Ansaldo Ship Designs

[red admiral]

Many, many years ago a discussion forum for never-were ship designs was created called Warship Projects which is currently in version 3 here. I thought I'd post some of the more interesting projects here. This topic covers various designs by Ansaldo in Italy for Russia, Greece and Spain and the images are provided by an Italian gent called Stefano Sapir.

 

[red admiral]

A project from 1908 for Russia.

Dimensions
Length 176m Beam 28m Draught 8.15m
Displacement 23000tons
Power Unknown Speed 21knts
Coal capacity 2500tons Oil capacity 1000tons

Armament
18 x 305mm/52 in 6 triple turrets
16 x 120mm/50 in casemates
4 x 47mm Hotchkiss
8 x Machine guns
2 x Field guns
4 x Submerged 18" torpedo tubes

Armour
Main belt 5" forwards 8" amidships 6" aft
Upper Belt 4"
Casemates 3"
Anti-Torpedo Bulkhead 2"
Deck 1.5" + 1" + 1.5"(slopes)
Conning Tower 10"

 

[red admiral]

Another battleship for Russia from 1908.

Length 167m Beam 27m Draught 8.15m
Displacement 21650tons
Power Unknown Speed 21.25knts
Coal Capacity 2360tons Oil Capacity 830tons

Armament
12 x 305/52 in four triple turrets
16 x 120/50 in casemates
4 x 47mm Hotchkiss
8 x Machine guns
2 x Field guns
4 x submerged 18" torpedo tubes

Armour
Same as above

 

[Jemiba]

Thanks for this link, will register today !

Those designs look like the italian proposals for what eventually
became the Gangut class. Really sensible of the russian navy to
adopt a lesser armed type, than the 23.000ts design. The benefits
of this arrangement of the heavy artillery remains a secret to me !

 

[red admiral]

Last one in this series of designs from 1908

Length 178m Beam 27m Draught 8.15m
Displacement 22000tons
Power Unknown Speed 21.25knts
Coal Capacity 2660tons Oil Capacity 1060tons

Armament
12 x 305/52 in four triple turrets
16 x 120/50 in casemates
4 x 47mm Hotchkiss
8 x Machine guns
2 x Field guns
4 x submerged 18" torpedo tubes

Armour
Same as above

 

[red admiral]

Next an armoured cruiser design for Greece dating from 1907.

Dimensions
Length 140m Beam 21m Draught 7.6m
Displacement 10,000tons
27000hp = 25knots

Armour
175mm - 150mm Belt
150mm Casemates
150mm Conning Tower

Armament
4 x 254/45 in two duple turrets
12 x 152mm in twelve single casemates
12 x 76mm in single mountings
2 x 18" torpedo tubes submerged

 

[thrax]

bringing thread back from the dead, but actually the last ..design survives to this date

Armored cruiser (the sole remaining from that era) Georgios Averoff

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o29/thrax777/Ave.jpg

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o29/thrax777/averof.jpg

 

[able]

Three Ansaldo small battleship Project

 

[ptdockyard]

Top- Progetto 770
Middle -1923 BB often called "Livorno class"
Bottom: design for Sweden.

 

[alexi]

Hi pt, i remember you mention about a light cruiser design with 5x3 6" guns for German navy by a private shipyard, is there any information about it?

 

[Kingpin6100]

Hi pt, i remember you mention about a light cruiser design with 5x3 6" guns for German navy by a private shipyard, is there any information about it?

German Light Cruiser project from 1/700 kit

Here is a drawing from the old site of a German light cruiser design with 15-6 guns. It was from a 1/700 kit and was of a design prepared by a German private shipyard, not a forma KM design. Can anyone provide the name of the kit and details of the design? Are there other private venture designs ...

forum.worldofwarships.eu

Here's the thread from the EU wows forums. Model company's website is defunct, but the company itself is still active. I've asked one of my german friends to poke around and I'll update if anything is found

 

[ptdockyard]

Here is the text of a post I saved from last year on the SteelNavy board. The Berlin is mentioned briefly. I also attached the picture plus a new one I found of a 1934 never was destroyer design:


German Never were ships Detlef Hartwig and Bird Models



Post from Steel Navy November 2019



Detlef Hartwig has died. I last spoke with him on Saturday October 19th at his Schwerin, Germany home. I knew his health was very bad because he asked me last spring if I would handle all aspects of his modeling hobby should his heart finally give out. Like most of us, his good wife let him pursue this hobby which was incomprehensible to her. He had technically died three time during open heart surgery about 7 years ago while living in Arkansas. He seemed to get better this summer, but by September he knew that his condition was getting progressively worse. Detlef was scheduled to see his cardiologist the next Monday, but that Saturday night a stent failed while he was sleeping and he never woke up.

Most of those who knew him via SteelNavy or ModelWarships likely do not know his family once owned a shipyard in Germany. The Schichau shipyard produced ships for the Kaiser including the battle cruiser Lutzow and battleship Baden. It was located in the Baltic Sea west of Danzig and is located in what now is Poland. His family was openly not keen on the Nazis so they were only given contracts to build small ships for the Kriegsmarine. Two of Detlef’s uncles went down with the Scharnhorst. His ashes were placed in the Baltic Sea between Germany and Poland near islands he loved.

He had a tremendous room-sized 1/700 harbor that was filled with High Seas Fleet and Kriegsmarine ships of all kinds. He even transported it to Germany when he moved there from Arkansas. It was a magnet for many in his neighborhood and especially the children. When he died, those neighbors organized a memorial gathering for him. Some of whom are assisting me by inventorying his many books, drawing and documents in addition to his models. None of them are ship modelers. He is survived by his wife (who followed him to Germany), a German daughter from his first marriage long ago, and his American daughter and six-year old grandson who live in Arkansas.

He was a fountain of knowledge about the Imperial Navy and the Kriegsmarine and a good friend to many. He will be greatly missed by those of us who are fans of the Kriegsmarine and especially those that want models of Kriegsmarine Never-Were or never completed warships.

He persuaded Harald Popcke to offer almost all the Never-Were, and not completed, Kriegsmarine warships that HP has produced. The most recent of which is a model of the 5-turret Berlin-class cruiser. Also included were HP’s:
1) proposed reconstructed Gneiesanu with 15” guns.
2) proposed Scharnhorst conversion to 15” guns and dual purpose secondary turrets,
3) battlecruisers OPQ
4) carriers Europa, Elbe (ex Potsdam), Wesser (ex Sydlitz), De Grasse
5) cruiser M, Spahkreuzer 1939, Leichter Kreuzer "O"
6) Spahkreuzer SP-1 1938
7) Kannon-boat

He even persuaded Harold to offer an H-Class battleship with triple 15” main guns (Schlachtschiff N) and a Germanized conversion (the KH-1 ) of the Dutch light cruiser De Zeven Provincien.

In addition, he persuaded others to produce a number of kits but with Detlef funding the projects by committing to pay for building the masters and the initial production run all while hoping he could find buyers. In short, he took the financial risk for us. Among the projects were the following:

1. Hugh Letterly, of Loose Cannon West, started to build a master for the M-Class cruiser but that effort was never completed because Harold Popcke, much to Detlef’s surprise, came out with HP’s kit. Hugh Letterly never charged for his efforts.
2. Mike C, of Corsair Armada, produced 30+ kits of Schichau Werke Zerstoerer 1934. Bandon Lowe, of Freetime Hobbies, committed to purchasing enough of these kits of these kits to insure they would happen. This was a complete kit less the box,
3. Peter Markhardt, a German friend, produced triple 20,3 cm turrets of two kinds (based on recently discovered sketches Detlef had found) and other parts.
4. Hugh Letterly built the master and David Angelo, of Loose Cannon East, cast the T-62 large torpedo boat. These torpedo boats were Dutch ships captured on the building ways by the Germans. One was completed only to be destroyed by the Allies. This was a high quality “craftsman” kit without any guns as these can be obtained by purchasing excellent ones from 3DModelParts or Micro Masters’ 3D printed resin parts.

He persuaded, and provided drawings, Rudolf Vogel of Bird Models to produce many obscure subjects including:
1) Modernized battlecruisers Mackensen 1942, Yorck 1938 and Moltke 1943
2) Modernized battleship Bayern 1938,
3) Panzerschiff “D”, Panzerschiff "E" and other variants of the first pocket battleships
4) Munchen Kreuzer Q, Sydlitz/Lutzow conversion with four triple 15.9 cm turrets, Dresden II 1938,
5) Small aircraft carrier 1942 based on Dr. Drager’s papers
6) Hybrid carriers Goeben 1942, Waldersee 1940, and IIA
7) And many other cruisers (including the Moltke which is based on Krupp Design Bureau plans for an enlarged Prinz Eugen with 8 11” main guns), a number of destroyer versions and other ships, some of which Rudolph Vogel may have just made up for fun.

I left out a number of the Bird Model kits. The Bird kits vary in quality but can be easily improved with 3D printed parts by the parties I have already mentioned along with those of Model Monkey. Keep in mind Rudolph Vogel’s specialty is aircraft so we should be happy that he offers these kits. I have purchased all of those mentioned and many more.

I would like thank Hugh, David, Mike, Peter and Rudolf, and anyone I’ve left out, that contributed to Detlef’s desire for the German never-were models. They did it because they are fellow model builders.

The Future of German Never-Were Models

When Detlef died, he was working with another excellent builder to produce more ships. Detlef provided detailed drawings for 22 different ships. A 1941 Torpedo boat master has been finished as has the master for a diesel cruiser. Detlef was seeking preorders, but these projects are now on hold. Next in line was the WWI era L-20a battleship (6 have already been presold) and a WWII escort carrier but these too have been suspended because of his death.

A Call to Action

I know a number of people had signed up for some of these latest (but yet to be produced) kits. I have contacted those folks that I know about and have email addresses, but I have no idea of who else wanted these ships. Unfortunately, Detlef’s wife does not use a computer or have his passwords. For example, I have no contact information for a “Harold in Ottawa, Canada” or anyone else who may have signed up for these latest kits. If you are one of them and or want to be on a “interested” list for these kits (or the T-62 which is still available) then please contact me at Len.Fricke@gmail.com as I am in discussions with this excellent builder who is interested in going forward on these project ships

 

[ptdockyard]

Back to the Ansaldo designs- is there an archive of these? I know Stefano Sappino was regularly digging through their information before he passed. He was looking into the large cruiser proposal for the Soviets with 9-254mm guns.

 

[Tzoli]

According to one of my Italian friends about a possible Anslado archive or even other shipyard archives (OTO, CRDA etc)
This last reply was from October 1st:

yamato74 said the following:

Hello Tzoli,

sorry for being late, but I finally got some good news for you.
In July I've sent a request to the Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare (which you've mentioned last time) forwarding your request plus some questions of mine for good measure. Well, two months went past without a thing happening. Then a couple of weeks ago one Frigate Captain working at the Ufficio Storico finally got in touch with me; his response basically was: we've been closed due to Covid so far, we're just starting to reopen, you can forward you request again to the Ufficio Storico so they can fix an appointment for the stuff you've asked for.
Apparently they've got very little material scanned and/or digitized, so very likely the plans you're looking for (if they're actually there, it didn't say), are paper only.

So, what I would suggest you is the following: send your request to the following address:
ufficiostorico@marina.difesa.it
And ask me if they actually got what you're looking for. Then you can agree for an appointment to see and hopefully either ask for or get the digitized copies to work on, unfortunately they will only receive on appointment right now, and you must contact them first and agree about a date. You have to do it yourself because it is specified in their own website they won't take requests on behalf of third parties.
So now that we seem to know why there was no answer so far, well now it (hopefully) should be all working regularly. The time they take to answer every single one of your emails is still measured in geological ages but they should give you a response within a couple of weeks (again, hopefully).
I think you should ask if they actually have what you're looking for first, and only after ask whether or not they can provide any digital copies or what, although I have a feeling they will still ask you to come over for whatever reason. Unfortunately going to Rome is not easy for neither of us (and yes, I still have an unresolved question with them, but I can wait for that, I've already got too much on my hands right now).
They should be able to provide more info on that.

Hope this had been useful

Another Italian friend of mine sent me this:

Actually Italian Navy's archives are open for public and completely free, you just have to take an appointment. The prospect of finding there private export proposals is quite slim but for official RM projects (like the discussed AA conversion proposals) it's where you want to go.

https://www.marina.difesa.it/noi-siamo-la-marina/storia/ufficiostorico/Pagine/default.aspx

 

[Kingpin6100]

Here's information from McLaughlin on the proposal.

 

[Tzoli]

I've drawn this cruiser design some time ago together with tow other hypothetical versions as requested, but the first darker coloured is the original based on the data Stefano provided to me.

Ansaldo Big Gun Cruiser Design for Russia by Tzoli on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

 

[alexi]

Am sorry if i derailed the topic again, thank you for information PTdockyard but about other designs like H-class with triple turret and cruiser Moltke are real? or they just author personal projects? A drawings or specification charts provided would be appreciated too if you have.

 

[ptdockyard]

I've drawn this cruiser design some time ago together with tow other hypothetical versions as requested, but the first darker coloured is the original based on the data Stefano provided to me.

Ansaldo Big Gun Cruiser Design for Russia by Tzoli on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

I have GOT to start on this one. Too good not to make in 1/1200.

Dave

 

[ptdockyard]

Here is one I found in my archives. I have no information other than what it written on it. "USSR Ansaldo Small Battleship."

Anyone know more?

 

[Tzoli]

Looks very Shipbucket, and I can't find any such armed warship in my data table. I think it's a hypothetical drawing

 

[Tzoli]

Reverse image searching I've found this article:

ВМФ СССР в МТК

Линейные корабли СССР: история советских линкоров 1920-1988 Начало: Гражданская Война и послевоенная разруха мало что оставили от некогда мощного линейно...

fai.org.ru

 

[ceccherini]

Here is one I found in my archives. I have no information other than what it written on it. "USSR Ansaldo Small Battleship."

Anyone know more?

Judging by stern, superstructure, funnel and AA guns disposition it seems a fictional design. In mid '30 between the first and the second Littorio's pair, Italian navy had a great interest in small battleships but the picture you posted is very different from any proposal I know. Here are some official Italian small BB designs for a comparison