General thought on Med conflict in WWII
Dott. PIergiorgio
Italian Navy in WWII.
Saying in a nutshell, my idea is that the damages inflicted to the RN by the
Regia Marina was officially less than the actual events.
Instrumental in this was various things like the regulaments of the RN,
wchich permits to not recording damage who took less than 30 days of repair
(Perhaps some ships was "repaired" in 29 days, with some splint holes still
not fixed and the likes) and the destruction of many recordings of damage &
repair (The whole thing was uncovered by a young Italian Historian, whose
find in the IWM a report whose wasn't burned by mistake, in which emerges
more damages to RN ships than that offcialy credited.
The thing led to a more carefully analysis of Gunnery practice of Italian
warships, analysis who showed that actually the Italians fired better than
everyone else, save the germans.
Why the Italians fired better ? Because the Italians have developed an
excellent long-range tactics, so the Italians can aim more farther that
other countries.
Nearly all the engagements in the Mediterranean was conducted at ranges more
than 20,000 meters, when the N.Atlantic and Pacific engagements was ranged
in the 15,000 meters mean.
The low scores of Italian warships was actually a feat, because of the
distance involved, and the pattern "Britsh chasing, italian retreating" was
the results of the meeting of two doctrines, the Italian long-range gunfire
and the britsh closing the range.
Also, the Italians used a more slow tempo in their firing, resulting in a
less shots respect to britsh firing, whose tend to a quicker tempo in
firing (sorry for the musical term; I don't find the correct naval term)
Returning at the pattern of med naval engagements, what seemed Italian
retreat in many cases was the keeping of long range versus the britsh
attempt to closing the range.
Surely all that saying cause a wild reaction by certain posters, but I have
mainly satisfied the interest of mr. KOpplin.
Best regards from Italy, and an apology to mr. LIeven for the comprensible
irritation :)
--
Dottor Piergiorgio d' Errico- MIlitary and Naval historian
Niitakayama nobore ichi ni rei ya
Lance Kopplin
"Dott. PIergiorgio" <pg...@libero.it> wrote in message
news:2%vza.27171$lK4.7...@twister1.libero.it...
Tempo is fine. Don't know if there is a naval term. Do you have a
description of the process when firing? Such as, full salvo vs half salvo?
Did they wait for each salvo to land before firing the next? These kinds
of things about the actual process. The RN way of doing it is well known,
but the Italian (RM?) is apparently not well known.
Lance
Dott. PIergiorgio
> Do you have a
> description of the process when firing? Such as, full salvo vs half
> salvo? Did they wait for each salvo to land before firing the next?
Roughly speaking, the Italians fire full salvos and watch the landing of
salvos prior to firing the next salvo.
The reason of the first is in the nefarious single-sleeve mounts used in all
the Italian ships save the BB and the Abruzzi and Regolo clas CL, with them
one can't elevate the gun differently (they was also used in many american
CA and in the BB Texas, New York, Nevada, Oklakoma, Pennsylvania and
Arizona.)
The second issue, the watching of landing of salvos was dictated by the old
wisdom: "the best telemeter is the gun".
Best regards from Italy.
Randall Turner
damage control and repair, etc, yours truly ended up "saddled" with the Italian navy. Well, turns
out the gang didn't do their due diligence regarding the Italian fleet and I grew to love the ships
like Montecuccoli etc. which were fast enough to engage Brit DD's at long range and bloody well
*keep* them at long range. (we did a lot of small ship engagements.) I noticed the (slightly) lower
rates of fire for the Italians, but it turned out not to matter much. Drove them nuts! Only way they
could get me to close to effective range was by resorting to chemical warfare. (Usually an initial
barrage of Heinekens followed by Cuervo Gold.)
Damn good navy. (Particularly if you skip Taranto.)
--
"One great thing about repeating a mistake is knowing when to cringe."
Dott. PIergiorgio
> Dott. Plergiorgio, the biggest naval sim I ever played with full realistic
> basing, naval miniatures, damage control and repair, etc,
What sim ? From what you say I guess is a miniature game. Alas, I have only
the old M.O.D. trilogy, War at sea (WWII) Grand fleet (WWI) and The devil
at helm (Pre-dreadnoughts and ironclads eras)
Please, if you will, let me know the title and the publisher, and if you
have, the link to their site.
> yours truly
> ended up "saddled" with the Italian navy. Well, turns out the gang didn't
> do their due diligence regarding the Italian fleet
What you mean for "saddled" ?
> and I grew to love the
> ships like Montecuccoli etc. which were fast enough to engage Brit DD's at
> long range and bloody well *keep* them at long range. (we did a lot of
> small ship engagements.)
And the Montecuccoli actually engages successfully britsh DD at Pantelleria,
sinking the large Tribal class Bedouin.
You are also correct in making mall engagements; both fleets keep in being
their BB and the Med conflict was mainly a naval guerrilla.
> I noticed the (slightly) lower rates of fire for
> the Italians,
This lower rates depicted in your rule is perhaps the implementation of the
firing techniques I describe ?
> but it turned out not to matter much. Drove them nuts! Only
> way they could get me to close to effective range was by resorting to
> chemical warfare. (Usually an initial barrage of Heinekens followed by
> Cuervo Gold.)
I consider this more Psy warfare than chem warfare ;)
It's a pity that there in Italy wargaming aren't much diffused... I'm pretty
alone, I use the wargames I have for study and analysis (and I have makes a
bit of A&A to the rules or data.... But a fun tabletop fighting is what I
miss...
Best regards from Italy
> Damn good navy. (Particularly if you skip Taranto.)
>
> --
> "One great thing about repeating a mistake is knowing when to cringe."
Best regards from Italy.
Randall Turner
> Randall Turner wrote:
>
> > Dott. Plergiorgio, the biggest naval sim I ever played with full realistic
> > basing, naval miniatures, damage control and repair, etc,
> What sim ? From what you say I guess is a miniature game. Alas, I have only
> the old M.O.D. trilogy, War at sea (WWII) Grand fleet (WWI) and The devil
> at helm (Pre-dreadnoughts and ironclads eras)
> Please, if you will, let me know the title and the publisher, and if you
> have, the link to their site.
We played using Seekrieg (hold on, link...) 'ere we go
Modified slightly to remove aircraft post '36 so we were primarily naval combat and aerial search,
worked out pretty well. By "Saddled", I mean I was "stuck" with them because.. well, mostly because
I got outrolled by everyone else when we first sat down and set up the campaign. (Though, come to
think of it, there might've been some of that chemical warfare there too, I don't have a clear
recollection of actually *rolling*. Or much of anything else.)
> > and I grew to love the
> > ships like Montecuccoli etc. which were fast enough to engage Brit DD's at
> > long range and bloody well *keep* them at long range. (we did a lot of
> > small ship engagements.)
> And the Montecuccoli actually engages successfully britsh DD at Pantelleria,
> sinking the large Tribal class Bedouin.
> You are also correct in making mall engagements; both fleets keep in being
> their BB and the Med conflict was mainly a naval guerrilla.
Yup. First saw the Montecuccoli and went, "damn, this is a piece of shit - hey, top speed of WHAT?
That's gotta be a misprint! (IIRC, it was over 40 knots.) I just used them as destroyer leaders,
worked fine. And it wasn't like they were the only class with legs, everything Italian flat scoots.
> > I noticed the (slightly) lower rates of fire for
> > the Italians,
> This lower rates depicted in your rule is perhaps the implementation of the
> firing techniques I describe ?
Can't say, sorry. You can contact the authors of the game yourself, if you'd like, using the above
link.
Best,
Randall
Peter Kemp
<pg...@libero.it> wrote:
>A poster ask me to reopen an old thread, that about fighting performance of
>Italian Navy in WWII.
>
>Saying in a nutshell, my idea is that the damages inflicted to the RN by the
>Regia Marina was officially less than the actual events.
>
>Instrumental in this was various things like the regulaments of the RN,
>wchich permits to not recording damage who took less than 30 days of repair
>(Perhaps some ships was "repaired" in 29 days, with some splint holes still
>not fixed and the likes) and the destruction of many recordings of damage &
>repair (The whole thing was uncovered by a young Italian Historian, whose
>find in the IWM a report whose wasn't burned by mistake, in which emerges
>more damages to RN ships than that offcialy credited.
Can't speak to the gunnery practises of either navy, but my take on
the damage issue is this.....
While it is possible that the RM inflicted more *damage* on the RN
than is currently accepted wisdom, I'm sceptical, since while you can
disguise or hide or deny ship damage to a certain extent, you can't
hide sunk ships (at least not post war).
So while the amount of damage may indeed be higher, we can be certain
of the sunk ships, and looking at that tally the RM did not come off
well. I'm afraid I'm still a subscriber to the notion that the skill
and effectiveness of the RM was excellent with the small units
(frogmen, and small craft) and got worse as the units got larger,
until the BBs which did not give credit to the RM at all. Whether this
was due to equipment, manning, training or doctrine I have no idea.
Anyone got any good books to recommend on the war in the Med? I've got
the Warspite history which covers a lot of the large unit actions, and
a couple of books on small units (i.e. MTBs and the like), but nothing
covering the theatre as a whole.
Bradley Perrett
> Anyone got any good books to recommend on the war in the Med?
Greene and Massignani; The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940-43;
Chatham Publishing, London, 1998 (and Sarpedon Publishers, Rockville
Center, NY, 1998).
I see that it has lately appeared in a paperback edition, so it must
have sold unusually well for a naval book. Regards,
Brad.
John Lansford
>Yup. First saw the Montecuccoli and went, "damn, this is a piece of shit - hey, top speed of WHAT?
>That's gotta be a misprint! (IIRC, it was over 40 knots.) I just used them as destroyer leaders,
>worked fine. And it wasn't like they were the only class with legs, everything Italian flat scoots.
I have always heard the Italian Navy inflated their ships' top speed
by running trials without armament and any other extra weight on
board. Their true top speeds were probably closer to that of the
British ships, especially since there was at least one engagement
where a (on paper) slower British ship caught and sank one of these
(on paper) superfast Italian ones.
John Lansford
The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/
Dott. PIergiorgio
>
> I have always heard the Italian Navy inflated their ships' top speed
> by running trials without armament and any other extra weight on
> board.
This is one of the reasons; the other being that the ships's power plants
haven't many maintenance, because resources was alyays put in new
constructions instead of maintaining the existing ships.
For example at Gaudo the Third division, the fastest CA in the world, don't
catche the retreating britsh CL because one of the ships, the Bolzano, have
the power plant in disarray and can't make more than 30 kts instead of 35.
Personally I have left behind the Bolzano and have runned at top speed with
Trento and Trieste.
This also explains why the newest ships performed better.
For example the top was the CL Giulio Germanico, whose in the Messina
strait, and in full war displacement, chase britsh *MTB* with a speed of 23
kts against the 38 IIRC of the MTBs, sinking three. (And this denote an
excellent gunnery....)
> Their true top speeds were probably closer to that of the
> British ships, especially since there was at least one engagement
> where a (on paper) slower British ship caught and sank one of these
> (on paper) superfast Italian ones.
You refer to the Capo Spada battle, where the slower cruiser Sydney Whose
was australian, sank the Italian CL Bartolomeo Colleoni.
The Colleoni, and the earlier CL (Di Giussano and Cadorna class) wasn't much
maintened (sp?) since their commission, back in late 20s.
John Mullen
news:98b076a0.03052...@posting.google.com...
Like, I suspect, many Anglo-Saxons, I had always thought of the RM as a bit
of a joke, apart from the midget subs. Reading Clay Blair's book on the
Battle of the Atlantic (for the first time, it's a *serious* book!), it
strikes me that some of the Italian fleet subs did a lot better than I had
thought. Time for some historical revision? Or was I out of step to begin
with?
John
Oleg Mastruko
<pg...@libero.it> wrote:
>This is one of the reasons; the other being that the ships's power plants
>haven't many maintenance, because resources was alyays put in new
>constructions instead of maintaining the existing ships.
>For example at Gaudo the Third division, the fastest CA in the world, don't
>catche the retreating britsh CL because one of the ships, the Bolzano, have
>the power plant in disarray and can't make more than 30 kts instead of 35.
>Personally I have left behind the Bolzano and have runned at top speed with
>Trento and Trieste.
This is typical of the "Italians were not so bad" crowd, of
which I have met many (most of them Italians themselves, which speaks
volumes, but some foreigners too).
History of Italian navy in WW2 is history of blunders, failures,
wasted opportunities and downright embarrasment, with some small unit
and individual, personal heroism (sometimes senseless heroism). Of
course, historians with sympathies towards Italians always find some
reason why it was so, there's alyaws someone else's guilt etc. etc
etc.
Where I come from its called apologism and revisionism.
In fact, personally I have decent opinion of the Italians (some
of the ships were great designs - on paper at least) until some
apologist, like yourself, comes along with the new package of "British
lied, you know" bull... You almost invariably manage to shoot youself
in the foot, and actually lower my opinion of the Italian navy in the
process (like, if *these* are the pro-Italian arguments, then how bad
they really were?)
To Randall Turner: there's a reason why you played so well with
the Italians, and why I personally LOVE to play with the Italian units
in wargames. You know why? Because it's hard to lead them so badly as
they were lead historically, so it's easy to attain "better than
history" results with Italian units in almost any wargame I played :o)
Try that with Germans, Japan, or Soviets (I'm not talking exclusively
about naval wargames, but wargames in general.) That's a good measure
of historical leadership - can you fare better than history in
realistic wargame?
>This also explains why the newest ships performed better.
>For example the top was the CL Giulio Germanico, whose in the Messina
>strait, and in full war displacement, chase britsh *MTB* with a speed of 23
>kts against the 38 IIRC of the MTBs, sinking three. (And this denote an
>excellent gunnery....)
CLs against MTBs in a gunnery duel - now that's what I call fair
fight :o))
>> Their true top speeds were probably closer to that of the
>> British ships, especially since there was at least one engagement
>> where a (on paper) slower British ship caught and sank one of these
>> (on paper) superfast Italian ones.
>You refer to the Capo Spada battle, where the slower cruiser Sydney Whose
>was australian, sank the Italian CL Bartolomeo Colleoni.
>The Colleoni, and the earlier CL (Di Giussano and Cadorna class) wasn't much
>maintened (sp?) since their commission, back in late 20s.
Again, apologies, reasons, etc etc. What's the Sean Connery
famous line from the movie The Rock? Losers always "gave their best",
winers go and fuck the prom queen.
O.
Dott. PIergiorgio
Initially I want to ignore this post, but i noticed a detail: .hr
Hungary?
Ah, now I understand... Still burn the sinking of the Szent Istvan, eh ? :)
Let's face the reality... You accuse Italians of not accepting the truth,
but Hungarians seems not to accept that the Szent Istvan was sink in one of
the most gallant Italian naval action....
> CLs against MTBs in a gunnery duel - now that's what I call fair
> fight :o))
let's see the detail: Targeting small unit aboard a small cruiser at full
speed, during night with an imperfect radar, when said small unit manouvre
at full speed to avoid salvos, seem a more than fair fight.... And another
thing you say CLs when here is *one* CL alone.
Best regards from italy, and remember a thing:
Momento Audere Semper.
Peter Skelton
<pg...@libero.it> wrote:
>A poster ask me to reopen an old thread, that about fighting performance of
>Italian Navy in WWII.
>
>Saying in a nutshell, my idea is that the damages inflicted to the RN by the
>Regia Marina was officially less than the actual events.
>
>Instrumental in this was various things like the regulaments of the RN,
>wchich permits to not recording damage who took less than 30 days of repair
>(Perhaps some ships was "repaired" in 29 days, with some splint holes still
>not fixed and the likes) and the destruction of many recordings of damage &
>repair (The whole thing was uncovered by a young Italian Historian, whose
>find in the IWM a report whose wasn't burned by mistake, in which emerges
>more damages to RN ships than that offcialy credited.
If it was "uncovered" by a young Italian historian, Italian
historians must be among the stupidest species on the planet
(present company obviously excluded.) The RN has been quite open
about this sort of thing for a very long time. For example, there
are in the open, contemporary material about Warspite's first
major refit/rebuild in the late 1920's comments about repairing
Jutland damage (which had been temprarily repaired shortly after
the battle.)
I think you'll find on a little digging that it goes a bit
farther than you've suggested. If the damage did not affect the
mission capability of the ship or require dockyard attention it
might not be recorded.
Of course if the RN was willing to use the ship and it was
capable of doing its job then whatever damage it had is not very
important, was it?
____
Peter Skelton
Oleg Mastruko
<pg...@libero.it> wrote:
>Oleg Mastruko wrote:
>
>Initially I want to ignore this post, but i noticed a detail: .hr
>Hungary?
>Ah, now I understand... Still burn the sinking of the Szent Istvan, eh ? :)
>Let's face the reality... You accuse Italians of not accepting the truth,
>but Hungarians seems not to accept that the Szent Istvan was sink in one of
>the most gallant Italian naval action....
Funny man. :o) No mio carro dottore, I am not Hungarian, and HR
top domain does not stand for Hungary. To assist you with your
guessing, I'll say that I am even some part of Italian ancestry (put
"cch" instead of "k" in the surname).
Try again, and in the meantime try to think of better arguments
to use than those related to the country I come from, which is utterly
irrelevant anyway. First place on my "hate list" goes to MY
compatriots inclined to revisionism and historical apologetics anyway,
so you won't see me defending my own, just because they are "my own",
which is what you do.
Ah, and poor Szent Istvan, this ship gets "ressurected" whenever
Italians need a proof for their bravery and naval prowess. It was
fantastic action, I agree, one of my favorite actions of WW1, but is
was essentially a one man show, that was never repeated, not before,
not after.
And it was in WW1.
And if you insist on pulling Szent Istvan - I must say that
until the last year of WW1 and SI incident, Italian Navy's performance
was very very poor, as in WW2. Read some unbiased WW1 histories, there
are some available, even by Italian authors. At least Szent Istvan had
to be torpedoed before it sank, not like some Italian battleships,
blowing up on their own on the anchorages (Benedetto Brin) or sinking
with the first blow of the "bora" wind (Affondatore).
Too bad there were no Szent Istvans and Luigi Rizzo in WW2 eh?
Then the likes of you would have something to boast about for the next
two hundered years. (OK, I am being perhaps too sarcastic here -
because there were brave men in Italian Navy in WW2).
>> CLs against MTBs in a gunnery duel - now that's what I call fair
>> fight :o))
>let's see the detail: Targeting small unit aboard a small cruiser at full
>speed, during night with an imperfect radar, when said small unit manouvre
>at full speed to avoid salvos, seem a more than fair fight.... And another
>thing you say CLs when here is *one* CL alone.
Was the captain of that CL court martialed later? I mean, he
didn't run away, so it must have been against orders, no? :o))
There is another aspect on Italian Navy that gets rarely
mentioned by its apologetists like you. Naval aviation. Hands down, no
contest, the worst performance of all the major combatants in WW2
Naval air arms was Italian naval air arm. I'd dare say even the
Russians did better...
O.
Tempus
> John Lansford wrote:
>
>>
>> I have always heard the Italian Navy inflated their ships' top speed
>> by running trials without armament and any other extra weight on
>> board.
> This is one of the reasons; the other being that the ships's power plants
> haven't many maintenance, because resources was alyays put in new
> constructions instead of maintaining the existing ships.
> For example at Gaudo the Third division, the fastest CA in the world, don't
> catche the retreating britsh CL because one of the ships, the Bolzano, have
> the power plant in disarray and can't make more than 30 kts instead of 35.
> Personally I have left behind the Bolzano and have runned at top speed with
> Trento and Trieste.
>
> This also explains why the newest ships performed better.
> For example the top was the CL Giulio Germanico, whose in the Messina
> strait, and in full war displacement, chase britsh *MTB* with a speed of 23
> kts against the 38 IIRC of the MTBs, sinking three. (And this denote an
> excellent gunnery....)
>
>> The above seemed odd to me , I mean a 23kt Italian CL!!
So i did some digging on the web and it appears the Giulio Germanico was
capable of 40kts.
Further research also seems to show that she was still incomplete at the
German takeover of Italy
, and was not complete till after the war.
This info was from a website so hardly a reliable source however several sites
had the same data,
so do you have a cite for this MTB incident?
As to your theory this seems to common on various Italian websites about the
RM, " We did such and such but there is no evidence so the British must be
lying." is a recurrent theme, one site even puts up the reputation of various
journalists as support for a particular claim.
This must be a front runner for the Shoot yourself in the Foot with a Tactical
Nuke Award , Dodgy Evidence Catergory.
>
--
Death the High cost of living.
Dott. PIergiorgio
> So i did some digging on the web and it appears the Giulio Germanico was
> capable of 40kts.
> Further research also seems to show that she was still incomplete at the
> German takeover of Italy
That's my fault. The Cruiser was the Scipione Africano I was writing the
post from memory and I have a glitch. Checking the data, I also get the
date of the action: the night between the 16 and 17 July 1943.
So I don't lie; this was a genuine mistake caused by glitch in memory.
Oleg Mastruko
<pg...@libero.it> wrote:
>Tempus wrote:
>
>> So i did some digging on the web and it appears the Giulio Germanico was
>> capable of 40kts.
>> Further research also seems to show that she was still incomplete at the
>> German takeover of Italy
>
>That's my fault. The Cruiser was the Scipione Africano I was writing the
>post from memory and I have a glitch. Checking the data, I also get the
>date of the action: the night between the 16 and 17 July 1943.
>
>So I don't lie; this was a genuine mistake caused by glitch in memory.
Both Scipione Africano and Giulio Germanico belong to the same
class (tipo Capitani Romani), and are listed as having the top speed
of 40 knots.
O.
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
erratic....@ntlworldfreeofspam.com (Tempus) wrote:
> so do you have a cite for this MTB incident?
The incident happened though I can't remember which ship of the class
was involved. British records only record one MTB lost IIRC. Three of
the Capito Romani class were completed in time to serve in the war.
The class were closer to oversized destroyers on the French lines
rather than cruisers.
Ken Young
ken...@cix.co.uk
Those who cover themselves with martial glory
frequently go in need of any other garment. (Bramah)
Drazen Kramaric
<oleg@_REMOVE_bug.hr> wrote:
> History of Italian navy in WW2 is history of blunders, failures,
>wasted opportunities and downright embarrasment, with some small unit
>and individual, personal heroism (sometimes senseless heroism).
I wonder whether you read Prikril's "Battle for Mediterranean"
recently, :o)
I remember myself putting the book on the table and ask how could they
(Italian admirals) be so incompetant and lose this or that battle.
>Where I come from its called apologism and revisionism.
Where you come from there was a proscribed TRUTH about WW2 that had to
be swallowed line, hook and sinker unless you wanted to be chasticised
for the rest of your life. Granted, in last decade the pendulum swung
in the opposite extreme, but Croatians (both historians and general
public) are still pursuing the true story about WW2 in Croatia and in
general. Some revisionism is always welcome to allow the fresh air.
Note the stories of "Russian hordes" that dominated western
historiography for years and equally bad Soviet historiography that
claimed Berlin was heavily garrisoned in April 1945.
>In fact, personally I have decent opinion of the Italians (some
>of the ships were great designs - on paper at least) until some
>apologist, like yourself, comes along with the new package of "British
>lied, you know" bull... You almost invariably manage to shoot youself
>in the foot, and actually lower my opinion of the Italian navy in the
>process (like, if *these* are the pro-Italian arguments, then how bad
>they really were?)
That Regia Marina was regulary ridiculed in British (and German)
accounts is a known fact. Actually, I do welcome the Italian
contribution in putting some light from their side of the conflict.
In your diatribe againt Italian admirals you forgot to mention some
objective reasons for underperformance of Italian capital ships like
chronic lack of fuel that reduced training and sorties, lack of
cooperation with Regia Aeronautica, Mussolini's decision to declare
war while third of Italian merchant marine of out of the Mediterranean
and the basic concept of "Fleet in Being" that dominated Italian naval
strategy in the Mediterranean.
Think of Italian navy as Axis counterpart of French army. It is always
popular to ridicule French for cowardice and incompetance, but there's
more in the story of battle for France than what is usually thought.
Drax
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