The history of our heroes began almost immediately after the First World War, where Italy, frankly, did not win laurels. Italian battleships and battleships calmly defended themselves in the harbors, not trying to catch adventures aft, so there were no victories, but there were no defeats. The Italians even "won", that's how it happened.
Having won in this way, Italy even increased its fleet by receiving reparations.
Let's start with reparations. Having received five cruisers at once (three German and two Austro-Hungarian), and having six of their own, the Italians seriously thought that it would be nice to make the Mediterranean Sea Italian. Well, or "Our sea", as Mussolini said.
But for this it was necessary to build ships, since the eternal rival France also did not doze. And the resulting rather old and motley gang of cruisers did not match the level in any way.
However, the moment came to conclude the accursed Washington Treaty, and everything went a little differently than the Duce would have liked.
According to the Treaty, Italy received the status of the fifth naval power, and, despite the imposed restrictions, it turned out that if the Italians send a couple of old cruisers for scrap, they will be able to build as many as seven new heavy ships of this class.
To break not to build, the work is in full swing.
They knew how to build ships in Italy since the days of the Roman Empire, so it turned out to be easy to adapt to the conditions of the Mediterranean Sea everything spelled out in the Washington Treaty.
The idea of the main Italian shipbuilder Philippe Bonfilletti was very interesting. Since it turned out that according to the terms of the agreement something had to be sacrificed, Bonfilletti decided to bring armor to the altar of victory.
According to his plan, the ships should be fast, maneuverable, with very long-range guns. The range and seaworthiness were not at all critical, since the new cruisers were supposed to operate in the conditions of the Mediterranean puddle, where gas stations were quite common among the Italians. Armor was also not a priority, although it is also impossible to say that the ships came out "cardboard".
Of course, like all countries, the Italians did not meet the allotted 10,000 tons of displacement, but given their fifth place in the world, no one paid much attention to this. Showdowns went on a higher level, so the Italians built ships without much attention from the outside.
The first Italian heavy cruisers were Trento and Trieste. They were followed by other ships, all heavy cruisers in Italy were named in honor of the cities that were transferred to Italy as a result of the First World War.
After "Trento" and "Trieste", five more ships were built, already radically different from the first, although "Bolzano" is often attributed to the type "Trento", although this is not entirely correct. The ships were somewhat similar, but the difference was quite tangible. However, we will talk about this later.
The Italian shipbuilders turned out to be very peculiar ships. Beautiful, elegant and fast.
However, elegance and speed in general were the hallmark of Italian ships.
At first, the Trento was considered a very successful ship, and two heavy cruisers for the Argentine Navy, the Almirante Brown class, were built on this type.
However, the devil is in the details, so we'll talk about the details in the process.
What were the ships like?
Data for Trent / Trieste.
Displacement. Standard - 10 511/10 505 t, full - 13 548/13 540 t.
Length 190/190, 96 m.
Width 20.6 m.
Draft 6.8 m.
Reservation:
- main belt - 70 mm;
- deck - 20-50 mm;
- traverse - 40-60 mm, towers - 100 mm, barbets - 60-70 mm, cabin - 100 mm.
Engines: 4 TZA Parsons, total capacity 150,000 hp. with.
Speed 36 knots.
Cruising range 4 160 nautical miles (at 16 knots).
The crew is 781 people.
Armament:
- 8 (4 × 2) 203-mm guns "Ansaldo" Mod.1929;
- 16 (8 × 2) × 100-mm universal guns "OTO" Mod.1927;
- 4 (4 × 1) × 40-mm anti-aircraft machine "Vickers-Terney" Mod.1915 / 1917;
- 8 (4 × 2) × 13, 2-mm anti-aircraft machine guns "Breda" Mod.1931;
- 4 × 2 533 mm torpedo tubes.
Aviation group: 1 catapult, 2 seaplanes.
In 1937, the aft pair of universal 100-mm cannon installations was replaced with 4 paired 37-mm Breda anti-aircraft guns.
The main caliber of the Trento-class cruisers consisted of eight 203-mm 50-caliber guns, produced by the famous Ansaldo plant.
The guns were placed in a linearly elevated manner in four two-gun turrets - two in the bow and two in the stern.
The guns were … ambiguous. The weight of the projectile is 125, 3 kg, the weight of the C grade charge is 47 kg, the initial velocity of the projectile is 905 m / s, the rate of fire at an elevation angle of 15 ° is one shot per 18 seconds, at an elevation angle of 45 ° - one shot per 40 seconds. Loading was carried out at a fixed elevation angle of 15 °. Maximum range 31,324 m.
Basically, everything looks pretty good, doesn't it?
The capacity of the cellars was 1300 shells and 2900 charges, the ammunition load of one gun consisted of 162 shells.
During the tests, however, it turned out that the trunks wear out very quickly, so a different alignment was selected experimentally. The weight of the projectile was reduced to 118, 5 kg, the muzzle velocity to 835 m / s, while the range was reduced to 28 km, but the wear of the barrels was significantly reduced.
But it was not the drop in range that became the Achilles heel of the Italian beauties. For the 203 mm / 50 Ansaldo Mod. 1924 were devilishly slanting. Accuracy … but you can't talk about accuracy here, there was none at all. These guns were armed with 7 (SEVEN) heavy cruisers of the Italian fleet that took part in the Second World War. Seven cruisers, possessing 56 barrels, achieved THREE recorded hits during the war.
This, you see, is, if not a shame, then his dress rehearsal.
It is difficult to say today what was the reason for this inaccuracy. Basically, they blame the close location of the guns in the towers, yes, there both barrels were in the same cradle, but the same system was present in the French, and while they were fighting, they somehow managed to get in. Perhaps the reason lay in lightweight shells, but in fact, the powerful guns did not allow the cruisers to somehow show themselves on the battlefield.
The universal caliber of the cruiser consisted of sixteen 100-mm cannons of the 1924 model, developed on the basis of the Skoda guns of the 1920 model in eight towers. Let's just say: not bad weapons, but they did not carry freshness. By the beginning of the war, they were clearly outdated both in terms of guidance and in terms of rate of fire. Therefore, on many ships they were gladly replaced with rapid-fire machines.
Anti-aircraft armament included four 40-mm Vickers "Pom-pom" installations and eight 13.2 mm machine guns. In addition, on the main deck, between the tubes, there were four twin-tube 533-mm torpedo tubes.
The ship was equipped with three aircraft, two of which were located in the hangar in front of tower A, and a Gagnotto catapult to launch them. The aircraft used were successively the Piaggio P.6t, Macchi M.41, CANT 25AR and IMAM Ro.43 models.
In general, if you look formally and in terms of numbers, the cruisers "Trento" had very good armament for those years, in fact the armament was very much below average.
The Trento was laid down on February 8, 1925, launched on October 4, 1927, and commissioned on April 3, 1929.
Trieste was laid down on June 22, 1925, launched on October 24, 1926, and commissioned on December 21, 1928.
Military service before the outbreak of World War II, the ships were frankly not dusty. Parades, visits, hikes in the Mediterranean. True, the Trento had a trip to the Far East, with calls to Shanghai and Japan, which once again confirms that the seaworthiness of the cruiser was at a good level.
In 1936-1939, "Trento" occasionally operated off the coast of Spain, supporting the Francoists during the civil war. But he somehow didn’t win any military successes, perhaps because there was no one to fight with.
By the time Italy entered World War II on June 10, 1940, Trento, together with Trieste and Bolzano, formed the 3rd cruiser division of the Second Squadron. The division was assigned a division of four destroyers, and in this form the unit went to war with France.
But it all ended very quickly, the cruisers managed to make one short combat campaign on June 22-23, 1940, in which they had no contact with the enemy.
On July 9, 1940, the Trento, along with other ships of the Italian fleet, took part in the battle of Calabria.
During the battle, the Trento successfully dodged the attack of the British torpedo bombers Swordfish, and then, together with other heavy cruisers, entered the battle with the light cruisers of Great Britain, opening fire from a distance of about 11 miles.
The Italians failed to hit the British ships, and then the Worspite came to the aid of the British cruisers and dispersed the Italians. Then again the British torpedo bombers flew in and again the cruisers calmly fought back and left.
In general, the Italians acted very passively, did not achieve a single hit, although the British light cruisers hit the cruiser Bolzano three times.
Further, Italy decided to fight against Greece, in connection with which the cruisers at the end of October 1940 were relocated to Taranto. There they were found by the British, who arranged the forerunner of Pearl Harbor on November 11 in the harbor of Taranto.
The Trento was hit by a 250-pound (113.5 kg) semi-armor-piercing bomb. The bomb hit the area of the bow 100-mm installation of the port side, pierced the deck and got stuck in the structures below, but did not explode. This is called "full luck". It could have been much worse.
And already on November 26, 1940, the main forces of the Italian fleet (2 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 14 destroyers) again went to sea to strike at the British formation. Naturally, the 3rd division of heavy cruisers also went into battle. But if the fight turned out, it was very crumpled.
The fact is that the air reconnaissance of the Italian fleet spotted a British squadron consisting of 1 aircraft carrier, 1 battleship, 1 battle cruiser, 1 heavy cruiser, 6 light cruisers and 14 destroyers.
The commander of the Italian squadron, Admiral I. Campioni, decided that an easy victory would not work (which is generally debatable) and ordered to withdraw.
So the only clash was with the cruisers of the 3rd Division, who were closest to the enemy and were forced to engage in battle. Three Italian heavy cruisers faced 1 British heavy and 4 light cruisers.
The Italians opened fire from a distance of about 10 miles and soon succeeded in hitting the heavy cruiser Berwick, on which the aft towers were out of order. But then the battle cruiser "Rhinaun" approached the light cruisers, and although its volleys did not cause damage, the Italians developed full speed and broke contact.
The last battle "Trento" fought on June 15, 1942, as part of a unit that went to sea to intercept a British convoy to Malta.
In the early morning of June 15, 1942, the Italian ships were subjected to a series of attacks by British aircraft. At 05:15, the Trento was hit by a torpedo from the British torpedo bomber Beaufort. The hit occurred in the area of the bow boiler room, which was flooded. Water flooded other compartments of the ship, a fire broke out, the cruiser lost speed.
The formation went on to pursue the convoy, and the Trento crew began to fight for survivability. It began to work out, the fire was extinguished, the aft boiler plant was launched, water was pumped out and, with the help of the destroyer Pigafetta, the ship was towed to the base.
But then rock intervened in the form of the British submarine "Ambra", which from a fairly large distance (about 2 miles) fired two torpedoes at the cruiser. One torpedo hit the cruiser in the area of the bow elevated tower. After the explosion, the bow artillery cellars detonated five minutes later, the cruiser sank.
During this short time, the Italians managed to save 602 people, including 22 officers. 549 people died, including 29 officers. Among the dead was the commander of the "Trento" Captain 1st Rank Stanislao Esposito.
Trieste lived a little longer. On April 10, 1943, Italian ships in the harbor of the new La Madallene base were attacked by a formation of 84 American B-17 heavy bombers.
During the raid, "Trieste" was cut very thoroughly, the cruiser received 4 hits from 1000-pound (454 kg) bombs. The superstructures were destroyed, one bomb landed on the starboard side, a leak opened, and a fire started from other hits.
The two-hour struggle to save the ship was unsuccessful, and as a result, the Trieste capsized and sank at a depth of 20 m. Crew losses - 30 killed, 50 wounded.
What conclusion can be drawn?
Not everything that is beautiful on paper is good on the waves. This can be attributed to the Trento cruisers in full.
Like any "Washington" cruiser, "Trento" and "Trieste" were not very successful ships. Especially in comparison with later classmates, because at the end of the 20s of the last century it was very difficult to fit into the contractual 10,000 tons both a reasonable reservation, a decent power plant, and armament from 8-9 203-mm guns.
Against the background of the cruisers of potential enemies, the Trento type looked good. It had a full-fledged, albeit thin, armor belt within the citadel, good deck and turret armor. Compared to the eternal French competitors, Italian ships generally looked powerful and solid.
The Italians did not need special seaworthiness, as already mentioned, because the Mediterranean Sea is not the Atlantic and even less the Pacific Ocean. As well as special autonomy and range were not needed, and their bases, and a potential enemy - everything was at hand.
But the project also had drawbacks that were not noticeable on paper, but very serious at sea.
The first such drawback was … speed! Yes, on paper 35 knots is a lot. A lot for a heavy cruiser. But measurements made in ideal conditions, alas, were like inflated records.
In fact, the Trento-class cruisers in a real combat situation could go for a long time at a speed of no more than 30-31 knots, which is much less than intended. And in fact, the "slow" cruisers of Great Britain and France moved at the same speed.
Second nuance. Housings. The eternal problem of many Italian projects (yes, we immediately remember the Soviet "sevens") were frankly weak corps. Perhaps if the Trieste's hull were not so weak, the ship could have withstood a nearby bomb explosion. But the vibrations that haunted the hulls of the Italian cruisers did their bit, weakening the already not very strong hulls.
The third is artillery. The main caliber was completely incapable of combat. On paper, 203-mm guns were at the world level, in fact - three hits on 56 barrels that fired a fair amount of shells is a fiasco.
You can blame the cruiser for insufficient speed, low autonomy and cruising range, poor seaworthiness, but even these disadvantages cannot outweigh the fact that the ship is not able to fire accurately with its main caliber. After all, the main purpose of a heavy cruiser is to inflict damage on enemy ships of a lower class. If he is not able to do this, then what kind of warship is this?
So, in the end, the Italian cruisers of the Trento class turned out to be completely useless in the most important thing - in the ability to inflict damage on the enemy. Unable to fight, they went to the bottom, beautiful, elegant, but absolutely not dangerous for enemy ships.
Beauty is not always really deadly …
