[C19fan]

Who can blame for Italians doing what they do best...producing beautiful things. Who cares about the actual function.

[FreedomPoster]

Didn’t they mostly get sunk at Taranto by Fairy Swordfish?

[SkyPilot]

Kind of like some of their cars.

[Sasparilla]

The battleship, Roma, as pictured, looks worse than a rusty tramp steamer. That the Italian Navy achieved superiority over the French Navy isn’t saying much. Much like saying their air force had superiority over that of Vatican City’s.

[alfa6]

The Italian Navy was mainly designed to fight in the Med so some of the parameters would be different than for an ocean sailing navy.

For a somewhat technical look at the Vittorio Veneto class of Italian BB’s see here...

http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[PotatoHeadMick]

Wasn’t one of the main problems of the Italian navy that they had no radar which left them sitting ducks? At Cape Matapan the Royal Navy simply sailed up to the Italian fleet in the dark, simply switched on their searchlights and proceeded to blast them to bits

[Rockingham]

Nice jibe, but not entirely accurate as the article concludes that "Despite their drawbacks, Roma and her sisters were useful ships." This view is well-founded in that the WW II British Royal Navy had considerable trouble in the Med because Italy's modern fast battleships were a potent "force in being" that menaced, inhibited, and delayed Allied operations.

Italy's several modern battleships helped keep Italy in the war longer and secure better surrender terms from the Allies. Since Allied war strategy required that Italy be knocked out of the war before the invasion of France was attempted, Italy's belligerence also delayed the invasion and diminished the position of the US and Britain in dealings with the Soviet Union.

Italy's battleships thus should not be regarded as pretty but ineffective. They instead offer an object lesson in how capital ships can have a major impact in spite of design defects and limited combat operations.

[JimRed]

Q. Why does the new Italian Navy have glass-bottomed ships?

A. So they can see the old Italian Navy.

[rmlew]

Like the German Bismarck class, but unlike Allied battleships of the day, Roma did not carry a dual-purpose secondary armament, a measure that would have saved weight and improved her anti-aircraft capabilities.

Want to bet? The Vittorio Veneto class carried 12x 6 inch secondary guns fo anti-ship attack. However, they also had 12 90mm (3.5 inch) dual purpose (anti-aircraft, anti-ship) guns. The Bismark carried 12 6 inch guns and 16 4.1 inch dual purpose guns. Both also carried 37mm and 20mm dedicated anti-aircraft guns.