Light cruisers of the “Duca d'Aosta” type are a type of light cruisers of the Italian fleet of the Second World War. Built two ships: "Duca d'Aosta" ( Emmanuele Filiberto Duca d'Aosta ), "Eugenio di Savoia" ( Eugenio di Savoia ). They were a further development of light cruisers of the type " Raimondo Montecuccoli ". In the naval literature, they are classified as the type “Condottieri D” ( Condottieri D ). Served as a prototype for Kirov-type cruisers .
| Light cruisers of the “Duke d'Aosta” type | |
|---|---|
| Condottieri tipo Duca d'Aosta | |
 Light cruiser "Duke d'Aosta" ("Kerch") 1950 | |
| Project | |
| A country |
|
| Previous type | type "Raimondo Montekukolli" |
| Subsequent type | type "Giuseppe Garibaldi" |
| Main characteristics | |
| Displacement | Standard: 8317—8612 t , complete: 10,374–10,672 t |
| Length | 171.8 m / 186.9 m |
| Width | 17.5 m |
| Draft | 6.5 m |
| Booking | Belt - 70 + 30-35 mm; traverses - 50 mm; deck - 30 ... 35 mm; towers - 90 mm; cutting - 100 mm |
| Engines | 2 MZA Belluzzo or Parsons 6 boilers "YARROW" |
| Power | 110,000 l. with. (80.9 MW ) |
| Mover | 2 screws |
| Travel speed | 36.5 knots (67.6 km / h ) |
| Navigation range | 4122 or 4411 nautical miles at 18 knots |
| Crew | 694 people |
| Armament | |
| Artillery | 4 × 2 - 152 mm / 53 |
| Flak | 3 × 2 - 100 mm / 47 , 4 × 2 - 37 mm / 54 , 6 × 2 - 13.2-mm machine gun (since 1942, 12 × 1 - 20/70 ) |
| Anti-submarine weapons | 2 bombers, 2 bombers, 12 depth charges |
| Mine-torpedo armament | Two three-tube 533-mm torpedo tubes , 112-146 min of an obstacle (in overload) |
| Aviation Group | 1 catapult 2 IMAM Ro.43 seaplanes [1] |
Content
Construction
Changes were introduced to the cruisers project aimed at enhancing protection and improving seaworthiness.
Corps
Light cruisers of the type "Duca d'Aosta" had a riveted hull with a forecastle, which passed into the superstructure on the upper deck. In general, the design was similar to the first two series of cruisers. The bow section received clipper shapes with a noticeable collapse of swords to improve seaworthiness. The forecastle had a slight rise to the stem. The height of the interdeck space in the middle of the hull was 2.25 m. In the extremities outside the MKO, it gradually increased. At the stem, the distance between the 1st middle and upper reached 2.7 m, and at the stern stem, 2.6 m. The dialing system was mixed (middle part along the longitudinal system, extremity - along the transverse part). 21 waterproof transverse bulkhead divided the body into 22 compartments. It was assumed that the ships would be able to withstand the flooding of any two adjacent compartments. The transverse metacentric height with a normal displacement was 1.52 m.
Main power plant
The power plant consisted of three boiler rooms, which housed six 4-collector Yarrow water-tube boilers with vertical steam superheaters (capacity — 80 t / h each with pressure up to 25 kg / cm² and temperature up to 350 ° С). Two three-frame Parsons gas turbine engines with a rated capacity of 55,000 liters each were installed in two engine rooms. with. each at 250 rpm at the propeller shaft. There were two auxiliary boilers on the ship. The design speed at normal displacement was 36.5 knots. The real speed of the cruisers at sea was about 34 knots.
The power plant consisted of four 160-kW turbogenerators installed in pairs in the forward and aft engine rooms, and two diesel generators of the same capacity, located in the fore and aft sections below the waterline outside the armored citadel. A 220 V direct current was used in the power grid. The fuel oil reserves were 1,635 tons, turbine oil 70 tons, boiler water 253 tons, and drinking water 59 tons.
Armament
The main caliber of the ship was four 152-mm two-gun artillery, which were located linearly-elevated in the bow and stern parts of the ship. They differed in powerful ballistics, had a separate-sleeve loading with a wedge horizontal sliding gate. The ammunition of each gun was 250 shots. The main-caliber artillery fire control system consisted of a central shooting machine in the central artillery post, a command-range station with a center sight sight and two 5-meter stereo rangefinders. In the second and third towers there were additional stereo-distance meters with a base of 7.2 m and shooting turrets, which made it possible to control the fire autonomously.
The universal caliber was represented by three 100-mm paired deck gun mounts of the Minizini system with 250 rounds of ammunition per barrel (one was in the center plane). These installations had semi-automatic cartridge loading and electric drive guidance, however, this universal caliber almost did not meet the requirements at the beginning of the war in terms of aiming speed, rate of fire and efficiency. There were two groups (left and right) of marine artillery anti-aircraft fire control devices with two anti-aircraft guns and two sight-ranging posts with 3-meter stereo rangefinders.
The small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery of the ship had four 37-mm paired and eight 20-mm single-barrel anti-aircraft guns of the Breda company: modern, but fired only with standard optical and dioptric aiming devices.
Torpedo armament was represented by two three-tube 533-mm torpedo-guided devices: a total of 12 torpedoes, 6 of which were in the devices and 6 more on racks nearby on the superstructure, without combat chargers. During the war, however, the sailors refused to torpedoes, because it was very dangerous to store them, and the need for them was not great: the freed weights were used to store additional ammunition for anti-aircraft guns.
The ships also had two bombs and two stern bombers for anti-submarine depth bomb. During the transshipment, the cruiser received mines of the barrier on the minefields of the upper deck (up to 150 pieces, depending on the sample). On the cruiser waist was a swiveling catapult, on which were kept two IMAM Ro.43 float-operated biplane seaplanes.
Reservations
The armored citadel stretched from 187 to 27 frames (a reverse frame report system was adopted, starting from the stern perpendicular), was formed by 70-mm lower and 20-mm upper armor belts, 35-mm longitudinal armored bulkhead (separated by 3.5 m from the main armored belt) and a 20-mm armored platform connecting their bases. Additionally, a 50-mm bow and stern beam was installed, as well as 30 ... 35-mm main armor and 12 ... 15-mm upper deck and the forecastle deck, which was thicker than on the British "Linders" and "Southamptons" . The main-caliber towers were defended with vertical 90-mm armor. The barbets of the main-caliber towers above the upper deck were covered with 70-mm armor, below the upper deck were covered with 45-mm armor, closer to the cellars, its thickness decreased to 30 mm. The shields of universal 100 mm guns had 8 mm protection. The conning tower had 100 mm vertical armor, the roof was 30 mm. The combination of a belt and an in-depth bulkhead provided good protection against shells with low deceleration or equipped with instantaneous fuses (the first were usually equipped with semi-light armor shells, the second with high-explosive) [2] . The fourth series of Condottieri armor weight reached 1,700 tons or 22% of the standard displacement, finally the quantity turned into quality - there was a decent area of invulnerability from 152 mm projectiles, although there was no such one from 203 mm.
Service
Duca d'Aosta was founded on October 29, 1932 . Launched on April 22, 1934 . It was commissioned on July 13, 1935 . February 6, 1949 transferred to the USSR on the results of the division of the Italian fleet. It was renamed “Stalingrad” , then “Kerch” and was part of the Black Sea Fleet until it was excluded from the lists on February 20, 1959 .
Eugenio di Savoia was founded on July 6, 1933. Launched on June 16, 1935. It was commissioned on January 16, 1936. Named in honor of Eugene of Savoy . Transferred as reparations of Greece in July 1950 , renamed "Ellie II" and was part of the Greek Navy until 1973 .
Project Evaluation
Kondotieri Series D became the pinnacle of development of the type of cruisers to fight the French counterminers . The C and D series cruisers fully corresponded to the tasks for which they were created. The reservation of this and the previous series fully answered the task of protecting 138-mm guns from fire. The accuracy of the guns of these four cruisers, as shown by the comparative statistics of the battles, was at the level of the British [3] . But to fight the British cruisers, the horizontal defense was not sufficiently reliable, the vertical for the Montekukkoli type was comparable, and for the Aosta type it exceeded the similar in size to the British Linders and Fiji, significantly exceeding them in the% of the waterline booked. There are views based on the experience of the war in the Pacific, for example David Brown, that vertical armor is not needed by cruisers at all. But in the Mediterranean it was not so, because if the Pacific Ocean was the main armor-piercing shells, then there are high-explosive. Since the Aosta crawled into the category of 8,000-toners, they were not sufficiently armed for their displacement. But high speed allowed them to intercept convoys, to put the most responsible minefields. Condottieres C and D owe their active use and successes primarily to their high speed. The only obvious drawback was the Italians' lack of artillery radar [3] .
| Comparative with analogues | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main elements | " La Galissonier " | " Perth " [4] | " Raimondo Montecuccoli " [5] | "Duke d'Aosta" [5] | Project 26 bis [6] | Fiji [7] |
| Displacement, standard / full, t | 7600/9100 | 6980/8965 | 7431/8853 | 8317/10 374 | 8177/9792 | 8530—8735 / 10 450— 11 086 |
| Power plant, l. with. | 84,000 | 72 500 | 106,000 | 110,000 | 110,000 | 72 500 |
| Maximum speed, knots | 31 | 32.5 | 37 | 36.5 | 35 | 31.5 |
| Range, miles at speed, knots | 5500 (18) | 7000 (15) | 4122 (18) | 3900 (14) | 4880 (17.8) | 6520 (13) |
| Main caliber artillery | 3 × 3 - 152 mm | 4 × 2 - 152 mm | 4 × 2 - 152 mm | 4 × 2 - 152 mm | 3 × 3 - 180 mm | 4 × 3 - 152 mm |
| Universal Artillery | 4 × 2 - 90 mm | 4 × 2 - 102 mm | 3 × 2 - 100 mm | 3 × 2 - 100 mm | 6 × 1 - 100 mm | 4 × 2 - 102 mm |
| Light anti-aircraft artillery | 4 × 2 - 13.2 mm | 3 × 4 - 12.7 mm | 4 × 2 - 37 mm, 4 × 2 - 13.2 mm | 4 × 2 - 37 mm, 4 × 2 - 13.2 mm | 9 × 1 - 45 mm / 46, 4 × 1 - 12.7 mm | 2 × 4 - 40 mm, 2 × 4 - 12.7 mm |
| Torpedo armament | 2 × 2 - 550 mm TA | 2 × 4 - 533 mm TA | 2 × 2 - 533 mm TA | 2 × 3 - 533 mm TA | 2 × 3 - 533 mm TA | 4 × 3 - 533 mm TA |
| Reservations, mm | belt - 105 + 20, deck - 38, towers - 100, cabin - 95 | belt - 76, deck - 32, towers and barbets - 25, cellars to 89 | belt - 60 + 30, deck - 30, towers - 70, deckhouse - 100 | belt - 70 + 30, deck - 35, towers - 90, deckhouse - 100 | belt - 70, deck - 50, towers - 70, cabin - 150 | belt - 83, deck - 51, towers - 51, barbety - 25 + 25, cellars - 83 |
| Crew, pers. | 674 | 570 | 648 | 694 | 897 | 733-920 |
Notes
- All data for June 1940
- ↑ Light Cruisers, 2009 , p. eleven.
- ↑ 1 2 Light Cruisers, 2009 , p. 94.
- Way Conway's All the Worlds Fighting Ships, 1922-1946. - P. 30.
- ↑ 1 2 Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922-1946. - P. 295.
- ↑ Patyanin S.V., Dashyan A.V., Balakin K.S. and others. All World War II cruisers. - p. 313.
- Way Conway's All the Worlds Fighting Ships, 1922-1946. - P. 34.
Links
- Light cruisers of the Italian fleet . The date of circulation is January 26, 2012. Archived March 19, 2012.
Literature
- Malov A.A., Patyanin S.V. Light cruisers of the Montekuccoli and Aosta types (Rus.) // Marine Campaign: magazine. - Moscow: VERO Press Publishing, LLC, 2009. - No. 6 (27) . - p . 64 .
- Yu. Yu. Nenakhov. Encyclopedia of Cruisers 1910–2005. - Minsk, Harvest, 2007.
- Patyanin S.V., Dashyan A.V. et al. Cruiser of the Second World War. Hunters and defenders. - M .: Collection, Yauza, EKSMO, 2007. - 362 p. - (Arsenal collection). - ISBN 5-69919-130-5 .
- Trubitsyn S.B. Light cruisers of Italy. 1934-1972. - SPb. : R.R. Munirov, 2008. - ISBN 978-5-98830-029-8 .
- Conway's All the Worlds Fighting Ships, 1922–1945. Annapolis, Maryland, USA: Naval Institute Press, 1996.
- MJ Whitley. Cruisers of World War Two. An international encyclopedia. - London, Arms & Armor, 1995.