Battleship Leonardo da Vinci

[WayOfTheWolk 1,573]

Leonardo da Vinci 

Introduction:

Spoiler

Designed as part of the Conti di Cavour class, Leonardo da Vinci was a response to the French Courbet class battleships designed by Rear Admiral Masdea. Masdea wished to build upon the flawed Dante Alighieri battleship which proved to have insufficient armor and armament. It was recognized that any substantial changes in the ship's design would cause a loss of speed but this was still comparable to most other battleships of the time. On the other hand Italy was forced to use 12-inch guns while competitor nations were already using 13.4-inch guns however this would be remedied by increasing the number of guns onboard to 13. On paper this was considered a good design approach but a lengthy construction process meant that by the time the first Conti di Cavour ship was completed it was already outclassed by every newer battleship. To make matters more dire the Italo-Turkish War in 1912 caused a shortage of workers and materials meaning that Italy had to outsource some of its resources. For example instead of using Krupp Cemented Steel the Italians purchased nickel steel from America and had it refined to their own "Terni" cemented steel which was slightly of lower quality and took longer to produce. The Leonardo da Vinci was laid down on July 18, 1910 at the Odero Shipyard, launched on October 14, 1911 and commissioned on May 14, 1914 named after the famous artist of the same name.

Service History:

Spoiler

During most of her World War 1 career Leonardo da Vinci saw no active service and stayed in port at Taranto. This was because Admiral di Revel was afraid any incursion into the Adriatic would spell doom for the Italian fleet which was prone to Austro-Hungarian submarines and mine. It was decided that the Italians would blockade the southern Adriatic with a fleet of smaller vessels including torpedo boats while the larger capital ships would remain at anchor. If the Austro-Hungarians wished to make a move with their own battleships the Italians would sortie the blue water fleet to counter them. This arrangement worked out well for the Leonardo da Vinci until she suffered a catastrophic explosion on August 2, 1916. It is officially believed a Austro-Hungarian saboteur ignited her magazine and the ship exploded in flames.  She capsized in Taranto taking over 200 men with her to the bottom of the harbor.  The Regia Marina immediately planned to raise the ship using compressed air and pontoons to lift it from the sea floor. However this required the ship's funnels, turrets, coal and ammunition to be removed to reduce the weight of the hull. Leonardo da Vinci was finally refloated on September 17, 1919 after two years of work including dredging a channel from her resting place to the drydock. Once in drydock additional problems mounted as the decks began to fail from the immense weight of the machinery pressing down while capsized. Plans to righting the vessel involved more dredging and using ballast, about 400 tons to slowly turn over the ship whilst water was pumped into her starboard to assist. Leonardo da Vinci was successfully righted on January 24, 1921 and the Regia Marina originally planned to reconstruct the vessel. In the end the same financial burdens that ceased the Francesco Caracciolo hit the Leonardo da Vinci and the ship was eventually sold for scrap in 1923. 

Photos:

Spoiler

Conti di Cavour class profile

Leonardo da Vinci firing a salvo

Leonardo da Vinci in color

Leonardo da Vinci launching

Leonardo da Vinci being turned over

Capsized in drydock

Technical Data:

Spoiler

General Specifications:

Displacement: 24677 tonnes

Length: 176 m

Beam: 28.0  m

Draft: 9.3 m

Installed Power: 20 x Blechynden boilers,  

Propulsion: 4 x shafts, 4 x Parsons steam turbines (30000 hp)

Speed: 21.6 knots

Crew: 1235 men

 

Armor (Terni Cemented Steel):

Belt: 250-80 mm 

Upper Belt: 220 mm

Main deck: 20 mm with 44 mm slopes

Main turrets: 280 mm

Barbettes: 280 mm

Casemates: 130 mm

Conning Tower: 280 mm

 

Armament: 

13 x 305/46 V1909 guns (3 x 3, 2 x 2)

18 x 120/50 A1909 guns

14 x 76/50 V1909 guns

3 x 450mm torpedo tubes (1 stern, 2 beam)

Sources:

Spoiler

• Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal, eds. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921 . Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.
• Halpern, Paul G. (1995). A Naval History of World War I . Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.
• Fraccaroli, Aldo (1970). Italian Warships of World War I . London: Ian Allan.
• https://www.navypedia.org/ships/italy/it_bb_giulio_cesare.htm
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_battleship_Leonardo_da_Vinci

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by WayOfTheWolk

[leroyonly 4,311]

Open for discussion. 

[Охраняет-Камни 6,650]

+1

Time to resurrect Regia Marina.

Leonardo, Dante, Elena should be a nice first step for Italy into the world of big ships.

[EvenManatee887@live 129]

+1. Italy should have had her battleships right from the start and its best that she starts off strong.

[Conte_Baracca 4,547]

Would free up the other Cavour classes for later variations

[Milocat 4,857]

+1 for the Italian bluewater tree.

[ironcell26 252]

+1, the italian naval fleet needs ASAP a good batch of good ships in every tier, especially in dreadnought/superdreadnought class

[Noveos_Republic 503]

Why not just have the WW2 variant?

[WayOfTheWolk 1,573]

3 hours ago, Noveos_Republic said:

Why not just have the WW2 variant?

Gaijin is likely to start with a WW1 version as it has with every other nation and give a WW2 version of the same class at a later date. 

[Z3r0_ 4,128]

I'll support adding this.  Seeing as it was the only ship of the class that didn't survive the war I would suggest that this vessel be added to represent the class' WWI-era configuration, with the Conte Di Cavour and Giullio Cesare in post-refit configurations from the 30s and 40s.

 

 

On 21/01/2021 at 08:27, Noveos_Republic said:

Why not just have the WW2 variant?

 

Because I already suggested one of this class' vessels in that configuration.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Z3r0_

[John4Plays 70]

Yes! Italy needs more ships, in this case battleships, so yeah, I support this one.

[Artyom_Ascaron 48]

It would be nice to see Da Vinci to represent the Cavour class in ww1 and maybe Giulio Cesare for the modernized version in ww2.

[Conte_Baracca 4,547]

3 hours ago, ArTyOm_1807 said:

It would be nice to see Da Vinci to represent the Cavour class in ww1 and maybe Giulio Cesare for the modernized version in ww2.

Exactly.  The Cavour could be done as some in between if viable or necessary.  

 

[Hetaeron 287]

I'll add some more information to the ship, maybe it will help:

http://www.agenziabozzo.it/navi_da_guerra/c-navi da guerra/C-0138_RN_LEONARDO_DA_VINCI_1911_corazzata_navigazione_vista_tribordo_1914.htm

 

I leave the link to the Wikipedia webpage, the webpage is in Italian, I suggest you use "google translator" so you can translate the whole page into your respective languages.

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci_(nave_da_battaglia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Hetaeron

[Охраняет-Камни 6,650]

I wonder why we still don't have it in the game, I played Dante a lot during the event and it's really a pain when you lose it. If you don't have backups for Dante, the second ship to spawn is Zara or Pola (if you bought it), which are almost useless at 6.3. Pola at least has low repair cost, but for Zara you have to pay more than 20k SL for repair.

[CokeSpray 7,274]

Suggestion passed to the developers for consideration.