Italian Battleship Conte di Cavour

The Italian battleship Conte di Cavour was a dreadnought type battleship used by the Regia Marina (Royal Italian Navy) during WW1 and WW2. Built at La Spezia Navy Yard, Italy, she had been launched on August 10, 1911, being commissioned in 1915. This war vessel was the flagship of the Cavour class, which also included the Giulio Cesare and Leonardo da Vinci.

The Italian battleship Conte di Cavour had originally been designed in 1908 as an improved variant of the Dante Alighieri. Her main armament consisted of thirteen 305-mm guns and a battery of eighteen 120-mm quick firing guns housed in nine amidships casemates, which were located on each side of ship at main deck level. She would survive the First World War. However, she would be sunk by British aircraft off the coast of Italy, near Taranto, on November 12, 1940. Giulio Cesare survived and was handed over to the USSR as war reparations, since the Italian Army had fought on the Eastern Front alongside Germany.

In the 1930s, Conte di Cavour had thoroughly been modernized, with a new and modern powerplant, which included geared Parsons turbines. Her bow and stern were lengthened and recontoured, which resulted in an increase in speed.  Her main guns had also been upgraded to a new caliber, 320-mm (12.6 inches), with the barrel bores being enlarged and relined. The turrets and mountings were also improved, increasing maximum elevation to 27 degrees, which enabled the guns to raise their maximum range to 28.6 km.

Specifications (modernized version)

Type: dreadnought battleship

Length: 186.4 m

Beam: 28 m

Draft: 9.3 m

Displacement: 22,992 tons (standard); 26,140 tons (full loaded).

Armor: 254-mm-thick on the sides; 138-mm on the deck.

Propulsion: 4 shafts, 4 geared Parsons turbines, and 20 boilers, with a total generated power of 75,000 HP.

Maximum Speed: 28 knots.

Range: 4,800 nautical miles.

Compliment: 1,236 sailors and officers

Below, the already upgraded Italian battleship Conte di Cavour, leading her sister ship Giulio Cesare in line. Photo taken in 1938.

Photo of Conte di Cavour taken around 1917.

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Duilio Class Battleship

The Duilio class battleship was a series of two powerful dreadnought battleships deployed by the Italian Navy (Regia Marina) during World War I and II. They were the Caio Duilio and the Andrea Doria, which were essentially similar to the Cavour class. They bristled with thirteen 305-mm (12-inch) guns and sixteen 152-mm guns distributed on its huge deck, with a beam of 28 m (91 ft, 8 inch).

The Caio Duilio had been launched on April 24, 1913, and commissioned in 1915. Meanwhile her sister Andrea Doria was completed in 1916. Both war vessels survived the First World War and they would be rebuilt at Trieste shipyards in the 1930s, with new powerplants, as they were relaunched as virtually new ships. In the rebuild process, the amidships turret was removed, and their 305-mm guns were bored out and relined to a new bigger caliber; the 320-mm (12.6 inch). New machinery consisting of 4-shaft geared turbines was installed.

During World War I, the two Duilio class battleships saw no combat action as they were relegated to patrolling the waters of the Adriatic sea against Austro-Hungarian ships. After WW1, Caio Duilio was assigned to the Black Sea in support of the White Russians in the Russian Civil War. During WW2, they both served in the Mediterranean Sea, operating against the British Royal Marine Malta convoys. They got involved in naval skirmishes with British warships but they came off unscathed. Thus, they survived the war and they were scrapped in 1957 and 1958.

Specifications

Type: dreadnought battleship

Length: 170 m (557.4 feet)

Beam: 28 m (91.8 feet)

Draft: 9.3 m (30 feet, 5 inches)

Displacement: 22,992 tons (standard); 24,250 tons (full load)

Armor: 250-mm-thick on sides; 138-mm on deck.

Propulsion: 4 shafts; 4 Parsons geared turbines; 20 boilers. They generated 31,278 HP. This powerplant had been set up after rebuilding.

Maximum Speed: 22.2 knots.

Range: 4,800 nautical miles.

Compliment: 1,200 sailors and officers

Below, the Dulio class battleship Andrea Doria off the coast of Italy in 1931 before reconstruction.

The Caio Duilio in late 1915

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U-Boat Type IX

The U-boat Type IX was a class of German submarines used by the Kriegsmarine during World War II. They were designed for deep ocean warfare as they had a long range capacity. They were made in four sub-type variants; Type IXA, IXB, IXC, and IXD. They featured a 105-mm gun on deck and six torpedo tubes. 195 U-boats were built between 1938 and 1945, with Type IXC being the most massively produced with 40 submersible vessels.

Although Type IX submarines were an evolution of the much smaller Type II, they differed fundamentally in that they had a double hull structure. This feature allowed them to submerge to a maximum of 250 m deep in water. It also increased useful internal volume by enabling fuel and ballast tanks to be installed externally. It also increased survivability by cushioning the inner hull from depth charge explosion shocks.

As soon as World War II broke out in 1939, the U-boat Type IX worked the Western and Southern Atlantic. When the United States entered the war in December 1941, they were supplemented with the Type VIIC boats, sinking and destroying shipping along the USA's eastern seaboard before a proper escorted convoy system was organized. The Type IXD boats were operational submarines with the phenomenal range of 58,400 km (36,290 miles), being able to sail across the Indian Ocean and reach Japan.

Specifications (Type IXB)

Type: anti-shipping, ocean-going submarine

Length: 76.50 m (251 feet)

Beam: 6.76 m (22 feet, 2 inches)

Draft: 4.70 m (15 feet, 5 inches)

Displacement: 1,178 tons (submerged), 1,051 tons (surfaced)

Propulsion: two 4,300-SHP, MAN M-9-V 40/46, 9-cylinder diesel engines. Two SSW 1 GU 345/34 electric motors, generating 1,000 SHP. Two shafts and two propellers.

Maximum Speed: 18.2 knots (surfaced); 7.5 knots (submerged)

Range: 22,000 km (13,670 miles)

German U-534 Type IXC approaching the German submarine base in Saint-Nazaire, on the French western sea coast. Notice the 10.5-cm gun in front of the tower.

Below U-37 U-boat Type IX off the coast of France

U-67 in the North Atlantic

Below, the U-501 Type IXC sailing in rough seas in 1943.

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U-Boat Type IIB

The U-boat Type IIB was a coastal submarine used by the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. It was a variant of the Type II, which was small, cheap, and easy to build. They could be produced in a remarkable short period of time. Although they had a tendency to roll heavily when on the surface, they performed well in combat operations. Their production would be stopped at the end of 1941 as more than half of them would be used for training purpose.

The U-boat Type IIB submarines were basically a lengthened version of the Type IIA. This additional hull capacity allowed greater fuel load to be carried, thus enhancing the submarine range. They also had greater bunkerage and radius. They carried three bow torpedo tubes in an inverted triangle fashion, with one in the port side of hull, the other in the starboard side, and the third one below them on the boat center line.

Specifications

Type: coastal submarine

Length: 42.7 m

Beam: 4.1 m

Draft: 3.9 m

Displacement: 329 tons (submerged)

Propulsion: two MWM diesel engines, each delivering 350 bhp, coupled to two 360 bhp electric motors (180 bhp each).

Endurance (range): 6,500 km (4,040 miles) submerged; 105 km (65 miles) on the surface.

Compliment: 25

Armament: three 533-mm torpedo tubes, with six torpedoes; one 20-mm flak gun.

Below, the Type IIB U-20 in sailing in the North Sea in 1940.

U-8 in 1941

U- 10, a school submarine in 1942.

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Danton Class Battleship

The Danton class battleship was one of a series of six armored vessels in service with the French Navy during World War I. They were the first large French warships powered by turbines. By 1911, they were all completed. This pre-dreadnought class consisted of the Condorcet, Danton, Diderot, Mirabeau, Vergniaud, and Voltaire.

With a displacement some 3,000 tons heavier than the previous class, this increase was devoted to improvements in armament rather than speed. Their armament consisted of a main battery of four 305-mm (12-inch) guns set up in two twin turrets, and an intermediate battery of twelve 240-mm (9.4-inch) guns mounted in six twin turrets.

Technical Details

The Danton class battleship was the first French capital ship to be fitted with Parsons turbines. Three of them (Danton, Mirabeau, and Voltaire) were equipped with Niclause boilers, which gave them a maximum speed of 19.4 knots. The rest of vessels of the class had Belleville boilers, giving them a maximum speed of 20.7 knots.

Historical Data

During World War I, four of them were assigned to the Mediterranean area, mainly in the Aegean sea. Meanwhile Vergniaud and Mirabeau were sent to the Black Sea. Danton was torpedoed on March 19, 1917. After forty minutes of being hit, she sank, with most of the crew being able to be rescued. The surviving battleships were refitted in 1918, with Condorcet, Diderot, and Voltaire being modernized beteen 1922 and 1925 to be used as training ships.

Specifications

Type: pre-dreadnought battleship

Completed: 1911

Number in class: 6

Displacement: 18,318 tons

Length: 146.6 m

Beam: 25.8 m

Draft: 9.2 m

Propulsion: 4 shafts, Parson turbines, and 26 boilers, generating 22,500 shp.

Armor: 270-mm-thick on belt; 280-mm on barbettes, and 48-mm on upper deck.

Armament: four 305-mm guns; twelve 240-mm guns; sixteen 75-mm; and ten 47-mm.

Compliment: 681sailors and officers.

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Most Powerful Warship in WW2

The most powerful warship in WW2 was not the battleship, as many people think. It was the aircraft carrier, which turned out to be the most effective and deadliest warship in that armed conflict. It surpassed and dwarfed the mighty battleship. What an aircraft carrier could do during World War II was to project fire power far beyond the range of the battleship naval guns, thanks to its squadrons of fighters and dive bombers on board. However, the overwhelming importance of the aircraft carrier as power projection in warfare at sea was only dimly foreseen in the years which led up to World War II.

Historically, it had been the battleship and the naval gunnery which had dominated the oceans ever since the days of the Spanish Armada right up to the Battle of Jutland. In addition, battleships considerably outnumbered carriers in navies throughout the world. Nevertheless, the 1930s saw the evolution of the methods and tactics that were to dominate the Pacific Theater of Operations and which were also to contribute greatly to the successful conclusion of the war in the Atlantic. It was the US Navy that was eventually to become the master of carrier warfare; however, it was the Imperial Japanese Navy that first used the aircraft carrier in war, to destroy the Chinese ports and provide fire power to Japanese ground troops during the Sino-Japanese War and to attack the US Navy base of Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941.

Carrier-borne air power reached such a peak in World War II that several battles which took place over the Pacific were fought solely with carrier-borne aircraft. Elsewhere the carriers were protecting convoys, fighting submarines and covering beach assaults. The demands made by this new form of warfare were considerable, especially upon the aircraft used and upon the young pilots who flew them. The ‘controlled crash’ of a carrier landing demanded strong nerves and a strong aircraft. If the sea itself was anything other than calm (which unfortunately it so often was), the motion of the waves would cause the deck to pitch and roll alarmingly, making landings rather tricky.

Generally, carrier-based aircraft had inferior performance when compared to their land-based contemporaries – although this did not prevent the Fairey Swordfish from amassing a war record which was second to none – while conversions of land-based planes, such as the Supermarine Spitfire produced performance – at the expense of durability. Instead, it was left to the Japanese to show that the carrier aircraft, in the shape of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, could outfly and outfight its land-based opponents. It was, however, the swarm of big, beefy US Navy aircraft, which were based upon the navy’s massive American carrier force, that was to prove decisive in the Pacific. Led by the Grumman F6F Hellcat and the Vought F4U Corsair, US and Allied naval aircraft in their thousands ranged the skies over Japan during the final months of the war, in a display of naval air power undreamed of only five years before.

The most powerful warship in WW2 (video)

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