Italian cruiser Quarto

''Quarto'' was a unique protected cruiser built by the Italian ''Regia Marina'' (Royal Navy) in the 1910s. Her keel was laid in November 1909, she was launched in August 1911, and was completed in March 1913. She was the first Italian cruiser to be equipped with steam turbines, which gave her a top speed of . Her high speed was a requirement for the role in which she was designed to serve: a scout for the main Italian fleet.

''Quarto'' was based at Brindisi during World War I; she saw action once, during an attack by the Austro-Hungarian Navy on transports operating in the southern Adriatic. She engaged the Austro-Hungarian cruiser but neither ship was damaged and both sides withdrew. ''Quarto'' served briefly in East Asian waters in the early 1930s, and supported Italian forces during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War in 1936. The following year she served as the flagship of the Italian forces participating in the non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War; here she was attacked by Republican bombers, although she escaped damage. She was stricken from the naval register in January 1939 and subsequently used in weapons tests with human torpedoes and explosive motorboats. ''Quarto'' was sunk in a test with an MT explosive motorboat in November 1940.

Design

''Quarto'' was ordered and designed in the context of shifting technological, tactical, and strategic factors. For the later decades of the 19th century, the Italian fleet was oriented against the French Navy. But by the early 1900s, Italian navy officers returned to viewing their traditional rival across the Adriatic Sea, the Austro-Hungarian Navy, as the primary threat. At the same time, the development of more effective fire-control systems allowed ships to fight at longer ranges, and tactical developments identified during the recent Russo-Japanese War (specifically the concept of crossing the T) led to the need for high-speed fleet scouts so that commanders could maneuver their fleet more effectively. The Austro-Hungarians developed the light cruiser to fill this need, which prompted the Italian response with ''Quarto''. ''Quarto'' was designed by Lieutenant Commander Giulio Truccone, and was intended to serve as a scout for the main fleet. As such, she was equipped with steam turbines, which produced higher speeds than the older triple-expansion steam engines used on earlier cruisers. She was the first Italian cruiser so equipped.

General characteristics and machinery

''Quarto'' was long at the waterline and long overall. She had a beam of and a draft of , the latter being very shallow for a vessel of her size. She displaced normally and up to at full load. ''Quarto'' had a minimal superstructure, consisting of a main conning tower forward and a small, secondary conning tower further aft. The ship was fitted with a pair of pole masts at the main and rear conning towers, the masts carrying spotting tops. She had a short forecastle deck for the first third of the ship, stepping down to the main deck just aft of the forward conning tower. She had a crew of 13 officers and 234 enlisted men.

The ship's propulsion system consisted of a four Parsons steam turbines, each driving a single screw propeller, with steam supplied by eight oil-fired and two coal-and-oil-fired Blechynden water-tube boilers. The boilers were trunked into three closely spaced funnels amidships. The engines were rated at for a top speed of , but on trials she exceeded both figures, reaching and . ''Quarto'' had a cruising radius of about at a speed of , and up to when steaming at top speed.

Armament and armor

''Quarto'' was armed with a main battery of six L/50 guns mounted singly;L/50 refers to the length of the gun in terms of caliber. two were placed side by side on the forecastle, two on the main deck further aft, and two on the upper deck astern of the rear conning tower. These last two guns were slightly offset, with the port gun further aft. The guns were the Pattern EE type, the same type employed as secondary guns on the dreadnought battleships of the and es, and were manufactured by Armstrong Whitworth. A secondary battery of six L/50 guns, the same Pattern ZZI type guns used on the Italian dreadnoughts, provided close range defense against torpedo boats. These were placed abreast the funnels, three on either side of the ship. She was also armed with two torpedo tubes in deck-mounted launchers, though shortly after her commissioning, these were replaced with submerged tubes. ''Quarto'' was designed to carry 200 naval mines.

The ship was only lightly armored, being protected by a curved armor deck that was thick and sloped downward at the sides, where it connected to the sides of the hull. The forward conning tower had thick sides.

Service history

''Quarto'' was built at the ''Regia Marina'' dockyard in Venice, with her keel being laid down on 14 November 1909. Her completed hull was launched on 19 August 1911, and after fitting-out work was finished in early 1913, she was commissioned into the fleet on 31 March 1913. By 1914, ''Quarto'' was had been assigned to the 1st Division of the 1st Squadron; the squadron consisted of two divisions of armored cruisers, each supported by a scout cruiser. ''Quarto''s division also included the dreadnought battleships ''Dante Alighieri'' and two of the ''Conte di Cavour''-class battleships.

World War I

Italy declared neutrality at the start of World War I in August 1914, but by July 1915, the Triple Entente had convinced the Italians to enter the war against the Central Powers; Italy's primary opponent in the Adriatic was the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, the Italian naval chief of staff, believed that Austro-Hungarian submarines could operate too effectively in the narrow waters of the Adriatic, which could also be easily seeded with minefields. The threat from these underwater weapons was too serious for him to use the fleet in an active way. Instead, Revel decided to implement blockade at the relatively safer southern end of the Adriatic with the main fleet, while smaller vessels, such as the MAS boats, conducted raids on Austro-Hungarian ships and installations. ''Quarto'' and the two s were based at Brindisi during the war, where the narrow Adriatic joined the Mediterranean.

During the war, enemy submarines frequently misjudged ''Quarto''s speed as a result of her very shallow draft, which produced a misleading wave pattern on the hull. The ship escaped torpedoing on numerous occasions due to this factor. In December 1915, an Austro-Hungarian force of two cruisers and five destroyers attempted to intercept transports supplying the Serbian Army trapped in Albania. ''Quarto'', flying the flag of Rear Admiral Silvio Bellini, and the British cruiser , along with five French destroyers, sortied from Brindisi to intercept the Austro-Hungarians. , and four Italian destroyers followed two hours later. ''Quarto'' and ''Dartmouth'' pursued the cruiser and fought a long-range gun battle as the Austro-Hungarian ship tried to escape. ''Helgoland'' managed to evade her pursuers after the fall of darkness and both sides returned to port. By May 1917, Bellini had been replaced by Rear Admiral Alfredo Acton. ''Quarto'' was unable to get underway to participate in the Battle of the Otranto Straits because she did not have steam up in her boilers when the Italo-British force at Brindisi learned of the Austro-Hungarian raid on the Otranto Barrage.

Postwar career

''Quarto'' was modified in 1926–1927 to handle a Macchi M.18 seaplane. In the early 1930s, ''Quarto'' was sent to East Asian waters, where she replaced the cruiser . ''Quarto''s stay there was short lived, as she was transferred to Africa to support the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935–1936. Three of her 76 mm guns were replaced with machine guns in 1936. She thereafter served as the flagship of Rear Admiral Alberto di Moriondo, the commander of Italian warships operating off Spain with the non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War. On 24 May 1937, Spanish Republican bombers nearly hit the ship while she was moored in Palma, Majorca. She remained with the naval forces patrolling Spanish waters into 1938. The ship suffered a boiler explosion while moored in the Port de Pollença, Majorca, on 1 August 1938, which killed seven men. She steamed to La Spezia on 18 August to be evaluated, but it was determined that it was not worth the cost of repairing her.

''Quarto'' remained in service for a short time longer, and she was stricken from the naval register on 5 January 1939. She was subsequently towed from La Spezia to Livorno, where her hull was used for experiments. These tests included a trial of the new SLC human torpedo, which was later used by the ''Decima Flottiglia MAS'', in La Spezia in early 1940. During the test one of the three SLCs reached the ship and successfully planted dummy explosives; these weapons were later used to disable the battleships and in the raid on Alexandria during World War II. In November 1940, tests with the new MT explosive motorboats with reduced charges were carried out. The MT boats were later used to sink the cruiser at Souda Bay. The MT boat test caused significant damage to ''Quarto'', even with the reduced explosives, and she quickly sank in shallow water; her wreck continued to be used to test new shell designs into 1941.

Footnotes

Notes

Citations

References

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

External links

Quarto
Marina Militare website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quarto
Cruisers of the Regia Marina
Ships built in Venice
1911 ships
Ships sunk as targets
Maritime incidents in November 1940
Ships built by Venetian Arsenal