Historynerd

Fixed that for you.

Not when I quoted it; sorry for that. It's just my opinion, but I don't think the overmatch mechanic is such a huge factor, and that could be otherwise balanced, without ending up for that with ridicolous stats elsewhere across the board. And I strongly feel that a historical KGV with its ten 14-inch Mark VII guns would be better and more enticing than a "what-if" design with nine 15inch Mark II guns (meaning in the tech tree, as a regular ship, of course). But again, hat's just my opinion.

Actually, in the conversation you quoted, it was later pointed that the 14-inch shells had better drag value than the 15-inch ones, so the curves would be better, and not worse, than the graphic showed.

You did not explain how ships that are members of the same class, with minimal variations, can work on three separate Tiers (from Tier 8 to Tier 10). That's the logic bit we don't understand. The first two names might have been considered for cruisers. The second batch makes me scratch my head, since it requires the class to have only two ships at most... The third may work, but honestly I don't feel that in Italy we ever gave the tremenduous importance that some dates have for other countries, like Argentina. (Besides, what happened on 21 March?) Anticlerical class I find difficult, after the Concordato of 1929. Dandolo is definitely a candidate; Morosini a bit less, since a Caracciolo-class BB was already named so. The last two names are difficult; the first would be more like Vittorio Emanuele without numeral (but it might prove a bit controversial), the second seems a bit overly grand, naming a ship after a process.

First of all, you cannot use Italian here. Only English. Secondly, I see your point, but the Littorio-class battleships are all going to be the same Tier, i.e. Tier 8. At Tier 9 there is the U.P.41 (which should be Italian, since at Tier 9 the Soviet Navy can count on the Sovietsky Soyuz). We'll have to see how to name it, though. For Tier 10, Deamon93 has found a design that might work, and it already has a potential name (Marco Aurelio), which in my opinion seems fine.

I have it, translated to Italian. It's good for beginners, as an introduction to the topic, and it does get things straight (emphasizing that, although their tactical success was modest if any, their strategic role was far from minimal). However, for people already versed in the matter, and who look for details, it doesn't tell anything that you don't know already.

I am afraid that, if WG did not take up the opportunity to celebrate the anniversary of one of the greatest and most iconic naval battles of the modern times to release a ship, it's unlikely that we can have much hope for this proposal.

So, I have been thinking over fnord_disc's much appreciated discussion about armour mechanics, and especially the lack of any layer-armour simulation. Given that the Littorio's armour scheme revolved around this concept, these are bad news, even because, although a uniform 350 mm belt will be probably substituted, in my opinion this does not give the ship the theoretical protection and "immune zone" that the decapping plate gave. And this is kind of a big nerf in my opinion, since the tough citadel armour was going to be one of the Littorio's strengths. To go around it, I believe that the only feasible solution to balance this out is to buff the main armament, even more than what we considered before. To compensate for the loss of a bit of protection, the Model 1934 guns cannot fire so slowly. So, a reload time of 32 to 35 seconds seems to be reasonable to me. Because otherwise I'm afraid that the Littorio cannot be truly adequate at Tier 8. What do you think?

This video must have been obtained by piecing together various reels of various encounters; most of the time we see the interiors of a Littorio-class battleship, but at one time we see footage of Punta Stilo (we see from the Cesare the Cavour firing on the British BBs). I don't know about the anti-flash gear, but it seems they didn't use any. I don't know either if this was taken during a training action or a real battle, but I wouldn't discard the second option just yet.

Yes, the space between the two plates was only 250 mm, although this was reputed enough for the decapping effect to take place, at least for 381 mm shells at the expected combat ranges. (And, all due respect, but Mr. Breyer's statement makes my eyebrows rise a bit) In any case, it's alright. As long as WG balances out the ship, no issue. I know this was always going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to simulate.

These considerations might work just for the Littorio-class, not as a whole, as, like Deamon93 pointed out, other ships in the BB tree will come out rather differently. About the Pugliese TDS, I've created a topic about it, and my personal conclusion is that it was roughly comparable with other modern BBs' systems without dishonouring itself. I strongly disagree about the slow turret rotation, because, other than IRL being false, I feel it's necessary to further balance the slow rate of fire of the gun themselves. We'll have to see about the strong AA defense; Deamon93 is of the opinion that some what-if AA additions can be legitimately added (as no further improvements were made IRL after 1943), and it's good, but I don't think AA will ever be something the Littorio excels at.

I see, but on Iowa the decapping plate concept was not brought to the extreme as in the Littorio. Plus, the Iowa is fast, her AA suite seems good, so she doesn't need an edge in protection as much as the Littorio, I believe.

That may be somewhat worrying, if I understood this correctly, and I am not making mistakes (I am making a supposition that this mechanic always applies, and there is no game-wise application of the IRL phenomenon of APC shells decapping). (Sorry if I always drag the discussion towards these topics, but I believe it might be somewhat relevant.) This basically causes the Littorio (the assured Tier VIII battleship of the future Italian tech tree) to have one of its biggest advantages severely curtailed, as the non-application of the decapping effect that its vertical armour layout was supposed to cause make its layered concept nothing but a hindrance. f I did not misunderstood something, the resulting 70 + 280 mm layered armor will be relatively weaker than a uniform slab of 350 mm, thus making the Littorio less than impressive in protection (and overall reflecting badly on its standing along with the other Tier VIIIs, as its powerful if guns and its protection balanced the long reload times and the deficiences of AA). Of course, this is very much in the far future, so there's plenty of time to look at this issue and find a way, but if there is no way to implement the effects of the "decapping plate" concept (which however would be a major headache), I believe there is no other way, for the sake of balance, than cheat a bit and give the Littorio a revised armor scheme accounting for a uniform 350 mm plate, to redress the weakness that its IRL layered layout may create.

Well, Romics came and went, and nothing was said about anything about the Italian ships.

That inquiry was too rushed and partial for us to consider it an objective work, as it was rapidly done to assuage the public opinion that clamored for the guilty party to be named and it was pretty much put aside by Mussolini himself, who wished to close that chapter, so he silenced critics by giving Cadorna the marshalate and naming a ship after him. The great criticism would come later, similar to that of British WWI generals, as I mentioned before.

Then why did we have battleships evoking names such as that of a Roman consul (Caio Duilio) and that of a Roman military leader (Giulio Cesare)? I don't disagree with them having a "modern" feeling in their names, but the fact remains that to this day names that predate unified Italy by centuries are recurrent in the Italian Navy. To be honest, the only Italian name that I think would certainly garner no controversy at all would be that of Cuniberti; but I don't know how he was considered after his death in the Regia Marina, if they tried to play up his role in advancing the dreadnought battleship, or if they let his name fall on the wayside a bit.

Several. A frigate in 1866. An armoured cruiser in the 1890s (which was so successful that two more were built for the RM, and seven for foreign navies). A light cruiser in 1936. Then the STVOL aircraft carrier still in service to this day.

Yeah. Plenty of names were named for the Royal Family; the Re di Portogallo was named after the King's son-in-law (King Luis I of Portugal, who had married Maria Pia of Savoy, who got a ship named after her as well). Let's get some order in here, shan't we? We need names for these battleships: - Tier III (Cuniberti's design); - Tier VII (1930 BC design); - Tier IX (Project UP.41). For the first, I'd think we could go either with Ruggero di Lauria or perhaps Lepanto (an ironclad had been named that, but by then it was all but obsolete). The middle one... well, maybe the fact that it was supposed to be a "light battleship" could have entailed some laxity in the naming standards, and maybe have the two ships of the class named after Venezia and Genova (the two most powerful "repubbliche marinare"). The last one is tricky. I doubt they would have resurrected Re d'Italia for her, because other than the bad memories it's bad publicity if the ship named after the Italian monarch gets sunk. We need to think this over, I'm afraid. Machiavelli? No thanks; if nothing else, because he is remembered for what he saw and wrote about, and we mistake it for what he wanted (he aspired to an old-style republic, in truth). Besides, we pretty much already have the name. Are you aware that in recent historiography the figure of Luigi Cadorna is being re-evaluated a bit? Nobody says he was the most creative general around, nor that he understood the soldiers that fought and died by the thousands in the trenches, but it seems he wasn't the tyrannical and cold butcher that we think he was, in our collective memory. It's not different from the British, and the fact that they weren't exactly the "Lions led by donkeys" popularized by certain literature. Also, the bad reputation of Cadorna was not given any kind of official recognition (in official history books) until decades later; by the 1920s he was honoured, and named together with Armandio Diaz a Marshal of Italy.

That is nice and dandy only if we talk about cruisers. For DDs we have several options. It's BBs that are a headache.

I know a bit more about Lissa, but most of the names of the Italian ships aren't that significant, and I'm not sure wheter they would have been used. I'm talking about the Re d'Italia, Re di Portogallo, Maria Adelaide, Principe Umberto, Terribile, Formidabile, etc.

Your logic is sound, but I dunno... Apart from the fact that the ship, pretty on paper, proved mediocre in service (insufficiently powerful engines, turning radius larger than the Earth's, bad visions from the conning tower, etc.), we might consider the "bad luck" the name might have garnered. I think Italian seamen were as superstitious as any other seamen, after all... I didn't know these ships were derived from the CMO. Still, their names were already used by RM destroyers of WWI, so it might be a bit dicey... However, wasn't the first CMO to be launched in theory the Comandante Margottini? Or am I wrong?

How about what Deamon93 already suggested? Marco Aurelio seems both proud and intimidating; the guy was highly cultured, yet managed to defend the empire from external threats. He was the last of the so-called "Five Good-Emperors".

I'll take your word for it.