RN Roma- "Hit in the Worst Possible Spot"
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- Опубликовано: 3 май 2023
- The story of Roma is a familiar one. A battleship that entered service too late to see the great battles of the Mediterranean. A battleship that lasted for all of a year or so, before being destroyed in one of the first uses of guided bombs in history.
But who really talks about her *story*, instead of just her sinking? I will go over her history, in some detail, here. She deserves to be remembered for more than just blowing up, much like Barham in the same theater of war.
Further Reading:
www.amazon.com/Littorio-Class...
Possibly the most beautiful warship ever built.
Italian ships were things of beauty!
Ya, I got to agree with you, there ships where good looking, even the cruisers too.
They were more modern than most of the British fleet (built during or just after The Great War) and, like the German fleet, was sleeker and faster.
Such an unfortunate end for a beautiful ship! Truly a horrifying end for the sailors aboard the ship!
I am struck by how beautiful that ship looked. Not sure it could fight, but it's a shame she was lost like that.
"not sure it could fight"?
The Roma have the record of the longest hit in history.
32km.
@@danielefabbro822 Thanks, I did not know that.
What a horrible waste.Ive always thought the Italians had very good looking ships.
I know they sure did have beautiful ships! They shouldn’t have capitulated and switched sides, but what choice did they really have at that point in the war.
Beautiful ships, beautiful cars, beautiful suits
@Steven Moore You believe they should not have reversed their errors and achieved some redemption, and instead continued to serve under Hitler's evil empire?!
Well Hood was also a beautiful looking ship but.....
Ja gutes aussehen, aber Schrott typisch italienisch😂
The Italians are some very fine looking ships. Quite a shame none of them lived on as museums
Many were scrapped to keep them from the Russians. They took the Juilio Cesare as war reparations.
Sadly no Italian Battleship museums, but one of the older Italian Battlewagons ended up killing more Soviet sailors than the combined naval forces of NATO ever did!
it appears pissing of a superpower by turning on them and swapping sides is not a good idea. especially not if that superpower was the most advanced in that time
The do live on as museums, you just need a scuba-diving kit to gain access...
As an Italian i don't care about those ships, they coukd easily set sail ASAP to Malta and surrender. Dude not a single one of those Italian ships was going to be preserved bc 1 post war Italy economy is completely busted, 2 need money, 3 those ships are obsolete and useless, 4 their crews wrre literally behind everyone else, bc they were closed based on their importance and not training
When it comes to death by Fritz X, the only thing the venerable Warspite had that the far more modern Roma didn’t was luck, or a kind of real world plot armor Italian warships could only dream of. Come on, if a ship can survive doing donuts at Jutland while half the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet is shooting at her alone, she can survive anything (in battle). The men who sold her for scrap should’ve gone to prison.
A little luck goes a long way.
Even on her way to the scrapper's yard she decided to cut her tow and go her way which means when you get spring tides around mounts Bay in Cornwall, specifically Marazion, you can still see some of her poking above the sand.
Warspite might have survived simply because she had LESS armor. It went straight through her and blew up well below her instead of detonating inside her as in the hit that doomed Roma. The Fritz was an excellent weapon, but its armor penetration was actually _too_ good.
It was established that to repair Warspite, and maintain her as a museum ship would cost the same as keeping her in service. Britain in 1945, was bankrupt, and sick of war. Having said that, she should have been preserved! Labour governments have never shown any respect or affinity for the armed forces.
@@akula9713 have you seen what the Tories have done to them? For every year Labour have been in power , the Tories have been in for three . And l suppose you think Remainers are responsible for the present balls up ?
Very nice presentation, with lots of photos and information I’d never seen before! I’m glad that there are a few new naval history channels available, because until recently Drachinifel and Battleship New Jersey were the only games in town. I like channels like yours a lot better, because the videos are brief and to the point, very entertaining and informative. Drachinifel is just plain boring because he takes like 55 minutes to say 15 minutes worth of content, and Ryan Szymanski stumbles and fumbles his way, clearly no public speaker. Keep the videos coming. Great channel!
Litorio Vento was probably the most handsome of all battleships. Sleek and elegant.
@Hondo Lane Vittorio Veneto
Visually attractive ships. The 6" secondary battery seems profitable; you can ruin an enemy cruiser with one turret; until the change in level of the aerial threat demands a more comprehensive AA armament. For the US and UK that meant a smaller caliber, faster firing, dual purpose secondary battery.
If I'm not wrong, I believe her 90 mm guns were dual purpose for both surface engagements and anti-aircraft use.
@@samwisethe5th112 Yes they were and thanks for your comment. The Italian 90/53 was on par with the Krupp "ach ach".
@@samwisethe5th112 In theory, yes, but practically, they were only dangerous against unarmored ships at relatively close ranges.
The problem is that naval shells depend more on mass than velocity to achieve penetration at the very long distances naval combat typically occurs at. Most guns have amazing penetration values at 1,000 meters, but the real question is what they can do at 10,000 or more meters after air resistance has dragged them down, literally. Smaller shells tend to lose velocity faster and have less mass to start with, so they very quickly lose penetration potential over distance.
@Generic Person X cool, glad to see I remembered that correctly. The huge problem with the Italian 90mm was the poor shell weight not being enough to deal a large amount of damage to surface and air targets. Where most allied nations were using a form of 127mm gun or larger.
She had a smaller calibre AA battery, but it just wasn't powerful enough.
Roma was not an illegal ship as Italy had pulled out of the Washington Treaty before she was laid down However the 'Class' design was illegal as Littorio and Vittorio were both laid down when the Treaty was still in effect and at 42,000 tons they vastly exceeded the 35,000 ton limit.
Much like the Germans broke the Anglo-German Naval Treaty of 1935 with the design of the Bismarck class.
Well done as usual.
I am a American of Italian and Portuguese Ancestry and You got Me laughing so Hard I could not catch My breath when You mentioned all the cursing over the wine storage bing Hit. I imagine something akin to when the Three stooges were launching grapes or olives into the mouth of the Italian opera singer.
The German & Italian Navy's combined would or could have been an intriguing fleet for a grande engagement. Just thinking. ✌️
Very nice video, thank you for bringing more light to this story
One of my favourite BBs.
Seems that Churchill was to obsessed with the Bismarck and Tirpitz. The Italians managed to put more guns on a smaller and faster platform.
Not having a Carrier to project fighter support and more so reconnaissance deep into Mediterranean spelled doom to the Italian Navy. 2 small carriers with even 1/2 the size air wing as Glorious' s 48 and only one in action at any given time would have made huge difference
its amazing how many battleships/battlecruiser were ended by getting hit by lucky shot, but the rest tend to just soak up damage and take overkill to put down. I know statistically it probably averages out, but its still interesting to think about.
Not so lucky if you're at the receiving end...
Lasted longer than the Bismark's 9 days!
The Bismarck went down crippled, unable to move like a sitting duck, while facing the core of the world's largest Navy, and wouldn't sink until her own crew decided to scuttle her ! A truly heroic ending. The Italian ship spent her whole life hiding in port, and the first time she openly set out to sea - and it was meant to SURRENDER ! - got hit by two air-surface missiles, the first ones ever launched. And down she went, much like the Hood, split in two.
many thx for the video
subscribed
very sad story but i have her as a prem ship at wows.
well done
Arguably one of if not the most beautiful BB of WW2. If had radar and constancy in powder keg manufacturing an equal fight for any friend or foe.
Taranto was more than the inspiration for Pearl Harbour. It showed that torpedoes could be modified to operate in shallow waters - like harbours -and how. The Japanese learned well. The Americans totally ignored the implications.
An even earlier demonstration was ignored; in the 1930s during an exercise, the USS LEXINGTON (CV-2) and USS SARATOGA (CV-3) demonstrated the feasibility of an attack…on Pearl Harbor.
It didn’t hurt any the German commerce raider Atlantis captured the SS Automedon the very same day as the Taranto raid. Automedon was inexplicably entrusted to carry Top Secret documents spelling out the British inability to defend their Far East outposts due to their preoccupation w/Germany. The documents were sent to Tokyo, given to the German Attaché who forwarded them to Berlin, who then forwarded them to Japanese officials in Tokyo.
The Japanese established that by attacking Pearl Harbor & the British & Dutch in no position to defend their interests, Japan would have agree reign. The Captain of the Atlantis was the one of three Germans awarded a Samurai Sword, the others being Goering & Rommel.
@@jamessimms415 I suspect it did not take a genius to realise that the east had been stripped of resources. The timetable had been set in stone by tqhe US oil embargo. The Japanese had to act then or never. The choices were abject surrender to the US a la Commodore Perry yet Bushido said fight They had to secure the oilfields in the Dutch East Indies and that would be useless if they left Malaya (with its tin and rpubber) and the Phillipines astride the sea lanes to Japan. War was inevitable and the US should have realised that - and the when and where too within a few weeks. They just couldn't believe the Japanese would defy them. It's called hubris.
Drachinefel shows that for years US war games successfully attacked Pearl Harbor by air strike.
@@rogersmith7396 I am sure he did, but I am equally sure it involved the questionable use of bombs - after all German held ports had been attacked by naval air forces in WWI and not even the Americans could ignore that truth. Taranto demonstrated how torpedoes could be used in shallow waters like harbours It was torpedoes which sank ships,
the GUFO radar was just as good as the British BUT it COULD NOT BE USED EFFICIENTLY FOR AA FIRE coordination, the integration between the fire control electromechanical computer was not finished. THIS coupled with slowness of the 90mm AA proved fatal.
I didnt know that. Thx for your information. :) BTW: Is there any article/book about that? Sounds interesting.
I think it's pretty doubtful than any system could've interdicted something as small as a flying bomb...
War is a stupid waste, of EVERYTHING🥺😔…………
I'm imagining the events going like: "sir, we're taking on water, food storage and sonar rooms are flooded!" "Carry on, sailor! Continue damage control!"
"Sir, the wine storage is flooded as well!" "Momma mia! Were-a doomed!"
HMS Hood showed the way.
The dorniers dropping he bomb were flying si high that it would have been unreachable by any AA, from Axis or Allies. The flight pattern also confused the Italians, as the bomb were dropped 90deg above the ship instead of the usual 45/60 Deg of a ballistic run. The battleship understood they were been bombed when it was too late so the could not take evasive action. Finally, the Italians were not eager to shoot at German planes due to the very confused situation on September 1943
Eventually the Allies developed Jamming Equipment which could jam the Radio Control of the Bomb.
.
War has many strange twists. What you believe will happen doesn't happen. What you think will not happens does happen. A remote-controlled bomb is an excellent example of the latter.
A battleship and a Cleveland class light cruiser on one hull.
Nice
They blowed up the Vino!!! Oh No!!
MAMMA MIA!!!!
Heh, heh! I've never heard of a wine cellar aboard a war ship in war time.
How common was that, and among what nation's warships?
The Brits famously had grog for the crew, and American warships were dry.
@SeattlePioneer when france built it's aircraft carrier...I think 1990s? Early00? U.s. navy personnel got invited to visit. Lower ranks were shocked that in other navies, all ranks get real dishes....and wine... :)
@@SeattlePioneer Never heard of a warship with a wine cellar?
You should get out more, it's probably just the USN (and Islamic countries navies) that don't have deep booze lockers.
Can you imagine the French not having a wine cellar?
Go to France and you can see truckers drinking wine at lunchtime and the riot police having a beer in their vans. Alcohol is a way of life in a lot of the world, not hidden in paper bags and only purchasable by seniors, with written permission from their parents.
Italians have good looking everything.
I had never heard of these Fritz X bombs before, no battleship would survive a armour penatration of this magnitude twice, a likely penatration of a magazine would be unavoidable
USS Savannah, a light cruiser did.
The speed those bombs would have been going. Wonder if the bombs were guided to hit the ship at those points or if they were just guided to hit the ship where ever.
Yes---- it would be interesting had post war interviews been done with the crew flying the plane and operating the bomb guidance.
@@SeattlePioneer If the German crew survived @ all
@@jamessimms415
>
Good point. I hadn't considered that.
I believe the operator guided the bomb by watching a flare in its tail. Not the best guidance.
terminal impact speed was close to supersonic, so close to 1000 ft /s close to a standard 12 gauge shotgun. so as with many things its down to opperator skill, but apparently a skilled opperator could get 90% of bombs withing 100 ft of the aim point. in all probability they were aiming for the center of the ship
2000lbs guided bomb. sounds like a capital ships nightmare.
The occupants of the Arizona might challenge the 'worst possible spot' as opposed to this hit.
Germany always amaze me by their technology breakthrough i didn't know they're the inventor of guided missile not just that but its very effective at sinking that massive ships
I thought the photo that opened the video was a picture of an Iowa Class ship. For some reason, the blueprints never quite seem to look like the actual product. The small guns slightly behind and to the side of the big guns give it away as the Roma.
Your 'title' states "RN Roma", for Royal Navy (RN). Is this correct? Should it be "RM Roma" for Regia Marina (RM)? Just asking.
Thank you for your efforts. May you and yours stay well and prosper.
Terry
Regia Marina literally translates into Royal Navy, as this context is in english its perfectly fine to refer to the RM as RN. Brits dont hold a copyright on that, there are a large numbers of Royal Navies throughout history ... As the RM/RN isnt part of the ships name it just ends up a free arbitrary choice where one would want to end with translation.
RN= Regia Nave
@@diedampfbrasse98 the Royal Navy does hold a copyright on the name “Royal Navy”.
@@spidos1000 the term can be at best a trademark, and even that protection has its fair share of limitations. And such nonsense certainly ment sh*t in the days of WW2.
Several royal navies were/are around in the world ... that pretty much is included in the monarchy starter set.
So save yourself the exceptionalism, pal.
RN stands for “Regia Nave”, which translates in “Royal Ship”
Radio-guided bombs, eh? The technology of WW3 already emergent before the end of WW2. Anybody know what happened to the other ships in the flotilla...?
The only Axis country that still had most of it's navy intact at end of war.
1941 was year of large warships get direct hits Hood, Marat and Arizona
Roma would be last report of a battleship ever got a direct critical hit in 1943
Lovely ship but the selection of secondary weapons of 152mm, 130mm & 90mm creates a long logistics trail. Not to mention main 381mm main guns and whatever small calibre anti aircraft guns.
Were they short of ammo?
The RM wasn't the US Pacific fleet - it had a couple of home ports and relatively easy transport solutions for this 'massive' logistics trail.
They had other problems...like not having proximity fuses for their AAA and no effective AA targetting radar.
Why did they not attack British ships with such attack runs, instead sinking their former allies? As far as I know, there was no BB sunk by the great Göring (yes, Mr. Maier) Luftwaffe, or am I wrong
Well, Roma was a BB sunk by the Luftwaffe... Also there is Warspite, who only survived because of her plot armor. And I would argue that Iron Duke was basically sunk by the Luftwaffe
Addendum: Also, the russian BB Marat was sunk by Stukas
@@535phobos Plot armor has to do with fictional stories, not reality.
@@rikk319 oh sorry to break it to you but HMS Warspite indeed had plotarmour :D
A competently designed battleship that was sadly doomed by incompetent leadership.
More like it was doomed by newer technology...
@WardenWolf What? You're making a fool of yourself!
Or, junk manned by dummies.
It was hit wile in the water.
How Rome has fallen.....
Wikipedia had a edit war to hide Yamato sinking itself.
I mean, like the Bismark even if it was true, it was already sinking either way.
Italian Navy doesn't get the credit it deserves. It could go toe to toe with anything the Germans or French could deploy. Sadly their poor logistics, lack of fuel, and some over-engineering combined with poor quality control killed most of Italy's planes, guns, tanks, and ships. When they worked they were really really good, but when they didn't they were really really bad. Which to be fair they were dragged into the War by Germany about 10 years early and didn't really plan on facing the British Navy.
Haven't you just answered your own question?
@@JackSmith-hx8zh I didn't ask a question.
You fight the war with what you have, not what you want in the future. History is littered with nations that made poor choices of allies.
No survivors?
@Johnnycdrums 1352 sailors lost their lives. 622 sailors were rescued by the other ships of the fleet.
one was my uncle, my father family side. He survived and, he didn't know how to swim!
Fritz X was developed from the german PC 1400, an armorpiercing bomb, which could pierce up to 200 mm armor.
The other typ, the Gleitbombe Henschel HS 293 was developed from the german SC 500, an high explosive bomb, one of them sunk the troopship Rohna, was one of the biggest losses of US-Soldiers in the war with one ship sunk.
The sinking was hardly publicized at the time. In February 1944, the U.S. government announced that over 1,000 soldiers had died on a troopship of unknown name in European waters. It was suggested that a submarine was to blame. No further information was given. By June 1945, the name of the ship, the approximate number of casualties, and also the air attack had been established as the cause of the sinking. However, the report did not include the fact that it had been a guided missile. It was not until after the Freedom of Information Act was introduced in 1967 that the exact circumstances of the sinking were made public. The high loss of life was also blamed on a flotilla of seven empty infantry landing craft that passed the sinking site without stopping. The commanding officer was relieved of his command for this.
The Littorios have to be the most underrated of the “last/cursed generation” of battleships, mostly due to very poor historiography.
Fast even for fast battleship standards, a better armour layout than the Germans (though that deck isn’t as well-protected as in the Yamatos or in Allied designs), surprisingly good fire control even with the lack of FC radar, good maneuverability, and above all one of the best battleship main battery guns ever (when a 15” gun rivals the 16”/50 gun and 18” gun in belt penetration, maximum range AND effective range it really says something…). The Bismarcks may get all the press, but the Littorios have a much better claim for the title of Europe’s most powerful battleships (with only Vanguard and maybe the Richelieus being able to challenge that).
Italian 381mm main battery had a high muzzle velocity and fast barrel wear. The high mv and bad projectile&propellant quality took it's toll: terrible dispersion made it very difficult to have effective fire control and actually hit anything. Which would be one foremost tasks of the main battery.
@@Ah01
The idea the Italian gun had terrible dispersion is a myth, actually. It was made up by Admiral Iachiano to cover up his own incompetence, and the Allies just believed he was telling the truth without ever bothering to check with the people who actually operated the ships, leading to almost every secondary source taking this myth at face value.
The Littorios in actual practice (both in live-fire tests and in surface actions against cruisers and destroyers) showed very good gunnery as long as visibility was decent.
This and other myths about the Littorios is why they’re almost always seen as being far worse battleships than they actually were.
Pizza>>>>>>>>>>>>>>beer
@@Ah01 barrel wear is a non-issue when you operate near a port where you can replace the inner barrel in a matter of few days, in all fairness
@@lolloblue9646
Also, with how pointless battleships turned out to be in WWII, barrel wear didn’t really matter because your main battery might as well not exist most of the time.
Battleships should not be built with blow-up spots.
So if you build a battleship without an ammo storage what do you fire at the enemy? Insults?
@@lolloblue9646 Save it. I think you're responding to a 3-year-old...
It came to my mind World of Warships.
You know that game is based on nothing and all pretentions of "realism" are gone wasted.
Every ship is made out of stereotypes.
For example: british, american and russian ships are supposed to be the best and indeed in the game they made it really good to play.
On the other hand, Italian ships are made thinking on stereotypes of the era: short range of fire, bad dispersion, no AA.
Still, the average game I've played with a Littorio-class is around 150.000 damage points and at least 2 or 3 ships sinked.
Best game? 313k damage and 8 ships sinked. Teams in battles are of 12 ships each.
An average BB have around 60k to 80k damage points.
Laughs on Italian superior technology and tactics. 😎🤭
More appropriate term is “ switch to whatever side is winning “
Not even in jest, wanker.
That's what happens when your Nation's entire ideology and government revolves around one person, and then you get invaded and that person is horrible at running things.
The narrator has an odd quirk in his oral delivery. It’s how he puts emphasis on some words. Video content is good, however.