Saturday nights' war game was another Naval affair. In the early part of the 20th century, there were many experimental designs produced to deal with problems of the day. For the Italian Navy, a serious problem was the potential threat from the very large French Armoured cruisers of the era. The British built the 'Battlecruiser'. The Italians tried a fast pre-dreadnought type known as the ROMA class. They were armed with single 12" guns fore and aft, backed up by twelve eight in guns in sided turrets. There only other gun armament consisted of fast firing three-inch guns to deal with torpedo boats and destroyers. The Italian Navy also built some large armoured cruisers of their own and these were generally of better design and gun layout than the French ships. It must be remembered that before 1915, it was expected Italy would join with Germany and Austria against the allies, so the types were designed with deliberate intent.
On the French side, they seemed to prefer ships with very high sides that were very large and yet had surprisingly poor armament. Single 7.6" guns fore and aft were the usual best armament, backed up by various 6.4" and smaller, until the EDGAR QUINET group, where at last the armament was standardized on a main armament of fourteen 7.6", with lighter guns for anti torpedo boat work. These large and high sided ships with their square ports looking like windows in a city building, have been referred too as 'The Block of Flats' type, for many years, in our group.
We therefore arranged a fictional clash to see what would have happened if the two navies had clashed and the ships built to fight each other had done so. The Italian fleet comprised ROMA, NAPOLI, REGINA ELENA, and VITTORIO EMANUEL, all of the Roma type fast pre-dreadnoughts. They were backed up by the large armoured cruisers AMALFI, PISA, SAN GIORGIO and SAN MARCO, with the smaller and older FRANCESCO FERUCCIO. That gave them nine ships in all and they sailed in three divisions.
The French fleet comprised ERNEST RENAN, WALDECK ROUSSEAU, and EDGAR QUINET in the first division. VICTOR HUGO, LEON GAMBETTA and JULES MICHELET in the second division. JEANNE d 'ARC, AMIRAL CHARNER and DUPLEIX, formed the third division. The fourth division comprised the old DUPUY DE LOME, plus GLOIRE and MARSEILLAISE. That gave them twelve ships to the nine Italian.
Trevor again consented to referee and fired up SBIII with my modifications. He has a laptop computer, which makes it very easy for everyone. Les Hunt chose to be the French and sailed as Amiral Le Les, bending his pennant on EDGAR QUINET, while I flew my flag in ROMA as Admiral Malioni.
As set up the battle was to commence at dawn with the French attempting to press on through a certain area, while the Italians searched for them. Fog banks were laid out over the table in various spots, which impeded visibility considerably. When the two sides did sight each other, each had a single squadron somewhat out of position. In the case of the French, this was their most powerful one with Amiral Le Les. In my case, it was my second most powerful squadron led by VITTORIO EMANUEL. Therefore, at the point of sighting, the ROMA, NAPOLI, and REGINA ELENA were steaming directly toward the French second division, while the third division, SAN GIORGIO, SAN MARCO and FRANCESCO FERRUCIO were steaming toward the same group from a different direction.
This gave the Italians a temporary advantage, as Amiral Le Les could not even see what was going on from his most powerful squadron. However, as the range was only 8,000 yds as the two sides steamed out of fog banks. My original plan had to be changed. I had intended to engage in a long range duel first, where although each of the ships with 12" only carried two in single turrets, I had hoped to gain some vital damage before shortening the range to engage with my smaller guns. Fortunately, the French 7.6" was not a very fast firing weapon, so most of the damaging fire I received was from his 6.4" and 5.5" guns or smaller. At first, the Italian ships shrugged this off. VICTOR HUGO was badly hit by the Italian gunners and dropped out of line, but LEON GAMBETTA and JULES MICHELET turned in and shortened the range even further.
Within a short time, DUPLEIX and MARSEILLAISE were burning and the DUPY DE LOME looked like a fire ship as she turned in and tried to ram SAN MARCO, but instead struck FRANCESCO FERUCCIO amidships. The closeness of the sightings and the courses of the divisions engaged, presented me with a problem as my ROMA group were steaming into a funnel shaped area between two French lines that threatened to enclose them. To avoid fighting at extremely close range, or even colliding with the enemy ahead, I turned this group about, which proved to be a lucky decision. The nearness of several French ships decided Le Les on firing torpedoes, but as I was under full helm most missed.
REGINA ELENA, already on fire from minor hits, was unable to avoid some of the torpedoes. Fortunately, they were of old and small type so damage was limited. Nonetheless, she swung to starboard out of control, leaving the battle line. Two other small torpedoes struck ROMA but she came through with moderate damage. Several torpedoes were fired from ships in the two Italian divisions, but only one hit and detonated, the only other hit being a dud.
By now, several French ships were heavily on fire. DUPUY DE LOME and FRANCESCO FERUCCIO had disentangled from the ramming. The French ship was now stationary; and FERUCCIO was able to limp after her division. She was burning badly and for some time it appeared she would be lost. However the French ships engaging her were now under fire from the 'lost' second division lead by VITTORIO EMANUELE, which had steamed past a fog bank and found itself with damaged and burning French cruisers all about it. AMALFI and PISA were powerful armoured cruisers with ten inch and seven point five inch guns. The three new comers quickly overpowered the ships engaging FRANCESCO FERUCCIO, enabling her to survive.
The newcomers then turned their firepower onto the JEANNE d' ARC which was already stopped and burning. She blew up with a magazine hit and was quickly gone.
In the meantime, the Italian first division was getting itself out of the 'funnel' dodging torpedoes and avoiding collisions with a sinking enemy ship. REGINA ELENA was still out of control, on fire and badly damaged. She came close to colliding with JULES MICHELET and LEON GAMBETTA while circling hard to starboard. But the others were clearing the close range zone and looked like finally being in position to engage in a long-range duel as I had originally intended. However at that point Amiral Le Les steamed clear of fog banks and I found the ROMA steaming through the shell splashes from the 26 seven point six inch guns he could bring to bear as he steamed majestically across my 'T'. Add to this the fire of the surviving French cruisers at closer range and it was obvious the first division were still in a difficult position.
Luck was with the Italians however. LEON GAMBETTA blew up under heavy fire from NAPOLI and the third division. One by one other French cruisers were burning, their fire slackening off. The arrival of the extra ships was having its effect and most of the French ships in close contact attempted to break off and escape. With two divisions engaging them from ranges down to 4,000 yards, the French seemed to fall apart all at once. Within quick succession DUPUY DE LOME, MARSEILLAISE, DUPLEIX and GLOIRE all sank. VICTOR HUGO was obviously done for, as was LEON GAMBETTA. The tide of battle had swung heavily in favour of the Italians. Amiral Le Les decided it was time to beat a retreat with his first squadron, which was relatively undamaged. ROMA and NAPOLI were engaging him at long range, without a great deal of success, but his guns were hitting back.
Soon it was obvious that the only ship close enough and capable of pursuit was, the ROMA. The NAPOLI was slowed by waterline hits and REGINA ELENA barely creeping along, her fires still raging. The second squadron were in quite reasonable condition due to their late arrival, but were well out of position for any form of pursuit. Faced with three large French ships with only minor damage, it seemed foolhardy to chase them with the lone NAPOLI, so I chose not follow as he turned away. We had done enough and it would be foolish to tempt fate further. A smashing victory had been achieved. Nine French cruisers had been sunk. Two Italian ships were severely damaged, and several others badly damaged. Yet none had sunk. Victory was therefore complete.
The lessons of the game were obvious. The French armoured cruisers were huge, but their armament badly disposed and lacking in hitting power. The ships that performed best were those, which had numerous guns of the same calibre. Ships with one or two guns of a calibre rarely achieved much. The FRANCESCO FERUCCIO for example, had a mixed armament of a single 10", a pair of 8" and a group of 6". Her 10" never hit once, her 8" hit rarely, but her 6" guns did great work. The same applied to the French ships. Those with single 7.6" fore and aft achieved very few hits, and were of doubtful value, while the 6.4" were hitting continually.
As Armoured Cruiser killers, the ROMA class did well, but most of the execution was again due to secondary and tertiary armament. The single 12" rarely hit. Their armour was sufficiently strong to keep out the majority of French shells and their speed prevented the French escaping once battle was joined. However, the PISA and SAN MARCO type Italian cruisers were also highly efficient. Their four 10" main guns produced more hits than the two main guns of the fast pre-dreadnoughts and were still quite powerful enough to penetrate the French armour. Again numerous 7.5" secondaries proved ship killers, scoring hit after hit on their large French opponents. As they also suffered only moderate damage, it could also be concluded that they were quite sufficiently protected for their role.
The conclusion was that the ROMA class were probably more than was needed as cruiser killers and as they could not stand in the line of battle against actual battleships on equal terms, the type were interesting, but not as effective as expected. On the other hand, the large Italian Armoured Cruisers were very efficient.
Of the French ships the JEANNE d' ARC seemed rather a death trap as did several others of the huge armoured cruiser types. Their protection was insufficient for ships of such size and their gun armament weak. DUPLEIX, with her 8 main guns in twin turrets, could bring a broadside of six 6.4" to bear and she did considerable damage. Although smaller than the others of the 'block of flats' type, she seemed to represent a much better mix of protection, armament, and speed.
The test battle was an interesting way to spend a winter's night and I'm sure, had everyone thinking about the relative merits of the designs in the game.
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© Copyright 2002 by Rolfe Hedges
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