CV12Hornet
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The Zara's were exceptionally well protected. The Trentos, not so much.
Changing Destiny (Kancolle)
- Thread starter Skywalker_T-65
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PAGDTenno
Verified Warmind. Probably on fire.
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Italian shell QC is shit, and the Zara/Trento 203s are mounted so close together dispersion means they're going to get a very low percentage of hits once they start straddling. Plus, the RN built one hell of a belt puncher with their battleship shells, I think it's unwise to assume their cruiser SAPC shells weren't also pretty good. Unfortunately I can't find penetration curves for either side, so it's all guesswork.
And it should be noted that the RN gun can reach out to 30,000+ yards too, but even the glorious American aimbot is going to struggle to land straddles at that kind of range.
And it should be noted that the RN gun can reach out to 30,000+ yards too, but even the glorious American aimbot is going to struggle to land straddles at that kind of range.
Here you go, the source on dreadnought-era (1900-1950) surface GFCS for all major navies of the period (there's a bit about anti-air GFCS, too, but Friedman has a separate book on that): Naval Firepower: Guns and Gunnery in the Dreadnought Era, by Norman Friedman.
(Note that, despite the title, there's very, very little about the guns themselves in there; it's virtually entire about fire control, as it doesn't matter how good your weapons are if you can't aim them better than a bit of Kentucky windage...)
Wobulator
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Thanks!
~Celeste~
Vampire Catgirl Extraordinaire
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Just a few clarifications in the interest of the discussion without going too off-topic:
Italian optical FC was superior to British FC - not by a lot, mind you, but significantly so nonetheless. Though the British fielded FC radar from 1941 onwards while the Italians had to rely on just a few german naval sets until 1943 and generally seem to have only used them for discovery and ranging, not direct FC.
Historically CA duels between British and Italian ships were relatively even.
That said, you are absolutely right in that the Italian CA can't afford to ignore British CAs. They could take potshots at the BBs if the positioning favors them (as happened historically) but can't really focus on them unless the rest of the fleet is occupied elsewhere (improbable). And even if they manage to focus on them... they better hope the BB doesn't fire back. Even third division usually disengaged in such circumstances.
Maximum engagement range of the Zara FCS was about 26k yards, yes - though usually Italian cruisers stopped firing if the target got farther than 23-24k yards. That doesn't mean they didn't get several hits at that range though. Cesare, for her part, engaged Warspite at 29k yards despite an old FC system.
To give a few more sources, I'll point out that O'Hara does mention Italian FC in his books (both text and footnotes) and considers it pretty good even if not perfect (but then again no one had a perfect system). Bagnasco's The Littorio Class also has some info on the Littorio's FC and Gunnery. For the ultimate source on Regia Marina fire control there's always La condotta del tiro navale da bordo nella Regia Marina by Santarini (Italian Navy Historical Naval Office) which is, sadly, only available in Italian.
Trento's were decently armored for treaty CAs. Which, of course, means they were marginally more armored than tinfoil. Bolzano... Bolzano had no excuse. Poor Bolzano.
That's the classic answer you will find online or on navweapons, yes. It's also only partially correct. The actual situation was faaaar more complex.
To summarize:
Italian optical FC was superior to British FC - not by a lot, mind you, but significantly so nonetheless. Though the British fielded FC radar from 1941 onwards while the Italians had to rely on just a few german naval sets until 1943 and generally seem to have only used them for discovery and ranging, not direct FC.
Historically CA duels between British and Italian ships were relatively even.
That said, you are absolutely right in that the Italian CA can't afford to ignore British CAs. They could take potshots at the BBs if the positioning favors them (as happened historically) but can't really focus on them unless the rest of the fleet is occupied elsewhere (improbable). And even if they manage to focus on them... they better hope the BB doesn't fire back. Even third division usually disengaged in such circumstances.
Maximum engagement range of the Zara FCS was about 26k yards, yes - though usually Italian cruisers stopped firing if the target got farther than 23-24k yards. That doesn't mean they didn't get several hits at that range though. Cesare, for her part, engaged Warspite at 29k yards despite an old FC system.
To give a few more sources, I'll point out that O'Hara does mention Italian FC in his books (both text and footnotes) and considers it pretty good even if not perfect (but then again no one had a perfect system). Bagnasco's The Littorio Class also has some info on the Littorio's FC and Gunnery. For the ultimate source on Regia Marina fire control there's always La condotta del tiro navale da bordo nella Regia Marina by Santarini (Italian Navy Historical Naval Office) which is, sadly, only available in Italian.
Trento's were decently armored for treaty CAs. Which, of course, means they were marginally more armored than tinfoil. Bolzano... Bolzano had no excuse. Poor Bolzano.
That's the classic answer you will find online or on navweapons, yes. It's also only partially correct. The actual situation was faaaar more complex.
To summarize:
- Italian guns had above average dispersion due to common cradle mountings and high velocity. This was a problem. In some cases, crews learned to fire turret guns in sequence. In others, like Zara's guns, 15ms delay coils were apparently installed.
- On the other hand dispersion figures given for Italian guns are vastly exaggerated by the fact the Italians calculated dispersion taking into account all shells without ignoring "stray shells" like pretty much everyone else did.
- In fact, some degree of dispersion was even desired - to take into account evasive maneuvers by enemy ships during the shell's flight (significant since we're talking 20k+ yards here)
- The "extreme dispersion" of Cesare's guns at Calabria was due to Cesare's after turrets purposefully using a firing solutions shifted by 4 degrees with respect to that of the two fore turrets. (reference... one of the volumes of Storia Militare 2017 IIRC)
- Long range duels between Italian and British ships during the day were mostly conducted at long range (20k+ yards) and were generally even, with a similar number of hits or straddles per side and neither side being impressed by the other's gunnery (reference, for example, Struggle for the Middle Sea by O'Hara)
- The advantage in British hits comes mostly from close range night actions, where the superior training of the Royal Navy for such a scenario could shine.
- The one time the Italians charged into relatively close range (Operation Harpoon), Italian ships had no problem scoring hit after hit.
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Question for @Skywalker_T-65
I was wondering but are any of the American shipgirls hispanic? I was just thinking that it would be interesting if either the USS New Mexico or perhaps even the USS Texas were ethnically Hispanic or Latino considering the Hispanic/Mexican influences within states that were once part of Mexico.
I was wondering but are any of the American shipgirls hispanic? I was just thinking that it would be interesting if either the USS New Mexico or perhaps even the USS Texas were ethnically Hispanic or Latino considering the Hispanic/Mexican influences within states that were once part of Mexico.
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There's a difference between Hispanic and Latino? I thought they were synonyms like White and Caucasian.
Roughly, the difference is that Latino includes all of Latin America, including non Spanish speaking parts. While the term Hispanic are only parts of Latin America that speak Spanish.
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Wobulator
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No? The big difference is that Hispanic includes South America. Latino... doesn't.
No, Hispanic only includes parts of Latin America that speaks Spanish. For example, Hispanic America would not include Portuguese Brazil. While Latin America would include all nations which are mostly influenced by Romance languages, which would include Spanish speaking Columbia and Portuguese speaking Brazil, but not include English speaking nations like Belize.
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Strictly speaking, Hispanic is defined as "relating to Spain or the Spanish language and related cultures", whereas Latino/Latina is a primarily North American term for "person of Latin American descent" and their culture.
Neither relate to race: they are orthogonal categories entirely.†
†Incidentally, this is why the federal government specifies that race (the usual) and ethnicity (most visible in the "Hispanic or Latino" field in forms) are separate. Furthermore, "Hispanic/Not Hispanic" is the minimum required for federal record keeping on ethnicity, which is why that question's seen everywhere.
Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
the issue with Brit CAs is that there are far too few of them. I don't know what's available to them right now but Exeter and her half sisters are about the most modern ones and they have fewer barrels and much thinner armor than the Zaras.
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Plus the Royal Navy lost several light cruisers in OTL in the Med, especially during the invasion of Crete.
And one of those cruisers was Fiji, which as a Crown Colony was about as modern and powerful a light cruiser the RN had available. The best the British may have to escort the battleships may be Arethusa or Leander class ships, which really are ill suited to go toe to toe with Italian CAs.
And one of those cruisers was Fiji, which as a Crown Colony was about as modern and powerful a light cruiser the RN had available. The best the British may have to escort the battleships may be Arethusa or Leander class ships, which really are ill suited to go toe to toe with Italian CAs.
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So bottomline, any cruiser duel between the Italian and British Cruisers is going to end poorly.
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Not necessarily. It really does depend on what cruisers the RN has escorting QE. The British light cruisers are going to have a hard time with any Zara class because of the armor. Now if the Brits have any CA, even a Hawkins things even up a bit. The Brits will have to rely on rate of fire to overcome any disadvantage via the heavier eight inch guns of the Italians.
And don't forget, the Italian battleships are out gunned by the three QE BBs they're facing, and still have to defend a convoy. The Italians have to keep the British concentrated on their BBs, then concentrate their own fire on the British cruisers to allow their DDs a chance to torp the British BBs.
The main goal for the Italians is that the convoy must go through. Every ship escorting is therefore expendable as long as that goal is met.
Yep, still a cruiser the RN really needs and is not available.
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Mostly to air attack.
Wobulator
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Except the Italians were really, really bad about committing to fights. They aren't going to treat any ships as expendable.
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The reason that the Italians didn't treat any ship as expendable was because they knew that they wouldn't be able to replace any losses easily.
Skywalker_T-65
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Technically speaking, they built a ton of smol torpedo boats explicitly because they were expendable.
It's the heavy units the Italians refuse to attrit away.
It's the heavy units the Italians refuse to attrit away.
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I'm not saying that they were unjustified- I'm saying that they very, very rarely committed to battle.
HolyDragoon
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No wonder. Smaller navies can ill afford to replace bigger cruisers. If we check the last gun cruisers being retired, and for how long they were used for...
I'd use the Brazilian São Paulo aicraft carrier (Clemenceau-class, launched 1960, out of service in 2017), but Brazil is hardly a small navy nowadays (and let's be honest, if you can deploy a fleet carrier then you should have planned things to have more larger ships that just that one).
I'd use the Brazilian São Paulo aicraft carrier (Clemenceau-class, launched 1960, out of service in 2017), but Brazil is hardly a small navy nowadays (and let's be honest, if you can deploy a fleet carrier then you should have planned things to have more larger ships that just that one).
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Regardless, a Leander or Arethusa class Light Cruiser won't be all that useful against Zara class Heavy Cruisers, penetrating them is going to be a lovely pain in the ass to do so. This makes me think that the British Cruisers that are escorting the QEs might be in for a very bad time, the only advantage that the British Light Cruisers have over the Zara class is that they carry torpedoes and even then, it might get exceptionally sticky if they are any Condottieri class Light Cruisers then things will be very much problematic as those things are fast as in 37-knots at flank fast, and they got torpedoes.
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37 at light load, just out of dock, and brand new during trials perhaps. My reference says 31-32 knot operationally at deep load in service.
Sir_Braazmiir
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All the same, what's the slowest ship in the Italian force composition? Because that is the limit as to how fast any fleet can go without leaving any ships lagging behind the rest.