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Italian Naval Aviation

By Sebastiano Tringali

Technical Specification

Narrative

From the mid-20s, the Regia Marina felt the need of equipping the larger naval units with catapults that would allowed for the launch of airplanes. This was to be achieved while the ship was in motion, and with waves of such height not to allow the takeoff from the surface of the sea. At the same time the catapult began to exit from its experimental phase and the first operating exemplary came into production. Theese catapults had a fixed or movable trellis-;oke structure on which traveled a trolley which was attached to the undercarriage of generally a seaplane. The trolley was propelled by means of high pressure compressed air. The combined effects of the speed of the trolley and the produced contrary wind from the advance of the ship allowed the airplane to take off.After a series of tests with various aircraft (Macchi M18, Piaggio P6 ter, Cant.25 and others), towards the second half of the 30s the Regia Marina leaned towards a seaplane tested in 1934, and by now mass-produced; it was the not too seaworthy IMAM RO 43. This two-seater biplane with a central floater was able to reach 300 Km/h and had an autonomy of 1000 km.

RO 43

To the explosion of the hostilities, therefore Italy had sol a boarded type of hunting, was in fact ready to the employment on the several units of the Regia Marina very 42 seaplanes Ro 43. Although successive tests for the employment of a catapultabile twin-engine plane to assign to the battleships " Of the lictor " class, chasing of the war events forced the Ro 43 to necessary the hardest engagement that put to knot some its structural deficiencies and yields the construction of a 2°series that carried the number total of 194 the produced exemplary to.

RO 43 on the Vittorio Veneto

During the war, the enormous limitations this type of airplane was finally evident. Its employment was limited exclusively to exploration and to range finding due mostly to the fact that the plane did not carry any ordnance. Moreover, at the conclusion of the mission, the seaplane, see condition allowing, had to ditch, near a recovery ship equipped with the appropriate crane. The complexity of these operations made it preferrible to have the airplane return to a flying-boat station. Later on, with the ship in port, the plane would be remounted on the catalut, thus limiting the use of the plane to a single mission.

When, battatle of Cape Matapa, the absence of aircraft carriers begin to have heavy affects on the fate of the Italian fleet operating in the open sea. In an attempt to remedy this situation, in addition to the Ro 43, the Regia MArina began deploying a catapult-enabled flighter plane. The choice fell on the Reggiane RE 2000, capable of the respectable speed of 530 km/h and sufficient autonomy.

RE 2000 on the Vittorio Veneto

At the end on 1942, after some catapult tests on the aircraft tender " G. Miraglia ", six appropiately modified RE 2000 were renamed RE 2000 " Catapultabile " and began service on the battleships of the Littorio class.

On Settembre 8, 1943, the day of the armistice, there were 19 Ro 43 on board ships, while 20 more were assigned to the "Squadriglie Forze Navali", and there were 6 RE 2000 "Catapultabile " , 2 on the battleship Rome and one each on theVittorio Veneto and Italy (formerly Littorio).

R.N. Aquila

In addition to this short description on the Italian airplane deployed aboad ships, it must be mentioned that to remedy the absence of aircraft carriers there was a late attempt by the Regia Marina to deploy the "Aquila ". At the end of the hostilities, this aircraft carrier was near completion in the port of Genoa . The ship was to embark approximately 51 Reggiane type RE 2001 fighters modified for takeoff and landing on a flight deck.

Technical Data

	Airplanes
Model	IMAM RO 43	Reggiane RE 2000 "Catapultabile"
Engine	Piaggio P.X R	Piaggio P.IX RC 40
Total HP	HP 700	HP 1000
Wing Span	m. 11,57	m. 11
Lenght	m. 9,71	m 7,99
Height	m. 3,51	m 3,20
Wing area	m2. 33,36	m2. 20,40
Weight	kg. 1.760	kg. 2.080
Max Weight	kg. 2.400	kg. 2.540
Speed	km/h 303 a 2000 m	km/h 530 a 5000 m
Range	km. 1.092	km. 840
Max Elevation	m 7.200	m 11.200
Armament	2 x 7,7mm (1 dorsale, back)	2 x12,7mm
Crew	2	1
Total Built	194 (MM.22700 -22192)	9 (MM. 8281-8290)



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