Combine that with the four Littorios and the Regia Marina would have had a very tidy battlefleet going forward while they designed a Littorio successor that would have replaced the rebuilds.
This alludes to the problem with the "build new medium battleships" argument - they don't make much sense as an interim solution whilst occupying the same industrial resources that are required for full sized ships - slipways, gun pits, armour foundries, etc. In theory at least the rebuilds give the Regia Marina a quartet of modern ships fairly quickly and for not too much money without occupying the essential facilities required to build their 40,000+ ton battleships. Of course, the problem is that the rebuilds came in late and over budget and then had inglorious war careers so it's easy to write them off as unnecessary.
I also think claiming the Doria pair cost the Regia Marina a third Littorio ignores the industrial realities of Italian shipbuilding in the late 30s. The Italians were manifestly capable of reconstructing Doria and Duilio at the same time as they were constructing Littorio and Vittorio Venetto. However, Impero and Roma had to be laid down in the slips that had been vacated by their half sisters because there wasn't a third slip in Italy big enough to build a 40,000 ton battleship, so with the best will in the world the Italians were NEVER going to be able to substitute the two Doria rebuilds with a third Littorio in time to make a difference in the war. The "best" that could have happened was first pair of Littorios getting launched and the second pair of being laid down sooner - but still probably too late to matter - and in the meantime the Italians have just the two Cavours and two Littorios to work with making their battlefleet significantly weaker than historical.
It’s not that they cost the Italians a third Littorio in the sense of ‘they could have built a third one instead of doing the rebuilds’.
That was talking about the *monetary* cost. More specifically, that the Dorias cumulatively cost about 605 million lire, while one of the first pair Littorio cost about 800 million, individually.
So they ‘cost nearly as much as a third Littorio’ in the words of Bagnasco and de Toro.
@Skynea History yes very true but remember that Italy was facing already acute shortage of heavy oil and in fact in 1942 most of the fleet stayed at the harbours so it didn't make any sense building another Littorio Class battleship also because of shortage of raw materials..
@@skyneahistory2306 That it true and it is a valid point to make, but with no third slip how was the Regia Marina to best use that 605 million lira in 1937? If they did not spend it then, then for better or worse the money almost certainly have been spent on something else (and possibly on the army or air-force) by the time the government was ready and able to order new battleships.
It is easy to criticize with the benefit of hindsight, but there is definitely logic to what the Regia Marina did and the outlay did deliver two reasonably capable surface units in time for the main part of the Mediterranean campaign. Putting the money aside for later construction (if that were even possible - national budgets rarely work that way) would not have achieved that and they could well have been worse off for it.
I think one point that folks miss is that these could handle anything less than another battleship. Having these in the Mediterranean limited the ability of cruisers to be deployed by opposing powers against Italy.
They could run from most ships that could outgun them which was a huge advantage.
Limited, yes. Could they have been done better? Yes.
But they would have gotten a lot more good use out of these ships if Taranto hadn’t happened.
You completely underestimate the political situation of 1935: due to the Washington treaty, nobody really wanted to build new as there was a genuine trend to avoid spending sums that could bankrupt a large nation.
Refitting old ships was a way to keep tensions low. Even with Littorio, there was no real intention to break the treaty limits(as the Germans did with the Bismark). The Pugliese system (which was filled wit water at times) was considered by the British full tonnage and the Italians were not able to fit an engine as light and powerful as the french had in the Richelieu (nobody else actually could).
In the end, scrapping the Caracciolo and the Austrian battleships while refitting old dreadnought,albeit VERY extensively, was a way to keep tensions down with France in the Mediterranean. As the French started designing the Richelieu class, everything changed but that was against the directives if the government.
As a Naval Architect with 35 years experience, it is my opinion that the rebuilt Italian WW1 battleships were example of one of the best rebuild of all the WW1 battleship rebuilds. The end product of the Cesare class was at least the equal of the British battlecruiser HMS Repulse, and the rebuilt Doria class were at least the equal of the more modernized battlecruiser HMS Renown. Both classes of rebuilt WW1 Italian battleships were clearly superior to the lightly modernized WW1 British 15" battleships of the 'R' class, and the older French WW1 battleships.
That’s a fine looking ship at 10:29 😊
A fair and reasonable review. Perhaps another point worth mentioning, it would not have been clear to Italy that the British would have the resources to deploy the Queen Elizabeths and R's to the Mediterranean. I doubt if the Italian navy expected the German surface fleet to accomplish as little as it did.
Had the Italians had proper radar and flashless powder, and did some proper quality control on their heavy armament ammunition, their navy would have been excellent. The 15" on the Littorio class, and the 8" on their heavy cruisers, were, with proper ammunition, among the best guns of any navy. Their rangefinders were not the best, but by no means deficient. Poor shell quality resulted in their salvos having unpredictable spreads. Flashless powder and lack of radar meant the Italians were limited in their night combat abilities.
The guns on the Doria and Cavour rebuilds suffered even more. They were 12" guns bored out to 12.6", without enforcing the barrel. This further exasperated the dispersion issues due to poor ammunition. On paper, the guns seemed excellent--they slightly outranged the British 15" on the modified QE class, and had better reload dynamics allowing a faster rate of fire. Their penetration dynamics posed a threat to the British ships as well. In ideal sea conditions, the Italian ships held a 2knot speed advantage--just enough to decide the range. As for the French battleship threat-- none of their modern battleships were ever completed.
In a stand-up battle, however, the ammunition issues, lack of radar, and the outdated armour on the Italian ships rendered them ineffective against 'equal' opponents, and their slow speed meant that they could not keep an engagement with faster cruisers.
Their biggest contribution was simply to tie of British resources in the Med--for as much as they were not effective ships of the line, they would have been a threat to convoys and would have demanded something more than cruisers as a defence, though the Littorios would have done the same just by being present (much the same way the Tirpitz in Norway required the RN to keep several modern battleships and carriers available in the North Sea).
So, was it worth it? On a scale of 1-10, they may hit a 5 on value. Better than the IJN Ise and Fuso class (4 and 3), less value than Braham and Malaya (6.5 in their less modified form from the other QE), far less than the Valiant, Warspite, and QE (7.5), and far short of the Kongo (8.5).
I rank the Kongo at 8.5 as they came out as very capable ships that would have beaten any of the British or Italian WW1 rebuilds and would have likely matched all but the Colorado rebuilds of the US WW1 ships in a daytime action. Their two draw backs were they still had casement secondary armament and they lacked radar. Had they had radar, things may have been slightly different with Kirishima and its encounter with Washington and South Dakota (she still would have been sunk, but would have been more aware of Washington, better able to evade that threat, and likely poured in a decent number shells into South Dakota).
This is the dilemma I am constantly facing in Rule the Waves. I can modernise an old ship in 14 months at half the price I can build a new ship for in twice the time. Sure, if I dont go to war for 28 month I now have a more capable vessel, but if I end up at war in 14 months I have an old, slow ship that's just waiting to get sunk and one on the slipway that's no use at all.
There seems to be some confusion here. Most of my analysis and argument here comes direct from the authority on Italian battleships in Ermingo Bagnasco and Augusto de Toro. [1] In particular, the argument that the Dorias were an arguable mistake and that Italy would likely have gotten more worth out of scrapping them. This is such a point for them, that they bring it up in both the Littorio book *and* the one on the rebuilds. As well as the comments on the overall utility and actual use of the rebuilds.
Did the Cavours get some decent use in the early war? Yes. But the thing to keep in mind is that, save for their speed[2], these ships were outclassed by...just about anything that isn't the antique French dreadnoughts. Even most sources that are positive on the rebuilds acknowledge they were inferior to Dunkerque. While they were getting good straddles on the British before Cesare was hit, the plain fact is that only one shell knocked Cesare out of battle, and it wasn't even a direct hit to her hull, but to her stack.
You won't find someone who is higher on the Regia Marina, in general, than me. I love the Italians and find them underrated as all hell. *However*, I do fully acknowledge that the rebuilds, for all their beauty, are flawed designs and while very capable for what they are...are still of questionable utility. Not fast enough to chase cruisers, not armed or armored enough to fight a larger battleship head on. In rough weather, even, they could barely operate their weaponry properly.
And when it comes to the Dorias, well, Italy needed steel more than it needed battleships that didn't even enter service until Roma and Impero were soon to come into action. And that's *with* the delays to those ships that the authors above note as being likely. Beautiful ships, I love 'em, but they were a questionable choice in 1937 in a lot of ways. Not least because Britain was obviously an enemy at that point and no amount of rebuilding would make these ships a match for a QE or R in anything but speed.
[1] www.amazon.com/Italian-Battleships-Cavour-Classes-1911-1956/dp/1526799871/
[2] The speed of the rebuilds is debatable. They had issues in rough weather and with leakage. While they could operate at 26-27 knots on average, well, the KGVs were a couple knots faster (if one looks at 26 as a reasonable average) and the SoDaks are more or less the same, even by 1945 when they're weighed down with a metric ton of AA weaponry. The only ships the rebuilds outspeed are other battleships of their vintage (refit or not refit) and the Nelsons.
I’d argue they should have spent the money used for the refits on developing better inter service cooperation with the Regia Aeronautica, including allowing them to be the arbiter of dominance in the Med when the weather allowed.
The only problem is that the Regia Aeronautica simply didn't want to coperate with the other armed forces.
They were to jelous of their aircrafts to share with anyone else.
Many people point out that the italians did not build an aircraft carrier but the fact is that evrey aircraft in Italy was controlled by the airforce and they were defenetly unwilling to give control of their squadrons to somebody else, they were practically force to create a torpedo bomber sqadron in 1939 after years of debate.
During the war things got a little bit better but the Regia Aeronautica was always a little reluctant to deploy large numbers in support of both the navy and the army too.
Agreed, but part of the desicion was to have stops gaps before the new littorios come in..
I get a kick out of battleship design studies. Lots of talk about armor protection, torpedo protection, and gun size. With little if any talk about hull subdivision, fire fighting and damage control. Ultimately any hit which causes a fire, is potentially catastrophic. Any hit that results in progressive flooding makes heavy armor, a liability to continued buoyancy. As if the only way to sink a battleship is to penetrate it's heaviest armor. It actually made more sense to build shells designed to inflict very hot, difficult to put out fires. As well as shells which can rupture the widest expanse of hull plating. Lots of battleships were sunk during WW-II. It having been repeatedly demonstrated that penetration of heavy armor is not required, to sink a battleship.
So? Were these rebuilds worth the money? The answer is simple. Did they carry out the mission? Delivering accurate shell fire on target is the battleship's mission. If the ship is too slow to accomplish the mission? It's a waste of money.
@@rohanthandi4903 It's been the conventional wisdom that Hood exploded and sank, after a 15" shell penetrated her 15" magazine. Examination of her wreckage on the sea floor. Showed ALL FOUR MAIN MAGAZINES EXPLODED! Something that shouldn't happen. Unless the ship's damage control boundaries were not set. Hood took a hit from Bismarck's escort aft, which started a "minor fire." It was also noted that the fire included the petrol storage for the scouting aircraft. Without the damage control boundaries set? Burning petrol was free to flow below decks. Spreading the fire until the main magazine was reached. No damage control? Boom! It's possible that Bismarck sank the Hood. But it's more likely that the fire from a cruiser shell, caused the explosion.
Did you see the film of Yamato sinking? Just as she starts to roll over there is a massive explosion amidships aft. I wonder if that was a boiler explosion like HMS Barham? Or a magazine explosion?
@@rohanthandi4903 Have you ever served onboard a warship at sea? I served onboard a warship at sea. Gravity is a very simple concept. Having had training in ship board fire fighting and damage control? My answer is; much easier than one might think. The hull is composed of metal. Metal rusts. So there is paint, flooring, and a wide variety of other fittings that burn really well. Much too well! There was likely 200 gallons or more petrol in the ruptured tank, to flood below decks. No doubt that you think it's jusr not possible for the fire to spread so far unchecked? That's what damage control boundaries are for. Steel doors are just that. Heat alone can transfer a fire past and uncooled steel door. If personal are running away from fast spreading flames? Those flames can follow them though doors, and down passageways.
Anyway the wreckage on the sea floor shows all four main magazines exploded! Something that should never happen! Something only possible if the damage control boundaries were not set. On my ship, most damage control boundaries were not automatic. Because self closing doors can close on personal. So personal are required to close them on command. So for some reason the commsnd to close all damage control boundaries had not been given. That's how a fire can easily spread in a catastrophic fashion. Turning an entire ship into a bomb!
FYI there are US Navy training films on UA-cam that you can watch. Want to see how fast a fire can spread? Watch the Forrestal fire, or the Enterprise fire. Fire on a ship can be incredibly terrible, able to kill very quickly, in a very short time. You're right about one thing! It shouldn't have been possible. But that is still the most likely cause of the explosion. Look into the recent case of USS Bon hom Richard. The aircraft carrier that burned in port. So badly damaged, that the navy ordered the remains of the ship scrapped.
@@rohanthandi4903 On a ship at sea? Fire understands heat, fuel, and oxygen. Anywhere and EVERYWHERE those things are? That's where the fire will be. An explosion, is a very fast fire. The heat and energy of the growing fire expanded until the structure of the hull, could no longer contain it.
@@rohanthandi4903 My theory is one of many. Nor am I the first person to propose it. We know scout aircraft were kept on board. We know about fuel for those aircraft was available on deck. How much fuel? Let's be conservative. Let's say that there is only 100 gallons of fuel per aircraft for each mission. Ten missions for each aircraft would take 3,000 gallons of aviation fuel. How much of this, was available on deck? Were there charged fuel lines going to a large tank below decks? I have already acknowledged the conventional expectation that a lucky shell hit, penetrated the magazine. Except that no one is too sure that there was such a hit. Just a mystified expectation of such a hit. MOSTLY because any other cause reflects rather badly on the bridge crew, and especially the ship's captain. As for the wreckage under water. Watch the video for yourself. I think that it's rather clear. Four magazines blew up, and the Hood immediately sank. Leaving only two survivors in the water. Radar sets were new and still considered experimental. It's likely that they were prepared to launch a scouting aircraft to spot the fall of shells.
The US Navy lost Lexington, Wasp, and Hornet due to aviation fuel explosions. When there is a pressurized fuel line. A fire on deck turns it into a large fuze, to the main fuel tank below decks. If all the fuel is on deck? Then a flood of flaming fuel is free to wash over the deck edge hatches down below decks.
As a battleship fan, I have looked deeply into the loss of the Hood. Not as deeply as some. Yet I was always stuck by all the doubts. The inability to determine EXACTLY which shell hit where? Just the fundamental expectation that one did. What eyewitnesses remember best, is the sudden complete destruction of HMS Hood, in a massive explosion. The uncertainty has been so endemic that I began to suspect it was false. That there was no direct hit, and Hood exploded due to another cause.
The pride of the Royal Navy popped like a battle cruiser at Jutland! How shameful is that!? No matter what! Politically it HAS to be a perfect 15" hit! So they still can't quite nail it down.
Except for that consideration? This is the most likely cause of the explosion. Damage control boundaries were not set. The fires aft were allowed to spread to the magazine, resulting in the massive explosion. Read the eyewitness reports of Hood's destruction. Fair winds and following seas.
@@rohanthandi4903 No one said anything about the Royal Navy's damage control standards. A command at sea, is just that! I am sure that Hood's captain had a reason for everything he did.
Steel doesn't lie. The wreckage on the sea floor simply doesn't support the assumption that Hood's destruction happened the way it's been believed.
It's impossible for all four magazines to explode unless the damage control boundaries were not set. The explosion was first notable aft near the "contained" fire. No one from the ship's fire fighting team survived. So what seemed like a small contained fire on deck? Clearly couldn't have seen below decks. The narrative you're so desperately clinging to, just isn't supported by the physical evidence on the sea floor.
Sadly the mess on the sea floor indicates an explosion so powerful that determination of it's exact cause will likely be impossible. The accepted version accounts for one of four magazines exploding. Not the incredibly massive ship wide explosion. Described by witnesses and the wreckage on the sea floor. The assumption that Hood's destruction happened the way it's been assumed. Died the day, submarines started taking photographs of the wreckage on the sea floor. All sources of information are British. Who apparently cannot decide if the ship had scout aircraft or not. The Prince of Whales changing course to avoid the suddenly sinking wreckage is a great point! That suggests that the Hood's screws stopped turning before the explosion. Nothing explains that!
Perhaps a preheated fuel line exploded in a boiler room. What if that was the cause of the explosion? We can't prove that, but it's an alternative explanation.
There was a part of that you tube video that I found extremely distasteful. It was the elite British voice. Blaming the enlisted men for opening up the damage control boundaries! Running from the fire! Except that he wasn't smart enough to realize. That in a fire that intense? They wouldn't have been able to open up, or close the doors!
On paper, it would have been a better solution to scrap the battle line and build more Littorios . But given the limited timeframe and uncertainties about the feasibility of the much more complex new ships, the reconstruction of the old dreadnoughts was a surprisingly brilliant mistake, giving 4 refurbished working hulls available at the start of hostilities, while the much more difficult Littorios slowly came out. To sit as fleet in being, a credible 1938 reconstruction is exactly as useful as a 1940 new ship, but an obsolete ship scrapped in 1936 would have been much, much less useful in battle at punta Stilo in 1940 than newly built ships available in 1943.
Huh, so there *were* plans for the Regia Marina to ditch their old BBs and build new ships. All of a sudden my roleplaying in Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts where Italy fits the Cavour and Doria guns on a couple of brand new battlecruisers doesn't seem so far-fetched.
Well seeing as it took just one shell from the even less heavily modified Warspite to knock Guilio Cesare out of the fight at Calabria...not really.
Warspite was simply a much stronger ship regardless of the modernization.
I wouldn’t say it was a complete waste of money rebuilding them. Though they would’ve been better off just finishing the Francesco Caracciolo-class. They would’ve been semi modern with bigger guns and good speed for their time if they would’ve been completed.
When it comes to warships, you find out when you get into a shooting war.
I always thought Italy would have been better off getting on with modern fast battleships or battlecruisers rather than trying to force old hulls of limited protection to stay "relevant" when they only really outclassed the very oldest of French battleships, the neglected Courbets, when all was said and done.
For the money spent, I could see at least two modern ships competitive with the French Dunkerques being devised. Ideally, they would have new guns entirely, but one could even consider the possibility of using the old guns of the old battleships to arm them as time/cost savings, fitting the triple 32cm weapons to new hulls that could be better protected and faster for the weight.
Whatever the case, instead of a bunch of "battleships" too weakly armed and armored to fight the overwhelming majority of battleships likely to be met in the late 1930s and too slow to really fight cruisers, Italy could have had a couple of modern capital ships with the speed, protection, and firepower to completely outclass the old French battleships still on the books AND be competitive with the more modern designs quickly coming into being at the time.
Indeed, the real question would be if they'd be better off with modern battlecruisers aiming for 32-33 knots speed to really threaten cruisers, or battleships of around 30 knots with bigger guns and heavier armor to really take French shells on the chin?
Wait, flipped stug? Didn't know you moved on to creating a naval history channel, cool!
Were they even allowed to build new ships? You know because of the treaty!
They should have been converted to carriers
Commented
The Italian naval architects had to know that there was no way they were going to refit them to be comparable to the better WW1 battleships like the Queen Elizabeths, Revenges or Nelsons, but at least it could give them the ability to run away from them.
And, keep in mind, these ships were intended to operate in Mediterranean waters rather than the open seas of the Atlantic. Another factor in the rebuild specifications.