|
|
The general thrust of the text is that the Italian navy actually performed better than most British accounts might suggest. In general I’d say that was actually a rather convincing argument. British accounts of the naval war in the Mediterranean are often dominated by the battle of Cape Matapan, and the loss of three of the four Zara class heavy cruisers in a single incident. Without that one incident even Cape Matapan would have been disappointing for the British, with the Italian battleships emerging unscathed. Indeed no Italian battleships suffered significant damage in gun battles with the Royal Navy. The author makes a convincing argument for the quality of Italian battleship gunfire, noting that the wider dispersion of shots in each salvo made it more likely that they would score a hit at long range compared to the tight concentration of British gunfire, which tended to mean that the entire salvo missed.
We start with a good examination of the ships available to the Italians, which included three of the best battleships in service (Vittorio Veneto, Littorio and Roma) and some good modern cruisers, but lacked aircraft carriers or a useful land based fleet air arm. The account of the battles makes better use of Italian sources than most British accounts, so we get to see what the Italians were trying to achieve in each clash, and acknowledge that they often did achieve their aims. These battles were always close run things, with the Italians have superior speed, the British the advantage of carrier aviation.
Some of the Italian claims aren’t that convincing, including two with supposed photographic evidence. One photograph said to show HMS Matchless on fire could just as easily show her making smoke – the result looks very similar. On the photograph said to show evidence that a hole had been punched through HMS Naiad I’m not sure which bit of the picture is actually meant to be the evidence! Short periods of repairs after operations are taken as evidence for Italian claims, but brief overhauls and periods of repair were common after time at sea and often come after no contact with the enemy. Everyone overclaimed during the war, trying to work out which were the result of optimism and which might have been valid is never easy.
A second weakness is that the focus is largely on encounters in daylight. The author acknowledges that the Royal Navy was superior at night, but we don’t get much on that. Hinted at, but not fully acknowledged, is that the main focus of the Royal Navy was on home waters and the battle of the Atlantic. The five most modern British battleships, of the King George V class, spent very little time in the Mediterranean during this period, and instead the Mediterranean Fleet had to make do with modernised First World War battleships and occasional visits by Nelson and Rodney. In contrast almost the entire Italian fleet was able to concentrate against the British. The balance of power changed in 1943, when the Allies turned their attention to the Mediterranean, fighting in Tunisia, invading Sicily and the mainland of Italy, and moving much more powerful naval forces into the area.
Despite these lapses, this is an excellent book, providing an alternative view of one of the main battlefleets of the Second World War, and the Royal Navy’s most regular enemy in surface engagements.
Chapters
The Fleet’s Purpose
Fleet Fighting Power
How the Fleet Operated
Combat and Analysis
Author: Enrico Cernuschi
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 80
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2024