Shipbucket

Hello everyone,

Today I have a unique and interesting one for you, featuring Italy's ill-fated battleship Impero. This thread will be containing the various forms of the ship as depicted in the book Aircraft Carrier Impero.

The first is the April 1943 study, which had the ship in a relatively conventional format and armed with 6 OTO 120/50s in single stabilised mounts and a variety of "twin mounts" incorporating 20 and 37mm guns. She would have carried 45 Re-2001 ORs that were stored in a central hangar, and since these planes were not designed to fold wings they would have also been stored normally and also hung from the ceiling.

The most interesting part of the design has to be the launching facilities, which included a catapult and, most interestingly, a ramp that could be lowered into the deck to become another catapult due to its incorporation of a leading mechanism.

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are you sure she had a bulbous bow, it was in a very early stage back then, and those wan't designed as they are today

According to the book, this version of Impero (April 1943+) was going to feature a bulbous bow that was more significant than that of the original design studies for the Littorios in 1934.

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Very nice work, surprised I've never heard of this one

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Best regards,

RegiaMarina1939

Completely surprised of this bulbous bow, and also of the ski jump. Very advanced for the 1930s. A nice drawing indeed!

That what surprised me as well

It should not be that much of a surprise that understanding and improvements in testing facilities had improved by the 30s and 40s compared to when the US invented the bulbous forefoot in the early 1900s.

I tested some of these bulbs on my Littorio drawing, and it really did not look good.