The ship - An Italian AAR

[vonfriedman]

Those who know C.S. Forester and the character of Captain Hornblower may have also read "The ship" a long story based on the 2nd battle of the Sirte, the clash between the escort of a British convoy headed from Alexandria to Malta and an Italian task force which also included the battleship Littorio. The battle took place in the evening in a chaos of smoke screens, while a storm was preparing that in the night would become so violent as to sink two Italian DDs. Forester gives a somewhat biased version of the battle, as is obvious from a book written in 1943; for example, the number of Italian ships increases by 100% while the strength of the British escort increases by just one cruiser and does not mention the radar, absent on Italian ships.
In the story appears a certain vice-admiral Gasparo (misspelled for Gaspare) Gaetano Nocentini, in command of the Italian task force, aboard the battleship Legnano.



[Incidentally: given the importance of smoke screens in that and other battles (eg Leyte Gulf), I hope that in RTW3 smoke screens are simulated properly (see eg Fighting Steel). Similarly it would be necessary to visually simulate local meteorological conditions (eg rain showers) and the mobility of the cloud fronts (see eg Carriers at war)].


In this AAR we find the Ammiraglio di Squadra designato d'Armata (5 stars Admiral) Gaspare Gaetano Nocentini of the Serbelloni Viendalmare counts, who - according to some malicious rumors - would be the natural son of the late Umberto I, King of Italy, and therefore half-brother of the current sovereign. Nocentini's dazzling career was perhaps due to this origin. In fact, at a very young age, in 1900, he was already Chief of Staff of the Regia Marina.

Despite the relative inexperience, Nocentini promoted a building program mainly based on large and powerful armored cruisers. He always remained faithful to this concept, preferring battlecruisers to battleships and, later, betting everything on a set of modern aircraft carriers, with high performance aircraft and up to date anti-aircraft weapons.

This policy bore fruit in a series of wars with Austria-Hungary and France, which led to an appreciable enlargement of the Italian colonial empire and, above all, to an almost total control of the Mediterranean.

Nocentini's prestige was at its peak, when a coup d'etat brought Napoloni, the duce of the Camicie Scure, to power. The Admiral sided in favor of the constitutional party and, when it was defeated, his prestige  plummeted precipitously downwards.

The Regia Marina, however, supported him and Napoloni did not dare to fire him. On the contrary, he later increased the Navy budget several times, although Nocentini often did his own thing in continuing his construction program, ignoring the suggestions of the young and presumptuous Secretary for the Navy. In this he adhered to an old military saying, which reads: "if the boss asks you to do something you don't want to do, answer yes twice and then do as you think it is right to do".

Nocentini was a lively old man when, in 1951, Austria started a desperate revenge war and almost immediately found the support of the United Kingdom and Germany, a strange pair of allies, united to oppose Italy's ambitions. Surrounded by suspicion or hostility on the part of all the other Powers, Italy prepared to face the ordeal.

The war was in fact very hard and there were moments in which Nocentini, assaulted relentlessly by the three adversaries, had to ascertain that the error of not having foreseen sufficient reserves of carrier capable aircraft resulted in the progressive exhaustion of his Carrier Air Groups.

After the collapse of A-H and UK, suffocated by the deadly grip of Italian submarines, the war continued for some months due to the stubbornness of the Germans, who, although not having a single base in the Mediterranean, persisted in chasing without success the goal of a victorious Entscheidungsschlacht.

In the many battles fought in the Mediterranean the qualities of the Italian aircraft carriers shone, ending the game with a sharp 18-3 result in terms of sunken enemy CVs vs. lost own CVs, even if this success is partly due to land-based aircraft, which subjected the enemy to an uninterrupted hammering. Still more brilliant were the results obtained by the battleship force, which boasted a 20-3.

Once peace returned and budget restrictions returned also, Admiral Nocentini, now Senator of the Kingdom and Gran Cordone dell'Annunziata, which gave him a "legitimate" kinship with the sovereign (the holders of this Order are called "cousins of the King ") made his final dispositions to modernize the fleet and finally prepared to strike his flag from the main mast of his beloved battleship Legnano.

[garrisonchisholm]

That sounds like a splendid game! Some of the ship histories would be fascinating.

Given the confines of the Med did you decide on armored flight-decks?

[vonfriedman]

Thanks for the compliment. Indeed it was one of the most challenging games. RTW3 includes a note on the actions in which individual ships take part, as in SAI, it will be easier to write a history of the war (s).
About the CV armor, I used 4 in. main deck and 0 in. flight deck. I also used a roughly 3/2 ratio of fighters to other types, with more torpedo bombers than dive bombers.

[blarglol]

Very interesting, nice read