"BB Littorio Punta Stilo/Calabria Question" Topic

I was looking at doing a Punta Stilo/Calabria "what if" scenario, where the Italian fleet is augmented by the battleships Littorio and Vittorio Veneto.

I know they were still working up, and there is a sentence on page 69 of The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940-1943 by Jack Greene & Alessandro Massignani that says "But there had been an electrical fire in one of Littorio's main turrets the previous day, killing one civilian worker and causing damage which would need a month's work to repair."

My question is, which turret? Anyone have a source that identifies it?

Unfortunately the endnote in The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940-1943 seems to focus on a subsequent sentence on how it was likely the ships could have been able to reach the fleet in time.

According the the recent book "The Littorio Class", a fire occurred in turret #1 on July 7, 1940, which seriously damaged it. Although both ships were apparently considered to be on stand by for the battle of Punta Stilo, they were still working up during this period. A contemporary report estimated them to be capable of only 60-65% effectiveness, due to various unresolved technical issues.

MH

MH,

Thanks for the info. Lonnie Gill responded similarly to my post on the ODGW forum, adding (I believe from the same source as yours) "Turret #2 was also out of action for a few days due to flooding during a violent storm and not available on 9 July if she had actually sailed to take part in the battle."

I personally can't see the Italians committing Littorio with only her stern turret operable, so unless Vittorio Veneto had specific issues beyond the, as you put it, "60-65% effectiveness, due to various unresolved technical issues", I'm leaning towards just including Vittorio Veneto, with some rules similar to what I would use to simulate Prince of Wales problems against Bismarck.

Or maybe part of the "what if" will be that both ships had completed their working up…

Dave

2 quotations of interest, from pages 165 and 166 of the same book:

"Added to that, on 5 July a violent storm caused considerable flooding in Littorio's Number 2 turret, rendering it unusable for a few days. To make matters worse there was an accident in the Number 1 turret two days later."

"Despite this, their participation was considered, as on 8-9 July the two battleships were made ready to sail in case of extreme need, even though Littorio had two 381mm turrets out of action.

FWIW, I get the impression that the "60-65 per cent" (per Admiral Bergamini) takes into account a single turret being out, presumably Turret #1 on Littorio, as Turret #2 was only out for "a few days". So 5 turrets out of 6 for the pair gives 83%, with the remainder of the reduction presumably due to other teething troubles with the main armament. In GQ terms, this would be armament boxes, modeled probabilistically. .

Mark H.