Amalfi (ship, 1908)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
flag
The Amalfi
The Amalfi
Overview
Type Armored cruiser
Shipyard

Odero , Sestri Ponente

Keel laying July 24, 1905
Launch May 5, 1908
Namesake Amalfi
Commissioning September 1, 1909
Whereabouts Sunk on July 7, 1915
Technical specifications
displacement

9,832 t, max. 10,401 t

length

140.6 m over everything,
130.1 m pp

width

 21, om

Draft

  6.9 m

crew

510-559 men

drive

22 Belleville boilers ,
2 triple expansion
machines (20,260 hp ), 2 screws

speed

23.6 kn

Range

2500 nm at 12 kn

Armament

• 4 × 254 mm L / 45 Armstrong cannons
• 8 × 190 mm L / 45 cannons
• 16 × 76 mm L / 40 cannons
• 8 × 47 mm L / 50 cannons
• 4 machine guns
• 3 × 45 cm torpedo tubes

Armor
Armored deck

up to 130 mm

Belt armor

up to 200 mm

artillery

160 or 130 mm

Command tower

180 mm

The Amalfi was a Pisa-class armored cruiser owned by the Regia Marina (Royal Italian Navy). It was used in the Italo-Turkish War with the Italian fleet in September 1911 off Tripoli and supported the landing of Italian troops at Derna in October . In April 1912, Amalfi and her sister ship Pisa led the attack by Italian ships on the Turkish forts on the Dardanelles . In the First World War, which was Amalfi sunk in July 1915th

Building history

Pisa class in Brassey's Naval Annual 1923

The Amalfi was the second ship of 1904 by Giuseppe Orlando constructed Pisa class from which the Regia Marina received two ships. At the time of their construction, the Italian Navy classified them as 2nd class ships of the line, as they had been developed as a reduction in size of the Regina Elena . The relatively long construction period of the Amalfi began before it was keeled on July 24, 1905. It was launched on May 5, 1908 and taken into active service on September 1, 1909. During its construction period, the much more heavily armed first battlecruisers came in the service.

Front heavy tower and first tower of the middle artillery on the port side of the sister ship Pisa

The main armament of the Amalfi consisted of four cannons 254 mm L / 45 manufactured by the Elswick Ordnance Company in two twin turrets at the bow and stern, which had a maximum tube elevation of 25 °. The towers could be rotated up to 150 ° to each side. The Amalfi's middle artillery consisted of eight 190 mm L / 45 guns, also from Elswick, in four twin turrets. The towers installed on the side had stroking angles of around 160 °. In addition there were sixteen 76 mm L / 40 guns, eight 47 mm L / 50 rapid-fire guns and four machine guns, as well as three 45 cm underwater torpedo tubes. The armor of the Amalfi was up to 130 mm in the armored deck and up to 200 mm in the belt armor. The turrets of the heavy artillery were armored with 160 mm, those of the middle artillery with 130 mm. The armor strengths were relatively small compared to those of ships of other nations and justified the classification as cruiser.

In addition to the type ship Pisa , also completed in 1909 , there was a third ship of this class. Originally also intended for the Italian Navy, it was sold to Greece because of budget difficulties and because it was technically largely obsolete. Completed with different armament of four 9.2 inch Mk IX / X-234 cannons, it came into service as Georgios Averoff for the Greek Navy, stood out in two battles against the Turkish Navy off the Dardanelles in the first Balkan War and has been preserved as a museum ship .

Mission history

No special occurrences are known from the first two years of service with the Amalfi .

Italo-Turkish War

In the Italo-Turkish War , the Amalfi and the Italian fleet left Syracuse on September 24, 1911, five days before the Italian declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire , to block Tripoli . On the way, the association, which in addition to the Amalfi and its sister ship Pisa, consisted of the two liners Roma and Napoli , the three older armored cruisers Giuseppe Garibaldi , Varese and Francesco Ferrucio and two destroyer flotillas, still supplied coal in Malta . When further Italian units under the command of the liner Benedetto Brin arrived off Tripoli on October 2 , Amalfi , Pisa and the Napoli moved further east, where they met the armored cruiser San Marco , three destroyers and two torpedo boats, which had just been put into service . They then accompanied a group of transporters with whom they appeared in front of Derna on October 15 . Requests to hand over the place were not followed, so that the Pisa shelled the barracks and the fort there without the defensive fire. A parliamentary boat sent into the harbor was shot at with rifles, whereupon the three armored cruisers with their 190 mm cannons set fire to the city and almost completely destroyed it in 30 minutes. A first attempt to land troops at around 2 p.m. failed because of the rough sea and gunfire from the shore. Amalfi and the other ships therefore continued to fire at the beach until around 4 p.m. The weather conditions prevented a landing until the 18th, when 1500 men finally occupied Derna.

On April 13, 1912, the Amalfi's next important mission began , when she and the 1st Squadron, which included the three ships of the line Vittorio Emanuele (flagship), Roma and Napoli and three other armored cruisers ( Pisa , San Marco and Vettor Pisani ), Tarent left. Originally the squadron was only supposed to move to Tripoli. But then it was decided to attack the Turkish coast and ran into the Aegean Sea . On April 17th they also met with the 2nd Squadron at Stampalia . This consisted of the four ships of the line Regina Margherita (flagship), Benedetto Brin , Ammiraglio di Saint Bon and Emanuele Filiberto and the three armored cruisers Francesco Ferrucio , Varese and Giuseppe Garibaldi and had marched on from Tobruk and Augusta . On April 18 at 6:30 am, Pisa and Amalfi entered the Dardanelles in front of the Italian fleet to lure the Turkish fleet out. Only four Turkish coastal batteries, equipped with 18 Krupp guns between 21 and 28 cm, fired at the incoming Italian fleet, which returned fire for a little more than two hours at a distance of over 7,000 m. According to official Italian reports, no attacking ship was hit while the Turkish side reported that the Varese had been set on fire. The New York Times reported two hits on the Varese . On April 19, the Italian fleet withdrew back home, but left the Amalfi and Pisa behind with a few smaller vehicles that regularly attacked and destroyed the Turkish communications facilities. On April 28, 250 Amalfi and Pisa men occupied the island of Astropalia and captured the Turkish garrison. The Italo-Turkish War ended on October 18, 1912 with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne .

Operations in peace

In June 1913, the Amalfi accompanied King Victor Emmanuel III. and Queen Elena on the royal yacht Trinacria for Kiel Week . Victor Emmanuel met there with Kaiser Wilhelm II to discuss the development of the Second Balkan War . From Kiel , the Amalfi accompanied the royal couple on the Trinacria for another visit to Stockholm . The Amalfi was back in Italian waters in November when the American battleship Wyoming under Admiral Charles J. Badger visited Naples . The former Italian Minister of the Navy, Admiral Cattolica, visited the American ship with the commanders of the Amalfi and Emanuele Filiberto and Admiral Badger made a return visit on the Amalfi .

First World War

When the World War broke out in August 1914, Italy refused to follow its allies Germany and Austria-Hungary into the war against the Entente and remained neutral. Under pressure from Great Britain and France, Italy signed the secret Treaty of London on April 26, 1915 , in which it undertook to leave the Triple Alliance and declare war on its former allies within a month. For this, Italy should receive territorial compensation at the end of the war. Beginning in May 1915 was the Amalfi part of the in Brindisi stationed Squadron, the six ships of the line - Regina Elena , Vittorio Emanuele , Roma , Napoli , Benedetto Brin and Ammiraglio di Saint Bon - and four armored cruisers - Pisa , San Marco , San Giorgio and the Amalfi belonged .
When Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary on May 23rd, the Austro-Hungarian Navy, under its commander, Admiral Anton Haus , set out on the night of May 23rd to 24th to bombard the Italian coast and thus mobilize Italy to hinder. Of the many attacked targets, Ancona was hit hardest, where the gas, electricity and telephone supply collapsed and the coal and oil supplies burned. All Austrian ships reached their ports safely. This apparently unhindered attack created considerable political pressure on the Regia Marina from Rome. When the Austrians repeated such an attack in mid-June, Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel sent the Amalfi and the other more modern armored cruisers from Brindisi to Venice to reinforce the older ships there. The four fast armored cruisers in Venice were intended to deter the Austrians from further attacks, but were themselves targets for the Austrian submarines.

Sinking of the Amalfi

Shortly after the arrival of the four armored cruisers in Venice, the Amalfi took part in a combat reconnaissance for the Austro-Hungarian naval port of Pula on the night of July 7, 1915 . After the mission, the cruiser was torpedoed about 20 nautical miles from Venice by the Austrian submarine U-26 at dawn on July 7th. The attacking submarine was the German submarine UB 14 of type UB I (127 t) under Oberleutnant zur See Heino von Heimburg . It was used as an Austrian boat and under the Austrian flag, as Germany was not yet at war with Italy. The Amalfi that was hit was immediately listed to port and could not control the ingress of water. Her captain ordered the evacuation of the ship and the cruiser sank 30 minutes after the hit. The division's ships rushing to support rescued most of the crew. Only 67 men are said to have died according to the casualty lists, even if initial reports spoke of 200 dead. As a result of the sinking of the Amalfi , the sister ship Pisa and the other armored cruisers hardly left Venice and were finally relocated to Valona in April 1916 .

Individual evidence

  1. Italy: 10 "/ 45 (25.4 cm) Model 1908
  2. Italy: 7.5 "/ 45 (19.1 cm) Model 1908
  3. ^ Italian army ready , Washington Post, September 25, 1911
  4. ^ Holy war may soon confront Italians in Tripoli , New York Times, May 19, 1912
  5. ^ New York Times, November 13, 1913
  6. Sondhaus, p 274
  7. Sondhaus, S. 274f.
  8. Sondhaus, p 276
  9. a b Sondhaus, p. 279
  10. Sondhaus, p 289

literature

  • Aldo Fraccaroli: Italian Warships of World War I , Ian Allan, London (1970), ISBN 0-7110-0105-7
  • Robert Gardiner: Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906-1921 , Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland (1985), ISBN 978-0-87021-907-8
  • Lawrence Sondhaus: The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867-1918: Navalism, Industrial Development, and the Politics of Dualism , Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, Indiana (1994), ISBN 978-1-55753-034-9
  • Robert Cecil Stern: The Hunter Hunted: Submarine Versus Submarine: Encounters from World War I to the Present , Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland (2007),

Web links

Commons : Pisa class  - collection of images, videos and audio files