Italian Battleships and Torpedo Belt

[quickslvrsnwbrdr]

So in Order of Battle the Littorio-class Battleship finally got its Torpedo Belt trait, but why do the Duilio and Cavour-class battleships not have the Torpedo Trait.

From my research which comes mainly from Regiamarina.net and Italian Battleships of World War Two by Erminio Bagnasco and Mark Grossman... every single one of the Italian Battleships incorporated the Pugliese Deformation Cylinder System. Now I do understand that this system was not as amazing as the allies torpedo belts, but it still proved to be "efficient", and seeing as the Littorio class was given the Torpedo belt trait, it would only seem right that the other two classes recieved it aswell.

Is there any reasons why the Cavour and Duilio-class battleships were not credited with a Torpedo Belt Trait?

A little off topic but still pertains to the Italians is also my concern about balance between British cruisers and Battleships compared to Italian cruisers and Battleships. In every naval engagement besides the night battle during Matapan, the Italian and British fleets are credited as being equal in terms of ships, guns and especially the italians rangefinding and fire control vs the british radar.

In this light, why is it that an Italian cruiser or battleship can't stand up to their equivilent British ship? The radar trait just makes British ships in game in the med. way beyond the Italians. which historically is not entirely correct, the presence of Aircraft carriers is what gave the British the upper hand. British Radar only proved to be a huge deal in the med during the night fight of Matapan.

Anywho...
Cheers,
Nick

 

[Davesaint]

So in Order of Battle the Littorio-class Battleship finally got its Torpedo Belt trait, but why do the Duilio and Cavour-class battleships not have the Torpedo Trait.

From my research which comes mainly from Regiamarina.net and Italian Battleships of World War Two by Erminio Bagnasco and Mark Grossman... every single one of the Italian Battleships incorporated the Pugliese Deformation Cylinder System. Now I do understand that this system was not as amazing as the allies torpedo belts, but it still proved to be "efficient", and seeing as the Littorio class was given the Torpedo belt trait, it would only seem right that the other two classes recieved it aswell.

Is there any reasons why the Cavour and Duilio-class battleships were not credited with a Torpedo Belt Trait?

A little off topic but still pertains to the Italians is also my concern about balance between British cruisers and Battleships compared to Italian cruisers and Battleships. In every naval engagement besides the night battle during Matapan, the Italian and British fleets are credited as being equal in terms of ships, guns and especially the italians rangefinding and fire control vs the british radar.

In this light, why is it that an Italian cruiser or battleship can't stand up to their equivilent British ship? The radar trait just makes British ships in game in the med. way beyond the Italians. which historically is not entirely correct, the presence of Aircraft carriers is what gave the British the upper hand. British Radar only proved to be a huge deal in the med during the night fight of Matapan.

Anywho...
Cheers,
Nick

Well, that's not quite true. It was found that the lack of armor on the Italian ships that was sacrificed for theoretical speed was a significant liability. Also, if you want to see the lack of effectiveness of the Pugliese Deformation Cylinder System, look at the results of the Brits raid on Taranto. The Italian Battleships took a severe pounding from the torpedeos launched from UK Swordfish. This is the raid that gave the Japanese the idea of attacking Pearl Harbor.

Dave

 

[quickslvrsnwbrdr]

Valid point, but the point is that the system was there, and it was considered efficient, although inferior to allied systems (it was still better than nothing, and many of those battleships took multiple torpedo hits).

And as the cavour and duilio had the same system as the Littorio, and the Littorio has the torpedo trait in order of battle... I am wondering why the developers felt only it should get it.

And why on earth was the aircraft trait basically scratched?

 

[Wishbone]

Taranto is not an entirely fair test run for the torpedo belt. Armour is just the first part of defending against damage, and must be backed up with efficient damage control. I severly doubt that all the crews were aboard, the ships were not at sea so how likely is it they could have provided sufficient power to pumps etc. ad nauseum. I suspect anyone's ships would be as at risk to like damage in the same circumstances!

VAS has a few iffy stats in my opinion. Play what you and your opponent(s) feel is right and ignore the book when it's wrong.

As for the radar in the med, I feel it makes the feel of the game much more historicly accurate. Giving the RN better accuracy at long range seems to be in keeping - I reference you to HMS Warspite! Just remember that the Littorios got radar of their own to fight back with if you want to even the score a bit.

Alternatively, if your opponent agrees and wants a more challenging fight, scrap the radar guided shooting rule. As far as I know radar wasn't used as a gunnery aid in the med (with the exception of some blind shooting by some british destroyers at night. No hits confirmed btw) and anyway it wasn't really coming into it's own as a gunnery aid until 1944 as far as I know. Though you'll have to ask more informed persons than me to elaborate on that!

 

[quickslvrsnwbrdr]

"As for the radar in the med, I feel it makes the feel of the game much more historicly accurate. Giving the RN better accuracy at long range seems to be in keeping - I reference you to HMS Warspite! Just remember that the Littorios got radar of their own to fight back with if you want to even the score a bit."

I would slightly disagree on the warspite part, seeing as the cesare did an overshot on the warspite and damaged two british cruisers and got shells within 360 meters of the warspite... and also the cesare fired first and ranged in first at 26,400 meters. Italian ships just had problems with dispersal of shots due to uneven packing of gunpowder. The italian cruisers also ranged in on british cruisers far before the british could to. Over 20,000 meters in the same engagement.

The littorios got radar? do you have a reference i can read? Trying to broaden my scope of resources.

But i do completely agree with you that Taranto isn't a fair way to assess the torpedo belt, and that as far as i know, early war radar was not used to help with target control on main guns. So I agree with you on these things wishbone.

 

[Wishbone]

http://www.comandosupremo.com/Littorio.html

says it there for a start. I have read about it before though, can probably give you a couple of references if you like.

 

[quickslvrsnwbrdr]

would be nice, that is the first i have ever heard of that, and info on italian radar systems in world war two is quite hard to find for me

 

[DM]

There wa s alot of debate about the application of the trait to the Italian battleships. I argued against it because of the demonstrated ineffectiveness of the system (I had the honour of conducting some business in Pugleise's offices in Rome a while back too, during which (in the surrounding discussions) the effectiveness or otherwise was discussed wth Italina naval architects). Unfortunately the solution arrived at in OOB wasn't as good as it could have been

 

[Wishbone]

right, my info on Radar coming from "The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940-1943" by Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani.

- In July 1941 Italian prototype sets fitted to the torpedo boat Giacinto Carini and the Littorio for testing.

- German DeTe type radar fitted in march 1942 on the destroyer Legionario.

- first 'Gufo' type radar fitted on Littorio in september 1942, another 50 sets ordered.

- By January 1943 further German sets were fitted to the destoyers Malocello and Oriani, and the torpedo boats Ardimentoso and Procione. By March they were also fitted to the destroyers Alpino and Bombardiere.

-12 more German sets arrive by June. It is not mentioned which ships (if any) these were installed in.

- by the time of the armistice the following had 'Gufo' sets (though there was a shortage in trained operators) - Battleships Vittorio Veneto, Littorio and Roma, cruisers Scipione Africano, Attilio Regolo, Montecuccoli, Eugenio di Savoia, and the destroyers Carabiniere, Dardo, Fuciliere, Pancaldo and Velite.

I'll do a bit of research in my more detailed books on the cruisers and destroyers and see if I can come up with any further info for you on those twelve unnacounted for sets.

 

[DM]

If you want more good info on WW2 radar usage take a look at the OGDW website and the free downloads for GQ3. Mal Wright has compiled some pretty decent tables showing the radar fits to many classes of WW2 vessel.

 

[quickslvrsnwbrdr]

That is some neat info about radar. Thank you

 

[rokassan]

So where's our errata for Radar for our Littorio's and torpedo belts for our other battleship classes? Italy always gets the short end of the stick...even when they dont deserve it.

 

[DM]

Other battleships won't get an errata for torpedo belt for the reasons that have been debated here several times. As for the radar, I'd advise looking at the file posted by Mal Wright that goes into which ships were fitted and when.