Armadillos of the type "Ruggiero di Lauria"

Having laid a series of “armless armadillos” ^[1] of the “Italy” type , the Italian Navy decided to return to more traditional projects. Italy class ships, although they had important potential advantages, nevertheless, had potential disadvantages. In addition, these two largest armadillos at the time were extremely expensive.

Italian Fleet Minister Vice Admiral Ferdinando Acton objected to building too large warships, pointing out the undoubted tactical flaws of the fleet, which consisted of very large, but not numerous units. Instead of them, he proposed to build a series of ships of moderate displacement. On his initiative, the development of the project was entrusted to Fleet Inspector General Giuseppe Michelli, who considered it best to simply repeat the design of the armored carriers Cayo Duilio, which was considered successful, on a new, more advanced technical base.

Three ships of the new project were laid in 1881-1882. Due to the weakness of Italian industry, the construction of all three was delayed, and they entered service only in 1888-1891, already being, in a sense, morally obsolete.

Ruggiero di Lauria class ships had a displacement of about 11,000 tons, a length of about 106 m, a width of about 20 m, a draft of about 8.3 m, and the Cayo Duilio project was repeated in the general layout, but with a number of significant differences.

So, instead of standing on the prototype of muzzle-loading 450 mm rifled guns, ships of the Ruggero di Lauria class received more powerful and fast-firing 432 mm 26-caliber breech-loading guns. These guns were similar to those installed on the ships of the Italy project.

The artillery layout system has also changed. The massive armored towers on the Cayo Duilio were considered ineffective and replaced with barb installations. On ships of the Ruggiero di Lauria class, mounted artillery mounts in pairs were placed on platforms rotating inside a fixed armored fence - a barbet. The servants and gun mechanisms were protected by powerful 361 mm armor, and the probability of getting into gun barrels protruding above the barbet was considered very low. To protect the calculation of the guns from shrapnel and small-caliber shells, the barbets were protected from above by domes of thin armor, rotating with the guns.

The location of the barbets themselves remained traditional for the Italians diagonal: the front barb was shifted to the left, and the rear - to the right, which gave the guns large firing angles.

To compensate for the low rate of fire of the main caliber guns, the ships received medium-caliber weapons. Initially, it was rather weak, and consisted of 2 152 mm guns. Later, anti-mine weapons were installed on the ships in the form of numerous light guns and machine guns. Also, during the construction of the ships installed 4 underwater 356-mm torpedo tubes.

The reservation scheme for the ships was exactly copied from the prototype, but the thickness of the armor belt, due to improved quality of steel armor, was reduced to 431 millimeters. The armored deck was on the contrary thickened but 76 millimeters.

The armor belt, as in the prototype, covered only the central part of the hull - the "citadel", where there were cars and guns. Outside the citadel of the tip, only the armored deck protected it from getting into the underwater part of the hull. The ends themselves were unarmored, and divided into many small compartments. It was believed that even the complete destruction of the extremities would not lead to a loss of buoyancy if the citadel was not destroyed.

All three ships were distinguished by structural elements and power plants. The fastest in the series was, in fact, “Ruggiero di Lauria”, which developed 17 knots. The remaining two ships had a speed not exceeding 16.1 knots.

• Ruggiero di Lauria
• Francesco Morosini
• Andrea Doria

The battleships “Ruggiero di Lauria” were an attempt to repeat the revolutionary project of their time “Cayo Duilio” at a higher technical level. The Italians managed to correct most of the shortcomings of the basic project, improving seaworthiness and equipping ships with significantly more powerful and rapid-fire breech-loading artillery.

Nevertheless, the idea of ​​the citadel armadillos itself was already somewhat obsolete, and the extremely protracted construction led to the fact that when the ships went into operation, their weapons and armor no longer corresponded to modern standards. The main thing is that the doctrine under which they were created is outdated. These large armadillos, like their predecessors, were built on the basis of the concept of “individual superiority”, which suggested that naval combat would take place without centralized control, like a series of battles between individual ships and small formations. The development of alarm systems in the 1880s, the appearance of smokeless gunpowder and the development of naval tactics led to the fact that the tactical actions of squadrons, rather than individual ships, became priorities again.

Nevertheless, it must be borne in mind that following the doctrine of “individual superiority” gave the Italians by the early 1890s seven extraordinarily powerful armored ships that surpassed almost all analogues in other countries of the world and were close in tactical and technical characteristics.