RN vs Italy developing Air Capable ships

[uk 75]

Ever since I first saw Vittorio Veneto in Jane's Fighting Ships and compared its sleek appearance and modern armament with HMS Blake and its school hut hangar aft I have admired the postwar Italian Navy.

Even though Italian lawmakers still banned fixed wing aviation the Italian Navy in the 80s built the Garibaldi to carry helicopters and one day VSTOL aircraft. Garibaldi was compact and well armed. The sort of ship the RN could have built if the 1966 Fleet Working Group had not been browbeaten by politicians. We might even have built 4 of them.

With the Cold War over a new generation of carriers is needed by both UK and Italy. Both countries start with a clean sheet of paper.

Italy builds the Cavour. A ship designed not only to operate as a VSTOL carrier but an assault ship.. She is also given a full air defence armament. The cash strapped Italians match the size of ship to the number of aircraft they can afford.

Meanwhile in UK politicians (ironically from the same party who banned the word aircraft carrier in 1966) decide that two new.carriers (to be built in Scotland to garner much needed votes) should be ordered for the RN.

You know the rest from the various CV(F) threads on this site. Both Italy and UK now have one working aircraft carrier. Guess which one is the better ship?

 

[F.L.]

Italy builds the Cavour. A ship designed not only to operate as a VSTOL carrier but an assault ship.

The Cavour has no well dock. It's a real aircraft carrier.

 

[BlackBat242]

Cavour still was designed to incorporate an amphibious assault capability... remember the USN's Iwo Jima class LPHs?
No well deck, 100% designed for transporting and landing troops and their equipment.

Likewise HMS Ocean, the same concept.

 

[archipeppe]

The Cavour has no well dock. It's a real aircraft carrier.
View attachment 708691

Cavour is a mixed assault/carrier ship without dock, Trieste instead has one.

 

[TomS]

You know the rest from the various CV(F) threads on this site. Both Italy and UK now have one working aircraft carrier. Guess which one is the better ship?

As a ship for operating aircraft, I'll take one of the Queen Elizabeth class any day. Roughly twice the effective hangar space and correspondingly bigger deck area as well. Yes, their peacetime air wings end up looking similar, but the wartime surge capacity of the larger hull should not be ignored.

Heck, you could probably embark both the CV and LPH airwings of Cavour on a QEII simultaneously. And the QEII can embark 250 light infantry, which isn't quite up the the 360 of Cavour, but it is a standard RM company.

 

[Dilandu]

The thing is, development of Italian large ships after war was more or less continious. First a missile refit of "Guiseppe Garibaldi" gun cruiser (which gave them experience in missile technology implementation), then "Andrea Doria"-class of missile-armed helicopter cruiser, then "Vittorio Venetto", then a "Guiseppe Garibaldi" light carrier, then "Cavour" carrier/assault ship. The development line is uninterupted and easy to trace.

Britain, on the contrary, have quite haphazard shipbuilding programs, and very little connection between individual projects. Their development line represent not the evolution, but essentially accidental steps and jumps, dictated mainly by political and economical limitations.

 

[archipeppe]

The Italian air capable capital ships development is the following one:

Andrea Doria Class (1966)
Vittorio Veneto (1969)
Trieste (never built)
Giuseppe Garibaldi (1983)
San Marco Class (1988)
NUM (Nuova Unità Maggiore - never built)
Cavour (2005)
Trieste (2019)

 

[F.L.]

Italy builds the Cavour. A ship designed not only to operate as a VSTOL carrier but an assault ship.. She is also given a full air defence armament. The cash strapped Italians match the size of ship to the number of aircraft they can afford.

Wouldn't LHD Trieste be a better comparison with the QEs ?

 

[F.L.]

Cavour :
Displacement : 27,100 metric tons & 30,000 MT full load.
Length : 244 m

HMS Queen Elizabeth :
Displacement : 65,000 tonnes
Lenght : 284 m

Trieste :
Displacement : 38,000 t at full load.
Lenght : 245 m.