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Ariete-class Torpedo Boat
The ''Ariete''-class torpedo boats were a group of destroyer escorts built for the Italian Navy during World War II. They were enlarged versions of the s and designed to escort convoys to North Africa. Of the 42 units planned, sixteen ships were eventually ordered but only one was completed by the time of the armistice, ''Ariete'', built in the Sestri Ponente shipyards and commissioned on 5 August 1943. The namesake ship was also the only one to survive the war. After the war it was ceded to the Yugoslav Navy (1949), and renamed ''Durmitor''. Most of the other ships were captured and completed by the Germans, entered service with the '' Kriegsmarine'' as Torpedoboot Ausland and eventually sunk in the course of operations across the Aegean and the Adriatic. ''Fionda'' (renamed ''TA46'' by the Germans) was sunk in Fiume by an Allied bomber on 20 February 1945, together with her twin ''Balestra'' / ''TA47''. Both ships at the time were unfinished. Recovered by the Yugoslavians in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torpedo Boat
A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes. These were inshore craft created to counter both the threat of battleships and other slow and heavily armed ships by using speed, agility, and powerful torpedoes, and the overwhelming expense of building a like number of capital ships to counter an enemy's. A swarm of expendable torpedo boats attacking en masse could overwhelm a larger ship's ability to fight them off using its large but cumbersome guns. A fleet of torpedo boats could pose a similar threat to an adversary's capital ships, albeit only in the coastal areas to which their small size and limited fuel load restricted them. The introduction of fast torpedo boats in the late 19th century was a serious concern to the era's naval strategists ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi (Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some 215,000 square kilometres. In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea by the straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. The Aegean Islands are located within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The sea reaches a maximum depth of 2,639m to the west of Karpathos. The Thracian Sea and the Sea of Crete are main subdivisions of the Aegean Sea. The Aegean Islands can be divided into several island groups, including the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, the Sporades, the Saronic islands and the North Aegean Islands, as well as Crete and its surrounding islands. The Dodecanese, located to the southeast, includes the islands of R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
P-47 Thunderbolt
The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt is a World War II-era fighter aircraft produced by the American company Republic Aviation from 1941 through 1945. It was a successful high-altitude fighter and it also served as the foremost American fighter-bomber in the ground-attack role. Its primary armament was eight .50-caliber machine guns, and it could carry 5-inch rockets or a bomb load of . When fully loaded, the P-47 weighed up to 8 tons, making it one of the heaviest fighters of the war. The Thunderbolt was effective as a short-to medium-range escort fighter in high-altitude air-to-air combat and ground attack in both the European and Pacific theaters. The P-47 was designed around the powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp 18-cylinder radial engine, which also powered two U.S. Navy/U.S. Marine Corps fighters, the Grumman F6F Hellcat and the Vought F4U Corsair. An advanced turbosupercharger system ensured the aircraft's eventual dominance at high altitudes, while also inf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The Ligurian Sea
The Battle of the Ligurian Sea was a naval surface action of the Second World War fought on 18 March 1945, in the Gulf of Genoa in the Mediterranean Sea. A '' Kriegsmarine'' flotilla of two torpedo boats and one destroyer was conducting an offensive mine laying operation at night when it was intercepted by two Royal Navy destroyers; and . The British destroyers sank two of the German ships and severely damaged the third; it was the last German naval surface action of the war. Background At the Malta Conference (30 January – 3 February 1945), it was decided to transfer air force and army units from Italy to the Western Front in France and Belgium in Operation Goldflake. In February and March 1945, the I Canadian Corps was moved from Italy to the French port of Marseilles. Escorts for the troopships were provided by Flank Force (Admiral Robert Jaujard) British, French and US ships, with air cover from the Mediterranean Allied Coastal Air Force (MACAF). Prelude On the nigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Torpedo Boat TA24
The German torpedo boat ''TA24'' was an operated by the German '' Kriegsmarine'' during the Second World War. The ship was built for the Italian Navy by the shipbuilder Ansaldo at their Genoa shipyard with the name ''Arturo'' in 1943, but was incomplete when Italy surrendered to the Allies in September 1943, and was seized by Nazi Germany. The ship entered service as ''TA24'' in October 1943, serving in the Tyrrhenian Sea and was sunk by British destroyers on 18 March 1945. Design and construction The ''Ariete'' class was an enlarged derivative of the Italian , intended to defend convoys from Italy to North Africa from attacks by British submarines and surface ships. To give the ships a chance of fighting British cruisers and destroyers, the ''Ariete''s had a heavier torpedo armament, sacrificing a gun and some speed to accommodate this. A total of 42 ships were planned, but only 16 had been laid down by the time of Italy's surrender. The ships were long overall and be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Genoa, which in 2015 became the Metropolitan City of Genoa, had 855,834 resident persons. Over 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera. On the Gulf of Genoa in the Ligurian Sea, Genoa has historically been one of the most important ports on the Mediterranean: it is currently the busiest in Italy and in the Mediterranean Sea and twelfth-busiest in the European Union. Genoa was the capital of one of the most powerful maritime republics for over seven centuries, from the 11th century to 1797. Particularly from the 12th century to the 15th century, the city played a leading role in the commercial trade in Europe, becoming one of the largest naval powers of the continent and conside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta and the Sile). In 2020, around 258,685 people resided in greater Venice or the '' Comune di Venezia'', of whom around 55,000 live in the historical island city of Venice (''centro storico'') and the rest on the mainland (''terraferma''). Together with the cities of Padua and Treviso, Venice is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC. The city was historica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Bowler
Operation Bowler was an air attack on Venice harbour by Allied aircraft on 21 March 1945, as part of the Italian campaign of the Second World War. It was led by Acting Wing Commander, later Group Captain, George Westlake of the Royal Air Force. By early 1945, the rail and road networks of northern Italy had sustained severe damage, forcing the Germans to resort to shipping goods into Venice and then moving them from there along rivers and canals. An attack on the city's harbour was thus deemed necessary by Allied command, although the risk of damage to the city's architectural and artistic treasures was high, as it had been in other battles of the Italian campaign, such as Battle of Monte Cassino. The operation was planned to be extremely precise to avoid any such damage and was named Operation Bowler by Air Vice-Marshal Robert Foster, as a reminder to those involved that they would be "bowler hatted" (returned to civilian life) or worse should Venice itself be damaged. Havin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trieste
Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provinces. Trieste is located at the head of the Gulf of Trieste, on a narrow strip of Italian territory lying between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia; Slovenia lies approximately east and southeast of the city, while Croatia is about to the south of the city. The city has a long coastline and is surrounded by grassland, forest, and karstic areas. The city has a subtropical climate, unusual in relation to its relatively high latitude, due to marine breezes. In 2022, it had a population of about 204,302. Capital of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia and previously capital of the Province of Trieste, until its abolition on 1 October 2017. Trieste belonged to the Habsburg monarchy from 1382 until 1918. In the 19th century the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantieri Riuniti Dell' Adriatico
Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico ("United Shipbuilders of the Adriatic") was an Italian manufacturer in the sea and air industry which was active from 1930 to 1966. This shipyard is now owned by Fincantieri. History In 1930, Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino based at Trieste merged with another Italian company, the Cantiere Navale Triestino of Monfalcone, forming the ''Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico'' (CRDA). The new company built a number of light cruiser, light and heavy cruisers for the Regia Marina (Royal Italian Navy) between the wars, as well as some 27 submarines. The ocean liner SS Conte di Savoia, ''Conte di Savoia'' was also constructed in 1932. During the World War II, CRDA Trieste built two battleships for the Regia Marina, Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto, ''Vittorio Veneto'' and Italian battleship Roma (1940), ''Roma''. CRDA survived the postwar shakeup in the shipbuilding industry and went on to build several more commercial liners in the 1950s and 1960s, as well a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-aircraft Warfare
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, subsurface ( submarine launched), and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements, and passive measures (e.g. barrage balloons). It may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries, the main effort has tended to be homeland defence. NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defence is an extension of air defence, as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight. In some countries, such as Britain and Germany during the Second World War, the Soviet Union, and modern NATO and the United States, ground-based air defence and air defence aircraft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bomber
A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an aircraft occurred in the Italo-Turkish War, with the first major deployments coming in the First World War and Second World War by all major airforces causing devastating damage to cities, towns, and rural areas. The first purpose built bombers were the Italian Caproni Ca 30 and British Bristol T.B.8, both of 1913. Some bombers were decorated with nose art or victory markings. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strategic bombing is done by heavy bombers primarily designed for long-range bombing missions against strategic targets to diminish the enemy's ability to wage war by limiting access to resources through crippling infrastructure or reducing industrial output. Tactical bombing is aimed at coun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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