Sparviero class
| Sparviero / Nibbio class |
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|---|---|
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| General data | |
| Ship type : | Hydrofoil |
| Navy : | Marina Militare |
| Builder : | CNR / Fincantieri , Muggiano, La Spezia |
| Units: | 1 + 6 |
| Technical specifications | |
| Crew: | 10 |
| Displacement : | 62.5 ts |
| Length : | 24.6 m |
| Width: | 12 m |
| Draft : | 4.3 m (1.8 m on wings) |
| Drive : |
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| Speed on hydrofoils: | 50 kn |
| Speed without: | 8 kn |
| Driving range: | 750 km at 45 kn, 2,225 km at 8 kn |
| Armament | |
| Gun : | 1 × 76 mm Oto Melara |
| Anti-ship missiles: | 2 × Otomat from Oto Melara |
The Sparviero (Eng. "Sparrowhawk") or Nibbio class (Eng. "Habicht") was a hydrofoil class of the Italian Navy . The class consisted of seven boats built in the 1970s:
- Sparviero (P 420) (prototype)
- Nibbio (P 421) (type boat of the Nibbio class)
- Falcone (P 422)
- Astore (P 423)
- Handles (P 424)
- Gheppio (P 425)
- Condor (P 426)
history
The Sparviero hydrofoil was developed in the early 1970s in cooperation with the US Navy on the basis of the American USS Tucumcari (PGH-2) and a discontinued NATO hydrofoil project and put into service in 1974. On the basis of the Sparviero design, six more, slightly modified boats were built from 1977 to 1984, which together formed the Nibbio class. The term “Sparviero class” often refers to all seven of the above boats, but in the narrower sense it is a single boat, which was then followed by the separate Nibbio class. Around the same time, the US Navy was building the larger Pegasus-class boats .
The Sparviero and Nibbio class boats had enormous firepower for their small size. They had a 76mm Oto Melara gun and two rocket launchers for Otomat anti-ship missiles. They could reach up to 50 knots, but at this speed only had a range of 500 kilometers and caused comparatively high costs to operate. All boats were stationed in Brindisi ( Apulia ) and operated mainly in the Adriatic Sea and the Strait of Otranto as well as in comparable straits. The tactics of the boats under the hydrofoil command ( Comando Squadriglia Aliscafi - COMSQUALI ) consisted, among other things , of mingling with fishing boats on the high seas and then launching surprise attacks against much larger warships. A disadvantage of hydrofoil boats was that they could only be used effectively when the sea was relatively calm.
The Sparviero class aroused particular interest in the Japanese Navy , which originally wanted to put nine similar PG 01 boats into service. It was a variant of the Sparviero class. After three boats built in Japan had been put into service between 1991 and 1993, further examples were later abandoned in favor of conventional units. The Italian Navy also put its boats out of service in the mid-1990s for cost reasons and due to the new global political situation and limited itself to conventional patrol ships and corvettes .