Italian Aircraft Carrier Ww2

Italian Aircraft Carrier Ww2 - Despite its many years of yeoman service, the Z.506B is probably best known these days, in the anglophone world at least, as the only aircraft in the west to be successfully hijacked by prisoners of war.

On 29 July 1942 a Z.506B rescued the crew of a ditched Bristol Beaufort. During the subsequent flight to Taranto the British airmen overpowered their Italian rescuers and flew the aircraft to Malta instead, it subsequently entered RAF service, joining two other captured Airones on RAF strength.

Italian Aircraft Carrier Ww2

–A laying down day: in the XXth, a call to offer was done by the admiralty on specifications towards existing yards, national or foreign for a market of one or several ships. When a yard was selected, a place was chosen and the keel laid down.

Why These Dates Are Important ?

In some cases, if the ship was important enough, there was a ceremony. Two German-supplied Demag compressed air-driven catapults, each capable of launching one aircraft every 30 seconds, were installed parallel to each other at the forward end of the flight deck.

These were originally intended for Germany's own "Carrier B", Graf Zeppelin's incomplete—and eventually scrapped—sister ship. The Italians obtained them—along with five sets of arrester gear and other component plans—during a naval technical mission to Germany in October–November 1941.[7]

The US military was a nearly unstoppable force during WWII, but the challenges of weather and natural disasters meant that the power of American bombs and bullets could pale in comparison to the power of nature.

Since France was considered Italy's most likely enemy in another European war, keeping parity with her navy became a paramount concern. When the French Navy laid down the keels for Dunkerque, Strasbourg, Richelieu and Jean Bart between 1932 and 1937, dictator Benito Mussolini and the Italian admiralty were persuaded to scrap any plans for carrier construction and instead modernize two of the navy's older battleships (Cavour and

Flight Deck

Cesare in 1933) and began construction of two new ones (Vittorio Veneto and Littorio in 1934).[3] In March 1943, German engineers and instructors with experience on Graf Zeppelin arrived to advise on aircraft testing and to help train future carrier pilots culled from 160 Gruppo C.T.

of the Regia Aeronautica. They brought with them examples of a Junkers Ju 87C Stuka dive bomber (a navalized version with folding wings, arrester hook and catapult attachment points) and an Arado Ar 96B single-engine trainer.

After conducting comparative flight trials, the Italians eventually settled on the Re.2001 as their standard carrier fighter/fighter-bomber and even the Germans concluded it had better potential than their own counterpart, the Messerschmitt Bf 109T. All flight testing—including simulated braked deck landings—was land-based.[6]

The first wave of 12 Swordfish reached Taranto in formation despite low visibility on the cloudy night of November 11, 1940. Italian anti-aircraft gunners spotted the approaching planes and opened fire immediately, lighting up the night sky and helping to guide the bombers to their

About Naval Encyclopedia

targets. Some of the pilots dropped flares, illuminating the ships in the harbor for the torpedo bombers, which swooped low over the water. Three of their six torpedoes hit two of the Italian battleships, although bombs dropped by other Swordfish caused no serious damage.

Only one of the aircraft was shot down—the two-man crew survived—and the others returned safely. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don't use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon.

It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness. Throughout 1942 and 1943, trials were conducted at Perugia and Guidonia—the Regia Aeronautica's equivalent to the German Luftwaffe's test facility at Rechlin—to find aircraft suitable for conversion to carrier use.

The Italians selected the SAIMAN 200, Fiat G.50/B and Reggiane Re.2001 OR Serie II as potential candidates.[6] In addition to Italy the SM.79 flew with Yugoslavia against the Germans, in twin-engine form with Iraq against the British and with Brazil.

Anti-Aircraft Armament

Romania went the whole hog and license-built their own twin-engine version which they used against the Soviets. Probably the most surprising operator was the RAF, four SM.79s flew in British colors with 117 squadron from May to November 1941. After the war the tiny nation of Lebanon (an SM.79 could traverse the entire country from west to east in 14

minutes) bought four Sparvieros and flew them until 1965, representing the last Italian WWII aircraft in service anywhere in the world. Both surviving SM.79s are ex-Lebanese aircraft. Training in twin engine B-25 “Mitchell” bombers, the 477th never actually saw combat overseas, but fought another battle here in the United States.

Formed as an all-Black unit, it became famous not for its combat record, but for its fight against the military version of “separate but equal.” Aquila had a single continuous 211.6 m × 25.2 m (694 ft 3 in × 82 ft 8 in) flight deck.

It was partially armored with 7.6 cm (3.0 in) plate over the gasoline bunkers and magazines.[6] The flight deck ended short of the bows but overhung the stern, where it featured a pronounced round-down to improve air flow.

About Classes And Standardization

Two 50 feet (15 m) octagonal lifts with a 5 short tons (4.5 t) capacity enabled transfer of aircraft between the hangar deck and flight deck. One was directly amidships and the second another 90 ft (27 m) forward, thus placing them far enough from the aft arrester wires that both could be used for striking down aircraft into the hangar immediately after a landing.[5]

The liner's interior was completely gutted to allow for the replacement of the original machinery and the addition of a hangar deck and workshops. Deep bulges were added to either side of the hull to improve stability and provide a modest degree of torpedo defense.

A layer of reinforced concrete—6–8 cm (2.4–3.1 in) thick—was applied inboard of the bulges for splinter protection. The hull was also lengthened to take advantage of the increased power of Aquila's new machinery.[5] Aquila′s planned air complement was 51 non-folding Reggiane Re.2001 OR fighter-bombers: 41 stowed in the hangar deck (including 15 suspended from the deck head) and 10 on the flight deck in a permanent deck park.[5]

A folding-wing version of the Re.2001 was planned, which would have increased the size of Aquila's air group to 66 aircraft, but this never materialized. Only 10 Re.2001s were fully converted for carrier use. They were given tail hooks, RTG naval radio equipment and bomb racks for carrying 650 kg (1,430 lb) of bombs.

They were also armed with two 12.7 mm (0.5 in) Breda-SAFAT machine guns mounted above the engine cowling. At least one Re.2001G was under test at Perugia as a naval torpedo bomber and was given a lengthened tail wheel strut to accommodate the added height of a torpedo suspended below the fuselage.[6]

With the German Afrika Korps driving towards the Suez Canal in July 1942, heroic resistance by a small band of Indian soldiers and anti-tank gunners stopped Rommel in his tracks, setting the stage for the climactic battle of El Alamein.

On November 10, two British naval convoys from Gibraltar and Egypt converged on Malta, unloaded supplies, and then split again. This movement masked the departure of a task force, centered on the Illustrious, which veered off towards Taranto on the afternoon of November 11. The ensuing attack was dubbed Operation Judgment.

At 8:35 that evening, the first wave of twelve Swordfish, half of them carrying torpedoes and the rest with bombs and flares, took off. The second wave of nine planes began taking off just under an hour later.

Unfortunately, two of the planes collided on the deck and one, damaged, had to abort. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Italian military and political circles vigorously debated the role and necessity of aircraft carriers in the expanding Italian fleet.

Men such as Gino Ducci (Regia Marina chief of staff in the early 1920s), Romeo Bernotti (assistant chief of staff) and naval officer Giuseppe Fioravanzo championed the development of a fleet air arm, the building of aircraft carriers and consolidation of the air and naval

academies.[2] Our shop is HERE selling t-shirts, mugs and other unique items you need in your life. Our Twitter account is here @Hush_Kit. Sign up for our newsletter HERE The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes will feature the finest cuts from this site along with exclusive new articles, explosive photography and gorgeous bespoke illustrations.

Pre-order The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes HERE In the medieval era, there were specialized types, but again, the ships could diverge due to many factors, notably the will of the local governor to commit his finances in some cases.

Ships could also be privately funded. If in the ancient Athens, Salamine's Greek fleet was financed in large part by the Laurion mines, decided by the ruling class, but still the ships were maintained by private owners and captains loaned.

Thus, without attested centralized state supervision (again the Carthaginians probably had an edge on this), they could diverge considerably from one yard to the next. Had Aquila's conversion begun in 1938 instead of 1941, she might have been completed and worked up in time to accompany Italy's main fleet units during the critical period of 1941–1942.

Her presence then could have potentially altered the outcomes of some battles, with her fighters intercepting British reconnaissance planes and parrying their carrier-borne air strikes, while her bombers carried out more timely and effective reconnaissance patrols than the Regia Aeronautica could provide and conducted their own.

attacks on British warships and convoys. Thus, Aquila might have prevented some historical Italian losses (such as at Cape Matapan) and inflicted a few of her own against Great Britain's Royal Navy. Other factions opposed these ideas, especially carrier construction, not so much on the grounds of military usefulness, but rather on cost and practicality.

More than anything else, Italy's limited industrial capacity, inadequate shipyard space and lack of financial capital prevented her from building the kind of well-balanced fleet envisioned by her naval theorists. Priority went to those ships deemed most necessary in a future conflict.

Following World War I, the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) began tentatively exploring the use of ship-borne aircraft by converting the merchant ship Città di Messina into the twin-catapult-equipped seaplane tender Giuseppe Miraglia. Commissioned in 1927, the ship could carry as many as four large and 16 medium seaplanes and was primarily used as an experimental catapult ship for most of her career.

By 1940, she was designated an aircraft transport/training ship and functioned as a seaplane tender for Italian capital ships.[1] The Romans, which were complete strangers to naval matters, turned to Magna Grecia to have a large fleet very rapidly built, so quickly historians had doubts about it for a long time, that is before a discovery: Indeed a rare punic wreck showed that all

parts were marked with precise quotations. This was interpreted by mass production already thought of, as every ship was essentially a jigsaw puzzle, with masses of similar parts coming in for final assembly. And as few ships really sunk at the time, most were captured or just ended up washed on shore.

They would be cannibalized to replace damaged parts or reconstruct a new ship from several wrecks. As an interesting but totally irrelevant aside, one of the Sparviero's wartime pilots was Capitano Emilio Pucci who would later gain considerable fame as one of Italy's most successful fashion designers.

As well as producing the first one-piece skiing outfit, Pucci bridged the fashion/aviation divide when he designed six complete collections for Braniff Airways' hostesses, pilots and ground crew between 1965 and 1974. Marilyn Monroe was also a fan, ultimately she was

Interred in a Pucci gown. Pucci died in 1992 at the age of 78 but the design house that bears the name is still going strong. In two small attacks, however, the British had inflicted major damage on the Italian fleet.

For the loss of two planes, the Swordfish had severely damaged the Littorio, Caio Duilio, and Conte di Cavour, inflicting almost 700 casualties. Hurt and shaken by this attack, the Italian Navy would never summon the resolve to challenge British naval power in the Mediterranean.

British planners had been considering an attack by carrier-based aircraft on the base at Taranto for several weeks before reconnaissance on November 9 confirmed that Italy's entire battleship strength was based there. This included the battleships Littorio, Vittorio Veneto, Giulio Cesare, Caio Duilio, Andrea Doria, and Conte di Cavour, the first two of which were brand new, along with several cruisers and destroyers.

The opportunity was too good to pass up. Nevertheless, in June 1940, shortly after Italy's entry into the war, Mussolini sanctioned the conversion of the 30,800 long tons (31,300 t), 21 kn (39 km/h; 24 mph) ocean liner Roma into an auxiliary carrier, featuring a flush deck.

and a small hangar. On 7 January 1941, less than two months after the successful British carrier raid on Taranto, Mussolini authorized a much more ambitious and extensive conversion of Roma into a full fleet carrier, capable of operating a larger air group and of keeping pace with the Regia Marina.

′s faster battleships and heavy cruisers. On the evening of November 11, 1940, 21 obsolete biplanes took off from the British aircraft carrier Illustrious. The aircraft were lumbering Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers of the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm;

their target: Italian Navy warships anchored at the port of Taranto. The events of the next few hours would change the balance of power in the Mediterranean, and set the stage for the world-shaking events of December 7, 1941, on the other side of the world at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

A sinking date: As for the ones sunk in action or scuttled (a suicide in human terms), they can only be in rare cases refloated again. Most of the time they end up in the depths, sometimes never found, sometimes after decades;

What does not change is their fate as wrecks: They can be explored (with authorization) but certainly not plundered, as military ships sunk in action are declared war graves and protected by international conventions. The Kanguru was slow, underpowered and vulnerable to fighter attack but this was hardly unusual for a transport of its era.

It was also capacious, capable and versatile. Its range capability was unmatched for most of its career and its practicality is borne out by its widespread adoption by Nazi Germany, a regime notoriously chauvinist in its opinion of other nations' technical abilities.

It is ironic that the most effective wartime aircraft produced by a country best known in WWII for producing beautiful, precocious fighter aircraft should be a lumbering transport workhorse of prodigious size and less-than-inspiring aesthetics. Yet the 726 SM.82s built were probably the best aircraft produced in Italy during the war and contributed meaningfully to the conflict (on both sides) to an extent that cannot be matched by any other Italian airplane.

After its brief but eventful Regia Aeronautica service many examples were confiscated by the Luftwaffe and the G.55 continued to be used by the Fascist Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (except for a single example that flew south to join the Allies) and remained in production at Fiat's

Turin factory. Ultimately 274 examples were built during the war and the Centauro formed the equipment of four ANR frontline fighter squadrons, details of Luftwaffe usage remains obscure but the type was apparently flown operationally by German pilots.

After a year or so it was replaced in Italian units by the Bf 109G, much to the chagrin of pilots. A human being is a unique living entity, but still, given two names and two dates: One of birth, and a name within a family (“last name” in Anglo-Saxon culture, coming after the forename, and inverted in Asian cultures

) and one of death. But what about ships? A ship had a no less than six dates (universally agreed and most important): Indeed, nothing but industrial standardization of the XIXth century made a “class” no longer poetry but a reality.

Casting, bolts and rivets, as well as new manufacturing processes and techniques guarantee consistent sub-parts. Entire, complex and large ships could be entirely duplicated. At last several classes in a single type could be identified and registered.

In the civilian and military sectors alike. RMS Titanic for example belongs to the same class of three ships ordered by the White Star Lines: The Olympic class. Aquila (Italian language: "Eagle") was an Italian aircraft carrier converted from the trans-Atlantic passenger liner SS Roma during World War II.

Work on Aquila began in late 1941 at the Ansaldo shipyard in Genoa and continued for the next two years. With the signing of the Italian armistice on 8 September 1943, however, all work was halted and the vessel remained unfinished.

Aquila was eventually scrapped in 1952. However even in that case, the types did not equate classes. For example during the Russo-Swedish wars of the early 18th century, the Swedes committed a variety of “archipelago frigates” scientifically designed by a renowned architect and well adapted to the Baltic, which bore specific names and were well identified, such as a Hemmema

and others. But this does not equal a class, as each yard responsible for their construction made them on their own plans again, and they diverged in countless details. Centralization in ordnance still appeared in the same century and the enlightenment age pressed forward for a globally more scientific approach to naval construction and to get rid of empiricism alone.

The sharing of knowledge, notably through the creation of the encyclopediae, with the involvement of mathematicians and specialists born from a solid university network drove this standardization, which peaked in the XIX Century.

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