Littorio class design flaws?
Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 10:58 pm
What were they? How are they or perhaps not a poor design?
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Hello David,Dave Saxton wrote:What were they? How are they or perhaps not a poor design?
The belt was shallow but it could not be extended deeper without affecting the functionality of the large TDS. 70mm (vertical) was what the Italians determined was needed to insure de-capping, so it’s easy to see the rationale of using a 70mm homogenous upper belt. It is better than 45mm to insure de-capping and fusing before the shell reaching the main armoured deck.= small height of main belt; upper armor belt too thin
This potential problem ties in with the shallow main belt. One thing they have going for them in this instance is the large size of the TDS. Diving shells may burst or expend themselves within the TDS region.no protection against diving shells
AoN design, from a purist stand point, would not use any armour weight forward of the citadel. Indeed this was the practice on most AoN designs such as Yamato and KGV and others. Most modern designers dispensed with expending weight for steering gear protection, only German and American designers still considered it important.= no protection of steering gear and forward section
This is another area were only the Germans and the Americans included significant conning tower protection into their modern designs= inadequate con tower protection
= inadequate secondary artillery
= insufficient protected length
Obviously they were designed for operating mainly in the Med.= insufficient range
I don’t know if it could always de-cap heavy shells being a laminate either, but it was of all armour grade materials nearly 50mm. It may have been capable of de-capping heavy shells, and we know the Italians considered de-capping an important element. They also considered yaw. One of interesting things about this arrangement is the 12mm middle deck. A shell beginning to yaw up ward in its rotation will take on trajectory shift away from the normal upon penetrating the next layer. Therefore its likely that there was a net zero trajectory shift before striking the main armoured deck. This factor coupled with probable de-capping would mean that the total effective thickness was probably close to the sum thickness of the upper and main armoured decks net thickness each. Note that because of the distance between the main armoured deck and the upper armoured deck that shells will likely explode before reaching the main armoured deck at battle ranges between 18km and 25km.= overly complicated deck protection. The centerline of the ship was heavily protected against free falling bombs, but the margins of the armor deck were thinner and heavy shells could easily perforate it. For example, above the machinery, the ships yielded a triple layer of defense:
- centerline: upper deck 45mm laminate (36+9mm), second deck 12mm, main armored deck 112mm laminate (100+12mm)
- outboard: upper deck 45mm laminate (36+9mm), second deck 12mm, main armored deck 99mm laminate (90+9mm)
I don't know if the laminated upper deck was sufficient to decap incoming shells of 15 and 16" calibers.
The compounded thickness using sqrt formula is ~ 107mm at centerline and 98mm outboard.
This makes the machinery vulnerable between 18 - 25km from most kinds of BB caliber shells used in the war...
This is often the point of most interest because of the novelty of the design. It had to be large to work as designed, and that is the reason the concept didn’t work well on the re-constructed small battleships. One of the problems was the welding connections of the curved main bulkhead. The welds were not satisfactory, so if the bulkhead yielded then the forces would not be directed into deforming the cylinder.= overly complicated torpedo protection system, which also took a lot of internal volume in the ship.
One area did have superior redundancy compared to most other battleships. The Littorios had backup rudders.= insufficient built-in redundancy. For example, there was no secondary con tower to control the ship, in the event the forward con tower was lost...
This was adopted to make them very steady gun platforms. The trade off is of course less reserve of stability.= very low metacentric height (for a battleship)
I thought about that when preparing my reply.Dave Saxton wrote:Perhaps flaws are too harsh of language to use. Trade offs would be better terminology. All designs are really a balancing act of different trade offs. Just commenting on the trade offs they made without saying they are necessarly bad or good:
The belt was shallow but it could not be extended deeper without affecting the functionality of the large TDS. 70mm (vertical) was what the Italians determined was needed to insure de-capping, so it’s easy to see the rationale of using a 70mm homogenous upper belt. It is better than 45mm to insure de-capping and fusing before the shell reaching the main armoured deck.= small height of main belt; upper armor belt too thin
The problem of electrical power capacity was reportly a factor in the situation facing Littorio after the torpedo hits at Taranto. The pumping capacity was found unsufficient, but the electrical capacity to support the pumps they had was insufficient anyway. There are also reports of loosing electrical power from shock for both Littorio and Veneto.alecsandros wrote:There was also the dubious power problem. At one instance, Veneto lost all power in the ship for 2 hours, following a torpedo hit at Matapan. After that , power was restred and the ship limped back to port at 19kts.
I don't know what kind of electrical wirings they had, but to lose all power in the ship after one hit is debilitating. It was probably another problem of redundancy, in this case reserve power... [Littorio's could generate up to 3600 kW. Compare that to Bismarck 8000kW or Iowa's 10500kW.]
I knew it would come to this... :)Dave Saxton wrote: Of course the Littorios are not unique among WWII battleships for experiencing electrical problems due to shock or having insufficient electrical capacity. The USN fast battleships and the sinking of the Prince of Wales comes to mind here.
There are also strong parallels to the devastating torpedo hit aft to Prince of Wales and the torpedo hit aft to Vittorio Veneto...
The French. Only three triple 6" turrets in the case of Richelieu.alecsandros wrote: 4 triple guns ? Who uses such a thing ?
The British tested some captured Italian 381mm shells and found that their fuzing system worked very well. The shells showed virtually immune to the base slap effects that cause so much trouble for everybody else. The main problem found with the Italian 381mm shells in the British tests was scooping off of horizontal armour due to their relatively sharp nose shapes. This sharp shape also gave them good belt penetration at short and medium ranges and made them difficult to de-cap. (The Italians proofed the 381 shells at 30*).Th Italian 32cm AP shell was based on a British WW1 design , which was ok for it's time, but not so much for WW2. The cap was easily removed, and the fuze quite unsensitive (IIRC, G. Elder made some research into this and it required the equivalent of 100mm armor to fuze, assuming obliquity of 0*)
alecsandros wrote:Another aspect was the lack of delay coils for main battery guns, which were introduced, according to Bagnasco, in mid-1942 for Littorio and Venetto.
So much like the USN automatic systems.Yet another problem came from the unreliable RPC system, which allthough quite ambitious (it featured remote automatic control for both training of turrets and elevation of guns) it broke down all the time, and the crews had to rely on the older, manual-input methods...
The absence of radar for up until Oct-1942 was another handicap for the Italian battleships, and a severe one in the context of the Mediteranean campaign.
Indeed, and a nice question would be - how would those 2 battleship classes perform one against the other ?Dave Saxton wrote: So much like Richelieu and Jean Bart.
Hmm, maybe...So much like the USN automatic systems.
Well, Bagnasco mentionsI believe Littorio had Gufo radar by March 1942, but Veneto did not until 1943. Was radar ranging a factor in Littorio's better shooting?
I doubt they would have anything like that. They feared the night !What about night fighting optics? Did the Italians battleships have any or were they like the USN fast battleships lacking in this aspect?
What hits ?Dave Saxton wrote:We don't know how many of those 181 rounds were expended at battle ranges of about 35,000 yards. It scored hits at 17k.
WW1 - era projectiles were easily decaped... especialy if they were very pointed...Dave Saxton wrote:
The British tested some captured Italian 381mm shells and found that their fuzing system worked very well. The shells showed virtually immune to the base slap effects that cause so much trouble for everybody else. The main problem found with the Italian 381mm shells in the British tests was scooping off of horizontal armour due to their relatively sharp nose shapes. This sharp shape also gave them good belt penetration at short and medium ranges and made them difficult to de-cap. (The Italians proofed the 381 shells at 30*).