- Yes
- No
- Just show me the results
While we all wait till the Littorio class is added (see suggestions: Littorio, Roma, VV) there’s one ship that could fill in the power gap between the most advanced Italian battleships to ever float and, as of the time of writing, the only Italian BR 7.0 battleship - RN Conte di Cavour. Moreover, I think that she would be a perfect fit into the game right now, as she’s relatively comparable to some of the existing warships we already have in the game (e.g. Bayern Class, while being inferior to Scharnhorst).
I’m happy to announce a suggestion for the first super-dreadnoughts of the Italian navy - the Francesco Caracciolo Class battleships!
4 ships of the class were laid down (and thus all four qualify to be added to the game):
- Francesco Caracciolo - laid down in October 1914, she was even launched, May 1920 before the entire programme was cancelled on 2 January 1921.
- Marcantonio Colonna - laid down in March 1915
- Cristoforo Colombo - laid down in March 1915
- Francesco Morosini - laid down in June 1915
As far as we know, all four were identical in design
(Rejected changes to the last vessel of the class)
(In September 1914 Thaon di Revel attempted to cut down costs of the Francesco Morosini to save ~20 million lire in order to finance 4 destroyers and 8 submarines, but his changes were rejected. I couldn’t find what specifically would be modified. Source: Italian Battleships Conte Di Cavour and Duilio Classes 1911-1956)
Historic background:
Dive into the history of the design, construction, and scrapping of the hulls built.
The Regia Marina considered building super-dreadnoughts since 1910, but it wasn’t until February 1912 that the actual design work had begun, initially aiming for a 10 x 356 mm gun (2x2+2x3 centerline), 27 000 - 29 000 t super-dreadnought. By 1913 design evolved into 12 x 381 mm gun (4x3 centerline), 35 000 t vessel, aiming to be equal or better than the launched or constructed battleships of Japan, Germany or Britain, which was adequate for the global aspirations of the Italian navy at the time.
While the ship caused significant concerns abroad, in particular among British naval command (which would be forced to bind the latest Queen Elizabeth-class battleships to the Mediterranean in case of any military escalation), internally the design was criticized for its excessive cost (estimated at 120 million lire), dimensions that struggled to fit in the existing shipyards and a lackluster protection (in particular against torpedo attack). By December 1913 the design was down-scaled into the final form: 8 x 381 mm (4x2 centerline) 31 000 t vessel.
Construction proceeded at an unexpectedly slow pace, with the reasoning behind such an investment being debated in the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy in 1914 and eventually - suspension of all work in March 1916 (when it became clear that the Austro-Hungarian Ersatz Monarch-class battleships won’t be completed - event that also lead to the cancellation of the Normandie and Lyon classes in France).
Ansaldo was looking to re-use the hull of the Francesco Caracciolo - one of the proposals was a conversion into the aircraft carrier, which was met with a positive response from staff of the Regia Marina, but due to the financial crisis at the end of the Great War the plan had to be scrapped. Ansaldo proposed a cheaper conversion into the floatplane carrier, but that too was declined. Finally, the company launched the hull in May 1920 with the intent to convert into the super-freighter, finalizing the process with a sale to Navigazione Generale Italiana in December 1920. Navigazione Generale Italiana failed to fund the required 75 million liras for conversion and started having doubts about economic feasibility of such a vessel, thus eventually the hull of the Francesco Caracciolo shared its fate with the other three vessels of the class, being sold for scrap.
Specifications:
Normal displacement: 31 400t
Standard displacement: 32 450t (estimated)
Full load displacement: 34 000t
Length Between Perpendiculars: 201,6m
Length Overall: 212m
Beam: 29,6m
Draft: 9,5m
Machinery: 20 oil-fuelled Yarrow boilers with 4 Parsons turbines on 4 propellers. Total 105 000 HP.
Speed: 28 knots / 51.9 km/h
Armor: Krupp Steel, sides: 300mm + 35mm (sloped), decks: 110mm + 30mm + 16mm, conning tower: 400 mm, main gun turrets: 400mm (turret face sloped at 30°, immune to 15" shells), barbettes: 300mm, casemates: 220 mm.
Weapons: 8 x 381mm (15") twin, 12 x 152mm casemate, 8 x 102mm AA, 12 x 40mm AA.
Weapons in detail:
show description of the weapons
Primary:
8 x 381 mm/40 Model 1914 in 4 twin turrets
Muzzle velocity: 700 m/s
Projectile weight: 875 kg
Charge weight: 148 kg
Show photos
Turret built for the battleship:
Guns under construction:
Turret modified as a coastal defence:
Secondary:
12 x 152 mm/45 Schneider model 1911
(exact same gun as we already have on Andrea Doria - 152 mm/45 Schneider model 1911 (152 mm) - War Thunder Wiki)
Anti-Air:
12 x 40mm/39 Vickers-Tenri Model 1915 in single mounts
NavWeaps page on the gun
show image
8 x 450mm or 533 mm fixed underwater torpedo tubes
(all sources indicate both calibers being an option. As I understand it: the Caracciolo’s hull didn’t have the tubes fitted)
Schematics:
Photos:
Show photos
Two photos from the launching event of the Francesco Caracciolo
See also:
- Suggestions: Normandie class - a similar gap-filler for the French navy that would also fit great into BR 7.0 (looking at it from the perspective of patch 2.33, December 2023)
Sources:
- Caracciolo class battleships (1917)
- Italy 381 mm/40 (15") Model 1914 - NavWeaps
- Francesco Caracciolo-class battleship - Wikipedia
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/44895430?read-now=1&seq=21#page_scan_tab_contents
- Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1906 - 1921 (p. 260)
- Norman Friedman’s Naval Weapons of World War One
- Erminio Bagnasco’s Italian Battleships Conte Di Cavour and Duilio Classes 1911-1956 - Chapter “The Dreadnought In Italy: From Cuniberti’s Concept To The ‘Caracciolo’ Class”
