“Italian battleship Giulio Cesare”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Giulio Cesare was one of three {{sclass-|Conte di Cavour|battleship|0}} dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) in the 1910s. She served in both World Wars, although she was little used and saw no combat during the former. The ship supported operations during the Corfu Incident in 1923 and spent much of the rest of the decade in reserve. She was rebuilt between 1933 and 1937 with more powerful guns, additional armor and considerably more speed than before.

Both Giulio Cesare and her sister ship, {{ship|Italian battleship|Conte di Cavour||2}}, participated in the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, when the former was lightly damaged. They were both present when British torpedo bombers attacked the fleet at Taranto in November 1940, but Giulio Cesare was not damaged. She escorted several convoys to North Africa and participated in the Battle of Cape Spartivento in late 1940 and the First Battle of Sirte in late 1941. She was designated as a training ship in early 1942, and escaped to Malta after Italy surrendered. The ship was transferred to the Soviet Union in 1949 and renamed Novorossiysk ({{lang-ru|Новороссийск}}). The Soviets also used her for training until she was sunk, with the loss of 608 men, when an old German mine exploded in 1955. She was salvaged the following year and later scrapped.

Description

Named after Julius Caesar, Giulio Cesare was {{convert|168.9|m|ftin|sp=us}} long at the waterline, and {{convert|176|m|ftin|sp=us}} overall. The ship had a beam of {{convert|28|m|ftin|sp=us}}, and a draft of {{convert|9.3|m|ftin|sp=us}}.^[1] She displaced {{convert|23088|LT|t}} at normal load, and {{convert|25086|LT|t}} at deep load. She had a crew of 31 officers and 969 enlisted men.^[2] The ship's machinery consisted of four Parsons steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft. Steam for the turbines was provided by 24 Babcock & Wilcox boilers, half of which burned fuel oil and the other half burning both oil and coal. Designed to reach a maximum speed of {{convert|22.5|kn|lk=in}} from {{convert|31000|shp|lk=in}}, Giulio Cesare failed to reach this goal on her sea trials, despite generally exceeding the rated power of her turbines. The ship only made a maximum speed of {{convert|21.56|kn}} using {{convert|30700|shp|abbr=on}}. She had a cruising radius of {{convert|4800|nmi|lk=in}} at {{convert|10|kn}}.^[1]

The ship was armed with a main battery of thirteen 305 mm /46 Model 1909 guns in three triple-gun turret and two twin-gun turrets, designated 'A', 'B', 'Q', 'X', and 'Y' from front to rear. The secondary battery comprised eighteen {{convert|120|mm|abbr=on}} guns, all mounted in casemates in the sides of the hull. Giulio Cesare was also armed with fourteen {{convert|76|mm|abbr=on}} guns. As was customary for capital ships of the period, she was equipped with three submerged {{convert|450|mm|abbr=on|1}} torpedo tubes. She was protected with Krupp cemented steel manufactured by Terni. The belt armor was {{convert|250|mm|abbr=on}} thick and the main deck was {{convert|40|mm|abbr=on}} thick. The conning tower and main battery turrets were protected with {{convert|280|mm|abbr=on}} worth of armor plating.^[3]

Modifications and reconstruction

Shortly after the end of World War I, the number of 50-caliber 76 mm guns was reduced to 13, all mounted on the turret tops, and six new 40-caliber 76 mm anti-aircraft (AA) guns were installed abreast the aft funnel. In addition two license-built 2-pounder AA guns were mounted on the forecastle deck. In 1925–26 the foremast was replaced by a four-legged mast, which was moved forward of the funnels,^[4] the rangefinders were upgraded, and the ship was equipped to handle a Macchi M.18 seaplane mounted on the center turret. Around that same time, either one or both of the ships was equipped with a fixed aircraft catapult on the port side of the forecastle.{{#tag:ref|Sources disagree if Giulio Cesare was fitted with a catapult or not. Giorgerini says both ships received one;^[4] Whitley, Bagnasco & Grossman and Bargoni & Gay say that only Conte di Cavour received one.^[5]^[6]^[7]|group=Note}}

The main guns were bored out to {{convert|320|mm|in|1|abbr=on}} and the center turret and the torpedo tubes were removed. All of the existing secondary armament and AA guns were replaced by a dozen 120 mm guns in six twin-gun turrets and eight {{convert|100|mm|in|abbr=on|0}} AA guns in twin turrets. In addition the ship was fitted with a dozen Breda {{convert|37|mm|sp=us|adj=on|1}} light AA guns in six twin-gun mounts and twelve {{convert|13.2|mm|sp=us|adj=on|2}} Breda M31 anti-aircraft machine guns, also in twin mounts.^[12] In 1940 the 13.2 mm machine guns were replaced by {{convert|20|mm|in|abbr=on}} AA guns in twin mounts. Giulio Cesare received two more twin mounts as well as four additional 37 mm guns in twin mounts on the forecastle between the two turrets in 1941.^[5]^[5] The tetrapodal mast was replaced with a new forward conning tower, protected with {{convert|260|mm|in|sp=us|adj=on|1}} thick armor.^[13] Atop the conning tower there was a fire-control director fitted with two large stereo-rangefinders, with a base length of {{convert|7.2|m|sp=us|1}}.^[13]

The deck armor was increased during the reconstruction to a total of {{convert|135|mm|in|sp=us}} over the engine and boiler rooms and {{convert|166|mm|in|sp=us}} over the magazines, although its distribution over three decks, each with multiple layers, meant that it was considerably less effective than a single plate of the same thickness. The armor protecting the barbettes was reinforced with {{convert|50|mm|in|sp=us|adj=on}} plates.^[21] All this armor weighed a total of {{convert|3227|LT|t}}.^[5] The existing underwater protection was replaced by the Pugliese torpedo defense system that consisted of a large cylinder surrounded by fuel oil or water that was intended to absorb the blast of a torpedo warhead. It lacked, however, enough depth to be fully effective against contemporary torpedoes. A major problem of the reconstruction was that the ship's increased draft meant that their waterline armor belt was almost completely submerged with any significant load.^[14]

Construction and service

World War II

Early in World War II, the ship took part in the Battle of Calabria (also known as the Battle of Punto Stilo), together with Conte di Cavour, on 9 July 1940, as part of the 1st Battle Squadron, commanded by Admiral Inigo Campioni, during which she engaged major elements of the British Mediterranean Fleet. The British were escorting a convoy from Malta to Alexandria, while the Italians had finished escorting another from Naples to Benghazi, Libya. Admiral Andrew Cunningham, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, attempted to interpose his ships between the Italians and their base at Taranto. Crew on the fleets spotted each other in the middle of the afternoon and the battleships opened fire at 15:53 at a range of nearly {{convert|29000|yd|order=flip|sp=us}}. The two leading British battleships, {{HMS|Warspite|03|6}} and {{HMS|Malaya||2}}, replied a minute later. Three minutes after she opened fire, shells from Giulio Cesare began to straddle Warspite which made a small turn and increased speed, to throw off the Italian ship's aim, at 16:00. Some rounds fired by Giulio Cesare overshot Warspite and near-missed the destroyers HMS Decoy and Hereward, puncturing their superstructures with splinters. At that same time, a shell from Warspite struck Giulio Cesare at a distance of about {{convert|26000|yd|order=flip|sp=us}}. The shell pierced the rear funnel and detonated inside it, blowing out a hole nearly {{convert|20|ft|m|order=flip|sp=us}} across. Fragments started several fires and their smoke was drawn into the boiler rooms, forcing four boilers off-line as their operators could not breathe. This reduced the ship's speed to {{convert|18|kn}}. Uncertain how severe the damage was, Campioni ordered his battleships to turn away in the face of superior British numbers and they successfully disengaged.^[20] Repairs to Giulio Cesare were completed by the end of August and both ships unsuccessfully attempted to intercept British convoys to Malta in August and September.^[21]

On the night of 11 November 1940, Giulio Cesare and the other Italian battleships were at anchor in Taranto harbor when they were attacked by 21 Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers from the British aircraft carrier {{HMS|Illustrious|R87|6}}, along with several other warships. One torpedo sank Conte di Cavour in shallow water, but Giulio Cesare was not hit during the attack.^[22] She participated in the Battle of Cape Spartivento on 27 November 1940, but never got close enough to any British ships to fire at them. The ship was damaged in January 1941 by splinters from a near miss during an air raid on Naples by Vickers Wellington bombers of the Royal Air Force; repairs at Genoa were completed in early February. On 8 February, she sailed from to the Straits of Bonifacio to intercept what the Italians thought was a Malta convoy, but was actually a raid on Genoa. She failed to make contact with any British forces. She participated in the First Battle of Sirte on 17 December 1941, providing distant cover for a convoy bound for Libya, and briefly engaging the escort force of a British convoy (during the battle, the destroyer Kipling suffered some damage from near misses, variably credited to Cesare, Doria or the heavy cruiser Gorizia).^[23] She also provided distant cover for another convoy to North Africa in early January 1942.^[24] Giulio Cesare was reduced to a training ship afterwards at Taranto and later Pola.^[25] The {{GS|U-596}} unsuccessfully attacked the ship in the Gulf of Taranto in early March 1944.^[26] After the Italian surrender on 9 September 1943, she steamed to Taranto, putting down a mutiny and enduring an ineffective attack by five German aircraft en route. She then sailed for Malta where she arrived on 12 September to be interned. The ship remained there until 17 June 1944 when she returned to Taranto where she remained for the next four years.^[27]

Soviet service

After the war, Giulio Cesare was allocated to the Soviet Union as part of the war reparations. She was moved to Augusta, Sicily, on 9 December 1948, where an unsuccessful attempt was made at sabotage. The ship was stricken from the naval register on 15 December and turned over to the Soviets on 6 February 1949 under the temporary name of Z11 in Vlorë, Albania.^[27] She was renamed Novorossiysk, after the Soviet city on the Black Sea. The Soviets used her as a training ship, and gave her eight refits. In 1953, all Italian light AA guns were replaced by eighteen 37 mm 70-K AA guns in six twin mounts and six singles. Also replaced were her fire-control systems and radars. The Soviets intended to rearm her with their own 305 mm guns, but this was forestalled by her loss. While at anchor in Sevastopol on the night of 28/29 October 1955, an explosion ripped a {{convert|4|by|14|m|sp=us|adj=on}} hole in the forecastle forward of 'A' turret. The flooding could not be controlled, and she capsized with the loss of 608 men, including men sent from other ships to assist.^[28]

The cause of the explosion is still unclear. The official cause, regarded as the most probable, was a magnetic RMH or LMB bottom mine, laid by the Germans during World War II and triggered by the dragging of the battleship's anchor chain before mooring for the last time. Subsequent searches located 32 mines of these types, some of them within {{convert|50|m|sp=us}} of the explosion. The damage was consistent with an explosion of {{convert|1000|-|1200|kg|sp=us}} of TNT, and more than one mine may have detonated. Nonetheless, other explanations for the ship's loss have been proposed, and the most popular of these is that she was sunk by Italian frogmen of the wartime special operations unit Decima Flottiglia MAS who – more than ten years after the cessation of hostilities – were either avenging the transfer of the former Italian battleship to the USSR or sinking it on behalf of NATO.^[29]^[30]^[31]^[32]^[33] Novorossiysk was stricken from the naval register on 24 February 1956, salvaged on 4 May 1957, and subsequently scrapped.^[29]

Notes

1. ^¹Gardiner & Gray, p. 259
2. ^Giorgerini, pp. 270, 272
3. ^Giorgerini, pp. 271–72
4. ^¹²Giorgerini, p. 277
5. ^¹²³Whitley, p. 158
6. ^¹²Bagnasco & Grossman, p. 64
7. ^Bargoni & Gay, p. 18
8. ^Bargoni & Gay, p. 19
9. ^Brescia, p. 58
10. ^McLaughlin 2003, p. 422
11. ^Bagnasco & Grossman, pp. 64–65
12. ^Bagnasco & Grossman, p. 65
13. ^¹Bargoni & Gay, p. 21
14. ^¹McLaughlin 2003, pp. 421–22
15. ^Silverstone, p. 298
16. ^Preston, p. 176
17. ^¹Halpern, p. 150
18. ^Halpern, pp. 141–142
19. ^Whitley, pp. 158–61
20. ^O'Hara, pp. 28–35
21. ^Whitley, p. 161
22. ^Cernuschi & O'Hara, p. 81
23. ^Giorgio Giorgerini, La guerra italiana sul mare, p. 343.
24. ^Whitley, pp. 161–62
25. ^Brescia, p. 59
26. ^Rohwer, pp. 272, 298
27. ^¹Whitley, p. 162
28. ^McLaughlin 2003, pp. 419, 422
29. ^¹McLaughlin 2003, p. 423
30. ^McLaughlin 2007, pp. 142–52
31. ^{{cite journal|last=Bar-Biryukov|first=Oktyabr'|date=24 October 2005|title=Убить "Цезаря"|journal=иtornи|issue=43|url=http://www.itogi.ru/archive/2005/43/62079.html|accessdate=20 March 2014 |trans-title=Killing Caesar}}
32. ^{{cite web |url=http://www.4arts.it/2013/07/25/ugo-desposito-la-corazzata-novorossiysk-affondata-nel-55-da-ex-della-xa-mas/ |title=Ugo D'Esposito: la Novorossiysk affondata nel '55 da incursori della Xa MAS |date=25 July 2013 |publisher=4Arts |accessdate=20 March 2014 |language=Italian |trans-title=Ugo D'Esposito: the Novorossiysk was sunk in '55 by commandos of the Xa MAS |archiveurl=https://www.webcitation.org/6J7hMiKcY?url=http://www.4arts.it/2013/07/25/ugo-desposito-la-corazzata-novorossiysk-affondata-nel-55-da-ex-della-xa-mas/ |archivedate=24 August 2013 |deadurl=yes |df= }}
33. ^Greene & Massignani, pp. 195–98

Footnotes

References