Italian aircraft carrier
The first Italian aircraft carrier was the aircraft mother ship Europa (1915–1920).
The beginning
The Europa was followed by the seaplane carrier Giuseppe Miraglia in the 1920s . This ship was from 1921 to 1927 in the Naval Arsenal of La Spezia built. It was named after the Italian naval aviator Giuseppe Miraglia (1883–1915). The Giuseppe Miraglia could carry up to 20 seaplanes . When there was no longer any need for her, she was reclassified as an aircraft transporter.
Second World War
Mussolini claimed in the late 1920s that Italy itself was an aircraft carrier and therefore did not need such ships. In fact, the Italian air bases in Italy, Italian Libya and Italian Dodecanese were theoretically also relatively cheap for the protection of the fleet. In practice, effective cooperation between the Navy and the Air Force came too late. In addition, the fleet could not operate safely in many places in the eastern and western Mediterranean, because there the protection by the Italian air force was not given, not constantly or insufficiently. Wherever British naval formations were accompanied by aircraft carriers, their limited local and temporary air control could lead to major problems, especially because land-based combat aircraft usually arrived late in the fighting compartment. In addition, the British fleet had radar , while the Italians were practically blind at night and in bad weather. It was only during the war that the Italian leadership tried hastily to counteract this problem.
In 1941 the rush to convert the passenger ships Roma and Augustus into the aircraft carriers Aquila and Sparviero began . Since the Italians had no experience in building and operating aircraft carriers, they sought advice from Japanese naval officers who were in Italy and obtained technical support from the German sea testing center . Italy also bought the aircraft carrier systems for its land training airfield for carrier pilots and for its aircraft carriers in Germany, including the aircraft carrier systems for aircraft carrier B for the Aquila .
In the early 1940s, the Giuseppe Miraglia was equipped with an aircraft carrier catapult on the bow for the catapult tests of carrier aircraft and the training of future carrier pilots of the aircraft carrier Aquila . The Aquila was close to completion at the time of Italy's surrender on September 8, 1943. The Germans invading Genoa took over the ship, but had no use for the aircraft carrier.
The renovation work on the cruise ship Augustus began in 1942. The ship was only intended to serve as a escort aircraft carrier and was therefore much simpler in its construction than the Aquila . The torso of the porter Sparviero , who had barely made progress in the renovation , was sunk in the port of Genoa in 1945 . In 1947 the wreck was recovered and scrapped.
The Giuseppe Miraglia served after the surrender of Italy in September 1943 as a tender for British motor torpedo boats. In 1950 the ship was decommissioned.
After the Second World War
The idea of completing the aircraft carrier Aquila for the Italian fleet after the war was given up. In 1952 the ship was scrapped .
The US offered the Italian Navy a light aircraft carrier for takeover. This takeover failed, however, because the Italian Air Force insisted until 1989 on a 1922 legal regulation that prohibited the Navy from owning fighter planes. The Navy then limited itself to the flight deck cruiser Vittorio Veneto .
At the end of the 1970s , the Giuseppe Garibaldi light aircraft carrier, declared as a flight deck cruiser, was planned and built , which was initially only used as a helicopter carrier, but which was designed from the outset for use by Harrier vertical take-offs. By creating a fait accompli they wanted to force the introduction of fighter jets into the Navy, which eventually succeeded. With the new Cavour , Italy built a real aircraft carrier again between 2001 and 2004 (for the first time since 1943), which is also designed for the transport of ground troops (the aircraft hangar can also accommodate vehicles and tanks like RoRo ships ). Because of the high construction costs, the ship (commissioned in 2009) has repeatedly been criticized in Italy. A center-left coalition under Prime Minister Giuliano Amato approved the construction in the late 1990s.
The three Italian landing ships (LPD) of the San Giorgio class also have a continuous flight deck and are also used as small helicopter carriers (LPH). They have been modernized and extended. A planned larger landing ship is to have a continuous flight deck similar to the British HMS Ocean .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ The Giuseppe Miraglia in the Italian language Wikipedia