Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Military History not Visualized"
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There was not an Italian spy in the US Embassy in Cairo. In September 1941, when the US were still neutral, The Italians managed to secrtetly stealing the "black code" (the US diplomatic code) from the US embassy in Rome (they managed to make a mold of the key of the safe of Col. Norman Fiske, that kept the code, penetrated in the embassy by night, made pictures of the code and put all back in place). In dec. 1941, after Pearl Harbour, US Col. Frank Bonner Fellers was appointed as military attaché of the US Embassy in Cairo, and begun using that code to transmit to Washington valuable military informations about the British movements, for the joy of the Italians.
Unfortunately for the Axis, some months later, Mussolini, to show the proveness of his secret services, transmitted some decrypted message to Hitler. At that point, having the decrypted messages and the original ones, the German decipherers reconstructed the code themselves, begun to decrypt the US messages from Cairo, and had the "good" idea to transmit the decrypted messages through Enigma.
Since the Brits had already decrypted Enigma, they did read the same mesages, immediately realised they were written by a third party that had good knowledge about British movements in Egypt, so they understood they were written by the US diplomatics and informed the Americans, that quit using te black code.
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I think you are missing the point. It's pretty useless to give an explanation to something that didn't happen.
Again, only the Italian warships laid down in the '20s had comparatively light armours (even if not that light as often believed. The armor of the Trento class was not that different from that of the Admiral Hipper class, and way heavier than that of the French Suffren class for example). The ships laid down in the '30s usually had heavy, and sometimes super-heavy armors. From the relatively unarmored Colleoni and the super armored Duca Degli abruzzi, only 5 years passed.
It's pretty useless to give (sorry, to repeat old) explanations for why Italian warships had light armors, when IRL only a limited fraction of them, and the older one, really had those "light armor" you are speaking of, while the bulk of the fleet was even better armoured that the RN counterparts.
Reality is that the units laid down in the '30s (Duca degli Abruzzi, Zara, Littorio...) had been designed with a "one vs many" scenario in mind. So they were heavily armoured, even, for example, in the turret's sides or in the secondary turrets.
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I intervened on the "armour single matter".
Only the Italian warships laid down for a very limited time in the '20s had comparatively light armours (even if not that light as often believed. The armor of the Trento class was not that different from that of the Admiral Hipper class, and way heavier than that of the French Suffren class for example). The ships laid down in the '30s usually had heavy, and sometimes super-heavy armors. From the relatively unarmored Colleoni and the super armored Duca Degli abruzzi, only 5 years passed.
BTW that of the barrel wear was a non-issue. all the major Italian WWII naval guns, from 120 to 381mm had a quick-exchange internal barrel, that could be replaced without dismantling the gun from the cradle (and so the armor of the turret. All the main guns of any ship could be renewed in a pair of days of work in port (the time required to supply the ship after an action anyway) instead of the several weeks rquired to replace the main guns of another battleship design.
Admiral cattaneo HAD been a fool. The instructions for navigating by night in hostile waters strictly prescribed to put the capital ships BEHIND the screen of the destroyers. Had the Italians navigated that way, with the approaching of the destroyers the British would have had to choose, or firing on them (and so only sinking the Pola, already doomed, and maybe a pair of destroyers, but loosing the other cruisers) or waiting for the cruisers (and so risking to be spotted by the destroyers at torpedoing distance and with the battleships standing still, practically a suicide).
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That of the "uneven weight of propellant charges" is only a tale.
the 381/50 never really shown excessive dispersion issues.
The only source stating the excessive dispersion of the 381/50, and imputing the cause to the excessive tolerance of the projectiles was Adm. Iachino that, for many years after the war, wrote a series of books on the behaviour of the Italian Navy and his own during WWII ("Gaudo e Matapan. Storia di un'operazione della Guerra navale nel Mediterraneo (27-28-29 marzo 1941)", A. Mondadori, 1946. "Le due Sirti. Guerra ai convogli in Mediterraneo", A. Mondadori, 1953. "La sorpresa di Matapan", A. Mondadori, 1957. "Tramonto di una grande Marina", A. Mondadori, 1959. "Il punto su Matapan", A. Mondadori, 1969). Unfortunately Iachino was a partial source, since he had an obvious interest in blaming the materials.
His point of wiew was quite isolated right after the war, with the other witnesses and tecnicians (IE Adm. Emilio Brenta, Chief of the Operations of the Italian Navy in WWII and Capt. Glicerio Azzoni, ballistic expert and chief designer of the refurbishment of the Garibaldi after the war [Azzoni Glicerio, “Distanza efficace di tiro nei combattimenti diurni”, Rivista Marittima, Maj. 1949]), negating the existence of the problem.
Unfortunately, contrary to Iachino, those other voices had no interest in debating for long on a topic that, at that time, seemed to be completely secondary, so Iachino remained the most respected source and, in 1971, Adm. Giuseppe Fioravanzo, in his "L'organizzazione della Marina durante il conflitto" written for the Historical Office of the Italian Navy copied entire passages of Iachino's "Tramonto di una grande Marina", so making his thesis "official", and such remained for more than twenty years.
Only in the second half of the '90s, with a renewed interest in the topic, someone bothered to search original datas and documents, "discovering", for example, that the 381/50 fared well in tests, or that the Littorio fired tight and accurate salvos in the first battle of the Sirte, firing from 29.000 to 32.500m, what's the explanation? Obviously the shells used in tests had to be of better quality, and the Littorio ones casually were of a particularly good batch. An explanation given to save the, at that point well known, "truth".
It doesn't explain however that, in the first battle of the Sirte (17 dec. 1941), the Littorio opened fire at 29.000m cause, In the Battle of Cape Spartivento (27 nov. 1940) Adm. Campioni already did the same thing with the Vittorio Veneto, not respecting the maunal on the use of the Italian artilleries (that stated that the fire had to be opened at max. 22.000m with decent visibility and at max. 26.000m with good one), and then reporting that the action "confirmed the observation, already done in tests, that, with the Littorio class battleships it's possible to effectively open fire at 29km if the visibility allows it". So the same Vittorio Veneto fired in action like on the tests. It seemed that the 381/50 fared pretty well in every occasion with the only exception of Gaudo, and that single poor performance discredited the gun forever.
But the Vittorio Veneto guns really had a poor performance at Gaudo? Iachino said that, but the 1st Fire Director of the Vittorio Veneto, Capt. Luciano Sotgiu did not see anything out of the ordinary in his guns' salvos, and the pictures taken by the British confirmed it. The Vittorio Veneto did not hit anything at Gaudo because, firing from 23.000 to 26.000m on a pair of light cruisers entering and leaving the smokescreens, it could have hit them only for a lucky chance. It had been already amply demonstrated that, even at far closer distances and with much more rapidly firing guns, it was practically impossible to hit a ship that was only manuvering to not being hit, if not firing some thousands of shells.
Ultimately the new findings became "official" (Colliva Giuliano, “Questioni di tiro… e altre, le artiglierie navali italiane nella guerra del Mediterraneo”, Bollettino d’Archivio dell’Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare, sept. 2003, dec. 2003, mar. 2004) replacing Iachino's ones.
No 381/50 barrel came close to wear enough to be changed. Several 203/50 had been changed.
You stated that the RM ships had low armour. That's simply untrue. Only the Italian warships laid down for a very limited time in the '20s had comparatively light armours (even if not that light as often believed. The armor of the Trento class was not that different from that of the Admiral Hipper class, and way heavier than that of the French Suffren class for example). The ships laid down in the '30s usually had heavy, and sometimes super-heavy armors.
Oh, and those are the "convenient distances for the action" reported in the "direttive e norme per l'impiego della squadra navale":
381/50: 19-21 km
320/44: 19-21 km
203/50-53: 17-20 km
152/55-53: 15-17 km
135/45: 11-13 km
120/50: 11-13 km
So no super long ranges, sorry. Those were only possibilities, but not recommended. The habit to fire at long ranges developed during the war for a simple reason. ITALIAN WARSHIPS WERE NOT EASILY REPLEACEABLE. Italian shipbuilding was busy building hundreds of transports, and couldn't replace the loss of cruisers and battleships. During the war only a bunch of destroyers and submarines had been built in Italian shipyards (the Roma had been laid down well before the war).
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Sorry if hard facts distract you from what you wanted to believe, but facts are that the RN didn't have "low flash propellant for their big guns", the Italian mindset was not "high speed low armor", the Italian doctrine didn't want "the big gun first in the line at dawn", the instructions of Supermarina didn't privilege extra long range engagement, and the 381/50 didn't suffer of dispersion issues. The 203/50 did, but it was a conscious decision. To use the common cradle meant to exchange a little more dispersion for a much reduced weight of the turrets, that meant that the turrets of the Zara class, thus being much more heavily armoured that those of the York class for example, weighted much less. The increase in dispersion, in the end, proved to not be detrimental, and infact the Italian 203s scored several +20km hits during the war.
That not means that all you said was wrong. It's entirely true for example that the Italian navy overlooked the importance of night engagements first than the war and didn't train enough the crews fot them (tests made after Cape Matapan demonstrated that, in a moonless night, lookouts had no problems in locating a battleship sized targets at 7km distance. The Brits at Matapan could approach at half that distance only because none was really looking for them), but that's all. Unfortunately there is a tendency to adapt facts to teories instead of the contrary.
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The RN issued low flash propellant only up to 6" (152mm) guns. For the heavier calibers, for the already mentioned reasons, it's propellants were the flashier of all the navies involved in the conflict. So no, the RN didn't have low flash propellant for their big guns.
Italian navy issued low flash propellant up to 203mm guns (during the war).
Again, you are providing an explanation for something that's not a fact. There is no data showing the 381/50 suffered of excessive dispersion. The cannons that used a common cradle had a dispersion issue, and that had been a conscious decision. To exchange a little dispersion for a much more heavily armored turret without weight disadvantages. With the benefit of the hindsight, seeing that the turrets had been, among the valuable targets of a ship, one of the most easily hit in WWII, it could have been a good decision.
As already stated, Fioravanzo simply copied entire passages of Iachino.
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