Shipbucket

Nice work on both the German and Italian ships (although IMHO any Italian ship of this period is beautiful).

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Double 100 mm/47 OTO 1937 AA guns. They're not dual purpose.



Goodie, can't wait.

The Italians had been shocked that the French had stolen a march on them with the Dunkerque class battleships. Italy was in another parlous state financially and it was another 3 years before they could afford to lay down the first of four Italia class battleships. The new ships were much bigger than the French ships. Nine 16" guns gave them a barrel extra over the French ships, while even the secondary armament had four more barrels with twenty 130mm in twin mountings. Aircraft handling facilities were fitted with two catapults and hangars for six aircraft around the funnels. The high speed hull and large propulsion unit gave the ship a speed of 30 knots. Armour had not been stinted with a 380mm belt and 150mm of deck armour. It was in the anti-torpedo armour system that the Italians excelled. The so called 'Pugliese' system (after its inventor) proved itself on several occasions where these ships received torpedo hits that would have crippled other ships, the Italian quartet virtually shrugged them off and carried on.




I have put a copy of this drawing in with the earlier UP41 drawing with an explanation and the visual differences between the drawings.

I'm not entirely convinced that it was the hanger which lead to the aft turret being above main deck.



If you check the magazine depth of the first and third turret, you'll find that they're the same depth, meaning it would be the minimum depth necessary for a functional loading station. Given this context, you would notice that the magazine bottom is a bit above the bottom of the hull, as compared to the magazine bottom locations of the first and second turrets. This is because the shafts pass through that place, so inevitably the turret needs to be placed higher if one wants the same level of efficiency as the forward turrets.

In addition, the aft turret was positioned that high in order to get better arcs of fire when firing in pursuit, it was something like 320°.


So, it's pretty much your choice.

Like the French, the Italians had 70,000 tons of allocated battleship tonnage that they could use for building. Both countries drew up designs for 17,500 ton, 23,000 ton and 35,000 ton ships as those figures divided into the 70k gave 4, 3, and 2 ships respectively. Both countries found that designing ships at 17,500 tons gave not much more than heavily armed cruisers.

However once the Germans leaked news of the Deutschland class ships, Italy revisited the idea of a 17,500 ton 'pocket battleship'. As part of the rejuvenation of the fleet, the old battleship Leonardo da Vinci had been raised and the turrets removed and refurbished as spares for the four extant battleships. Plans were in the process of being formulated for the rebuilding of the old battleships, part of which was the removal of the centre triple turret from each ship. This would give the Italians 7 triple 12" turrets that could be used to construct 3 'pocket battleship' sized ships.

So this takes us out to what the Italians were planning. The Italian African colonies had never produced the income that would assist Italy to achieve what it saw as its rightful place in the world. If Italy could dominate North Africa then its revenue would increase astronomically. To make this happen the Italians would have to remove the British and French influence from those regions. The Italians knew they would be unable to do this alone and thus forged the Pact of Steel with Germany. The hope was that the Germans would occupy the French and German forces, allowing the numerically superior Italian forces to sweep east and west from Libya, rolling up the disorganised French and British forces.

The navies part in all this was to intercept and harry any French and British reinforcements reaching the embattled regions. The Livorno class ships with their long range could operate out into the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, doing two jobs, intercepting reinforcements, and tying down forces and denying them to the main battlefront in the Mediterranean.

(Reading back through this, it does sound a bit implausible, but then again it is only an excuse to put up another drawing.)

Love the upgunned Littorios! And the Livornos, too...an Italian "pocket battleship": AWESOME! Is it just me, or could Italy make ANY type of ship beautiful?

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

No Japanese pocket battleships?

Hey WWII44,

Had to have a Japanese PB, page 2, the IJN Hokkaido, 6x12". The Japanese rated them as Armoured Cruiser.

Nice work Krakatao!

BTW I'm planning to do the so called "Battleship B" in near future for my Novgorod AU, I'll might just post it in the original Soviet OTL suite to visit this thread as it was on of the Soviet planned awnser to the Deutschland class.

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Shipbucket mainsite, aka "The Archive"
New AU project "Aravala"

Happy for you to add it here Golly, my knowledge of Russian/Soviet designs of the 20's-40's is very limited.