Roma

History

Design

The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 forced Italy to rethink their designs for battleship construction, due to the new limits placed on them by the treaty. The design board came up with various designs for new ships, ranging from a 23,000 ton, 6 x 381mm design, to a 35,000 ton, 406mm design, to a 26,500 ton, 8 x 343mm design. The final design was a 35,000 406mm gunned design, however the gun was abandoned in favor of the 381mm gun designed for the cancelled Francesco Caracciolo class battlesip. This design, escalated to a 40,000 ton, 9 x 381mm design, was settled on, and the Littorio-class was born.

The armaments of the class were the pinnacle of the Regia Marina, and indeed some of the better 381mm guns in performance. The 381mm L/50 Ansaldo 1934 was built to elevate to 35 degrees giving them a maximum range of 42,200km making them some of the longest ranged naval guns in history. The rifles had extremely high muzzle velocity, however this led to increased dispersion at range, in addition the reload speed on the guns was slow in comparison to guns of similar caliber to other nations.

The armor of the class was designed to defeat 380mm shells out to a range of 16km and was inclined at 11 degrees. The armor was layered in order to de-cap armor piercing shells, and had a unique torpedo defense system, called the Pugeliese System. The system was a 40mm thick bulkhead with a void inside housing an empty drum 38cm wide with 6mm thick walls; the rest of the void was filled with liquid. It was intended to defend against torpedoes with up to a 350kg warhead.

Their propulsion systems were Belluzzo geared steam turbines powered by eight oil-fired Yarrow boilers. The engines were rated at 128,200 shaft horsepower giving the ships a top speed of 30 knots. Some of the sisters reached higher speeds than designed, for instance Littorio made 31.3 knots, while Vittorio Veneto made 31.4 knots at light loads.

Roma, named after the city of Rome, was commissioned into the Regia Marina on June 14, 1942, as the third Littorio-class battleship. She was ordered in 1937 to be constructed by the Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico shipyard in Trieste, Italy. She was laid down on September 18, 1938, and launched on June 9, 1942. She was commissioned into the Regia Marina on June 14, 1942.

In her original configuration, she was equipped with 12 x 90mm/50 AA guns flanking both sides of the superstructure, 20 x 37mm/54 AA guns in 8 dual mounts, and 4 single mounts; and finally 20 x 20mm/65 AA guns in 10 dual mounts.

The ship's aircraft facilities were housed on the aft of the ship underneath the X turret. To allow better handling of the aircraft, the X turret was raised to a higher deck level to keep from damaging the aircraft or facilities.

Service

Roma, named after two previous ships and the city of Rome, was the fourth Vittorio Veneto-class battleship of Italy's Regia Marina (Royal Navy). The construction of both Roma and her sister ship Impero was due to rising tensions around the world and the navy's fear that only two Vittorio Venetos, even in company with older pre-First World War battleships, would not be enough to counter the British and French Mediterranean Fleets. As Roma was laid down almost four years after the first two ships of the class, some small improvements were made to the design, including additional freeboard added to the bow.

Roma was commissioned into the Regia Marina on 14 June 1942, but a severe fuel shortage in Italy at that time prevented her from being deployed; instead, along with her sister ships Vittorio Veneto and Littorio, she was used to bolster the anti-aircraft defenses of various Italian cities. In this role, she was severely damaged twice in June 1943, from bomber raids on La Spezia. After repairs in Genoa through all of July and part of August, Roma was deployed as the flagship of Admiral Carlo Bergamini in a large battle group that eventually comprised the three Vittorio Venetos, eight cruisers and eight destroyers. The battle group was scheduled to attack the Allied ships approaching Salerno to invade Italy (Operation "Avalanche") on 9 September 1943, but the news of the 8 September 1943 armistice with the Allies led to the operation being cancelled. The Italian fleet was instead ordered to sail to La Maddalena (Sardinia) and subsequently to Malta to surrender to the Allies.

While the force was in the Strait of Bonifacio, Dornier Do 217s of the German Luftwaffe's specialist wing KG 100—armed with Fritz X radio-controlled bombs—sighted the force. The first attack failed, but the second dealt Italia (ex-Littorio) and Roma much damage. The hit on Roma caused water to flood two boiler rooms and the after engine room, leaving the ship to limp along with two propellers, reduced power, and arc-induced fires in the stern of the ship. Shortly thereafter, another bomb slammed into the ship which detonated within the forward engine room, causing catastrophic flooding and the explosion of the #2 main turret's magazines, throwing the turret itself into the sea. Sinking by the bow and listing to starboard, Roma capsized and broke in two, carrying 1,393 men—including Bergamini—down with her.

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  A digitally colorized photo of the battleship.

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  Detail of the main guns.

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  A model of the Roma in 1/100 scale.

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  Roma underway.