Conte di Cavour

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Conte di Cavour
RNConte di Cavour-Original.jpg
Ship data
flag ItalyItaly (naval war flag) Italy
Ship type Battleship
class Conte di Cavour class
Shipyard Naval Arsenal , La Spezia
Launch August 10, 1911
Commissioning April 1, 1915
Whereabouts Sunk on February 15, 1945
Ship dimensions and crew
length
176.1 m ( Lüa )
169.0 m ( Lpp )
width 28.0 m
Draft Max. 9.4 m
displacement Construction: 23,088 tn.l.
Maximum: 25,086 tn.l.
 
crew 1,000 to 1,197 men
Machine system
machine 20 steam boilers
3 Parsons turbines
Machine
performance
31,278 hp (23,005 kW)
Top
speed
22.2 kn (41 km / h)
propeller 4th
Armament
Armor
  • Belt: 80-250 mm
  • Citadel: 130 mm
  • upper armored deck: 30 mm
  • lower armored deck: 24–40 mm
  • Battery cover: 13–15 mm
  • Barbettes: 240 mm
  • Towers: 85–280 mm
  • Casemates: 110-130 mm
  • Front command tower: 100–280 mm
  • aft command tower: 100–180 mm

The Conte di Cavour was an Italian battleship of the Conte-di-Cavour class during the First and Second World Wars . It was named after Camillo Benso von Cavour , the first prime minister of united Italy.

history

First World War

After its commissioning in 1915, the Conte di Cavour was stationed in Taranto . After Italy entered the war , she became the flagship of Rear Admiral Luigi Amadeo of Savoy on May 24, 1915 . The task of the Italian fleet in Taranto was to fight the Austro-Hungarian navy in the Adriatic , but there were no major battles. The Conte di Cavour was while she was 966 hours for training and education in the lake during the war in three operations only 40 hours in the war effort.

Interwar period

After the war, the battleship made a trip abroad to North America , stops were among others Gibraltar , Ponta Delgada , Fayal , Halifax , Boston , Newport , Topkinsville , New York , Philadelphia , Annapolis and Hampton Roads . In the summer of 1922, the Italian King Viktor Emanuel III. on the Conte di Cavour a trip to the cities in the Adriatic that were added to Italy after the war. In April 1925, Benito Mussolini transported them to Tripoli . On May 12, 1928 it was decommissioned and disarmed in Taranto, and five years later in 1933 it was relocated to Trieste for renovation . This conversion took four years and resulted in an almost completely new ship. The 30.5 cm gun turret amidships was removed, and the remaining four turrets had the 30.5 cm guns replaced by 32.0 cm guns. New engines were installed that could bring the ship to 28 knots with an output of 93,000 WPS  . The newly developed Pugliese torpedo defense system was installed to protect against torpedoes . On June 1, 1937, the Conte di Cavour resumed its service in the Regia Marina.

Second World War

When Italy entered the Second World War, the battleship was again stationed in Taranto. On July 8, 1940, the Conte di Cavour took part in the naval battle at Punta Stilo , the first conflict between the Italian and British fleets . During the British attack on Taranto , she received a torpedo hit amidships on the night of November 11-12, 1940, which struck a 12 × 8 meter hole in the ship's side. The Pugliese torpedo defense system turned out to be a faulty design, as it increased rather than reduced the effect of the torpedo hit, resulting in severe water ingress. Attempts were made to put the battleship aground near the coast, but it sank in the outer harbor to the superstructure in the shallow harbor water. 17 crew members lost their lives.

It took until the end of 1941 to lift the ship and repair it to the point where it could be moved to Trieste for repair and modernization . On September 10, 1943, the Conte di Cavour , who was not ready for action again, was captured by the Germans after the armistice agreement between the Allies and Italy .

Considerations by the Navy to use the ship as a floating battery were rejected on March 22, 1944 because of the need to provide a crew of 833 men with a high level of training. In the justification of the Kriegsmarine it says: "Use as a floating battery means a large demand for valuable personnel with only limited use." "In addition, preparing for war [the Conte di Cavour ] requires considerable personnel and material shipyard capacity".

Attempts to repair the Conte di Cavour finally ended when the ship received several hits in an air raid on February 15, 1945 and capsized. After the war ended, the remains were scrapped in 1947.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ War diary of the Naval War Command 1939–1945. Volume March 1944. Verlag Mittler & Sohn, Herford 1993, ISBN 3-8132-0637-8 , p. 437.