Historynerd

He didn't agree with his father-in-klaw, but that doesn't mean he didn't try to make the most of his position, for his own advantage. This is what you wrote: Not exactly the picture of some wins with some losses. It's true that Adwa became some sort of unwelcome ghost, which explains why the fascist regime enjoyed its bigger success after the successful conclusion of the invasion. It's certainly some irrational factor in a collective mentality. Anyway, if some countries earn the fame of being less than successful militarly (and there were previous happenings, such as the Third War of Italian Independence, again a war that showed political uncertainty and poor leadership - so far that an Italian military historian said that at Custoza no one actually commanded the Italian army), further defeats are nothing but confirmations, and few will look into it and try to see if there were factors that might help explain such defeats. But you're right. We are losing ourselves in this discussion, back on-topic. Which ships... well, a premium is in order. Perhaps the Bolzano might work, if WG doesn't want to keep it as "last hull" for the Trento-class. It would add another Tier 7 cruiser. If that were true, WG has done the opposite in WoT, as there is an Italian forum but no Italian tree! The things are not related, I think.

Except that even a Spanish line may be difficult. Perhaps more Italian players will be enticed to play when some Italian ships start to come.

The French playerbase is bigger than the Italian one, true. And you may well be right, there is a rather strong chance that the Marine Nationale will come first, although it's still no 100% sure.

I suppose Hitler's judgement must have been perfect, then. And that of its generals as well. But pretty much all Prussian and German generals had looked down on the Italian army, ever since 1861; nothing new here. As for Ciano, he was a scheming rogue, and he tended to share one thing with Mussolini himself and the other big fascist leaders, i.e. the lack of trust in the Italian generals. Conveniently forgetting, though, that although they were of rather small stature and lots of them were bootlickers, it was his father-in-law that in the end pulled the strings, named the chiefs of staff, largely ignored those who tried to change things for the better and played them one against the other. As for Adwa, it made an impression, sure. But other colonial powers suffered burning reverses, and this was only the worse off, helped by the fact that Abyssinia was arguably one of the most powerful and better organized states in Africa (tough luck), and the Italian side suffered from a wavering and uncertain political leadership, other than poor leadership in the field. Also, as for the fact that Italy has made only futile attempts at proving itself afterwards, I believe that in your opinion winning its portion of World War I doesn't count.

As they should, since losing one turret would mean losing 50% of their firepower! 'Sides, as long as you only have two of them, you can afford it...

Um... the Richelieu had a belt whose maximum thickness was 330 mm, actually...

This is news to me. Could you be more specific about this? And we can mention, as a comparation, the fact that before the war the British and the Americans were all laughing about the Japanese, saying things like their fighters being made of bamboo and rice paper.

I stand by the opinion I've stated earlier. The Allies, and the United Kingdom in particular, needed something to make the situation look less dire. They found it in the victories in the Western Desert, which collimated with their assessment (which was not wrong, in any way) of Italy as being the weakest Axis member. Wartime propaganda is often ruthless, and plays upon things and part of our mentality that normally we wouldn't call upon. In this case, it also played upon several prejudices had on the Italians. Then, once the role had been cast, it became increasingly difficult to steer away from it. So, successes were either minimized or assigned to the Germans; defeats were magnified. And the idea that the Regia Marina cowered in its ports or, when it sortied, it turned away as soon as it sighted the enemy was slowly formed. This suggests to me that you're talking about the battle off Gavdos, as you said before the night of Matapan. However, it was not during the night, nor were the battleship's targets (HMS Orion and HMS Gloucester) at close range or stationary; instead, they were at more than 20 km away and, as soon as they saw the battleship, they turned away and fled, as they should. No hits were scored, and the turrets experienced malfunctions and misfires. However, accuracy was good, although it was not helped by deteriorating visibility and the smoke that the British cruisers were dropping. Despite large dispersions, the Vittorio Veneto straddled its targets several times, inflicting splinter damage, and the shells were falling so close to them that they had to resort to some radical and sudden maneuvers. So, the dispersion was pretty bad, and maybe, had it been smaller, one or two hits would have been obtained. But it doesn't seem that it was so bad that the targets could just sit comfortably and get a cup of tea while steaming to rejoin the rest of the Mediterranean Fleet. Besides, firing at medium-to-distant range, against not exactly optimal targets fleeing at high speed and showing only the aft, in non-optimal visibility... not trying to justify anything here, but it's not exactly a situation in which many hits are to be expected. I'm not sure if some foreign battleship (using optical fire-control systems) could have done much better.

Well, in Italy we use the metric system as well. Only, such was the influence by British designers that the guns were built to exact values in inches (so, precisely 381 mm, for example).

But even on a ship with turrets on both ends, wouldn't the weight of the rearmost barbette make the ship top-heavy? Or did I understand something wrong?

Is that thing for real? It resembles one of the battleships that, when I was young and more foolish, many moons ago, I created in my imagination. I thought that three turrets in a scaled superfiring configurations were nothing but wishful thinkings, as it would have meant raising the rearmost barbette a lot and wreacking havock on the weight distribution, not to talk of the stress on the ship's structures...

Got it, thanks. I knew the chance was that the SoDak would be the one chosen, but I was not sure... Also, I admit I have always been a bit curious about the super-dreadnought projects post-WWI and pre-Washington Treaty. Might be the fact that I played War Plan Orange for a bit...

...Well, thanks. But my question was about which class: that of 1920 or that of 1939...

Exactly which South Dakota is planned?

Well, maybe the whole "laughing stock" thing is not entirely based on hard results, but perhaps also because of some superficial reading and some out-of-context judgement... And perhaps people tend to mention things that they want. It is widely known (and ridiculed) the fact that the coordination between the Regia Marina and the Regia Aeronautica was so bad at the beginning of the war (not that it became perfect, or even excellent later on) that Italian bombers bombed the Italian fleet after Punta Stilo, although without scoring hits. It is much less known that a similar incident saw two German destroyers being bomb and sunk by the Luftwaffe. This should elicit some questions... When was this event? In which source is it mentioned?

Depend what you define by "glorious". Is it a battle when one side completely defeats the other, with but a scratch to its own ships? Is it a battle when one side reaches its objectives and stops the opponent to reach theirs? In any case, I can mention one glorious battle fought by the Italian Navy during the conflict. And that is the battle of the convoys. Despite little preparation, inadequate equipment (especially early on, with no dedicated escorts, and the ragtag ships used in that role not having even sonar!) and very determined opponents, the fact that the Regia Marina made sure that most of what was sent from Italy reached the North African harbours is something to respect. "Terrible" is a strong word; it was bad, no doubt, but not to the point of bringing Italian fire down to the level of complete inefficacy. If we look at the battles fought during the day, and we count confirmed shots, well, turns out that generally speaking the British didn't score that much more than the Italians. Of course, during the night it was another story. Moreover, there were exceptions. Even though their ships didn't see much actions, the guns of the Duca degli Abruzzi-class and Capitani Romani-class cruiser finally made the switch to individual cradles, that eliminated the biggest factor for dispersion, and were pretty much comparable in that respect to similar weapons built abroad.

Sorry for bothering you, but it seems you're still not quite convinced. Do you still have doubts? If so, you can tell us, so we can answer you the best way we can.

I can absolutely understand the wish to limit German influence. But I remain skeptical that the Italian shipbuilders aimed at anything more than a detailed project. I think more probable that they might have looked at those projected light cruisers... that might have been a more sensible objective.

I am highly dubious about this. Apart from anything else, I doubt that there were other facilities to build ships so big (240 m) other than those that till 1942 would be busy with the second pair of Littorio-class battleships. Also, is the information about the Dutch considering ordering them there from that article? If so, could you tell me the issue number? I'd like to look it up. However, in the scans I've seen there's no mention about it; it is said that the Italians were interested in some things (such as the stabilization of the AA machine guns). Does the article specifically say that there was a rival design for the battlecruiser made by Italians?

I just couldn't understand what I had say to get such a reaction. I missed a few bits, so I was under the impression that it was a universal gift, and somebody had trouble in redeeming their prize. Now that I see that I was lucky... well, I can only sympathize with those that wanted it, but didn't get it. I'll try to make use of it the best way I can. What WG did or didn't do is beyond my actions.

...Well, what can I say? I did not ask for such a gift, nor did I control to whom they were sent. I just received it, and I used it. Am I culpable of some mortal sin? And just for the record, I have not invested a penny in this game, nor do I intend to do so in the future, even though I do appreciate it.

Really? Well, in that case I'm not surprised they would get that impression. How can such a system be judged fairly without hard numbers to work with?

I may be wrong about this, but what I've read so says that the Dutch weren't allowed to look at the Pugliese system. What I knew is that all they got was the suggestion to heighten the double bottom, and rearrange the internal layout.

What? I simply said that the email worked for me, and I got the Emden and the credits.

For me, it worked fine. Got the email, clicked twice, entered WoWs. My Emden and my creds were ready to sail.