Ruggiero di Lauria-class ironclad

The ''Ruggiero di Lauria'' class was a class of ironclad battleships built for the Italian ''Regia Marina'' (Royal Navy) during the late 19th century. The three ships—, , and –were improved versions of the earlier s. The primary improvements were new breech-loading guns, better armor protection, and more powerful machinery. The ships, designed by Giuseppe Micheli, marked a temporary diversion from the ideas of Benedetto Brin, who had designed the two preceding classes along with the following class.

Construction of the ships was very lengthy, and by the time they were completed, the first pre-dreadnought battleships were being built. Rendered obsolescent by these new ships, the ''Ruggiero di Lauria''s had limited careers. The spent their time in service alternating between the Active and Reserve Squadrons, and they were primarily occupied with conducting training exercises. The ships were removed from service in 1909–1911; ''Francesco Morosini'' was expended as a target ship, while ''Ruggiero di Lauria'' became a floating oil tank and ''Andrea Doria'' was converted into a depot ship. During World War I, ''Andrea Doria'' returned to service as a guard ship before being repurposed for oil storage after the war, eventually being broken up in 1929. ''Ruggiero di Lauria'' survived until 1943, when she was sunk by bombers during World War II. Her wreck was salvaged in 1945.

Design

Starting in the 1870s, following the Italian fleet's defeat at the Battle of Lissa, the Italians began a large naval expansion program, initially aimed at countering the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The program included the and es, which were both designed by Benedetto Brin. The ''Ruggiero di Lauria''s were authorized in the naval program for 1880, and the task of designing them was assigned to Engineering Inspector Giuseppe Micheli. Vice Admiral Ferdinando Acton opposed the very large ironclads designed by Brin, and so he charged Micheli with creating a ship that would not exceed . Micheli chose to base his new design on a cut-down version of ''Duilio'', though he incorporated several improvements, including more modern, breech-loading guns, a more powerful propulsion system, and new, more effective compound armor. Micheli's tenure as the designer for Italian capital ships was short-lived, with Brin returning to create the follow-on , the final members of the second generation of Italian ironclads.

General characteristics and machinery

The ships of the ''Ruggiero di Lauria'' class were long between perpendiculars and long overall. They had a beam of and a draft of . They displaced normally and up to at full load. The ships were built with a high forecastle to improve sea-keeping over the ''Duilio'' class. A single military mast with fighting tops was located amidships; a hurricane deck connected the forward and aft superstructure. Both sections of superstructure was used to store several smaller boats; each section also had a large crane to handle the boats. The ships had a crew of 507–509 officers and men.Gardiner, p. 342

Their propulsion system consisted of a pair of compound marine steam engines, each driving a single screw propeller, with steam supplied by eight coal-fired, cylindrical fire-tube boilers. The boilers were trunked into two funnels, one in the forward superstructure and the other in the aft superstructure. ''Ruggiero di Lauria'' was the fastest member of the class, reaching a top speed of at . ''Francesco Morosini'' and ''Andrea Dorea'' had a top speed of around . The ships could steam for at a speed of .

Armament and armor

The ''Ruggiero di Lauria''s were armed with a main battery of four 27- caliber rifled breechloading guns, mounted in two pairs ''en echelon'' in a central barbette. These guns were the A 1882 model, and they fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of around . Their rate of fire was very slow, taking eight minutes to reload after each shot. They carried a secondary battery of two 32-caliber guns, one at the bow and the other at the stern, and four 32-caliber guns. The 152 mm gun fired a variety of shells, including armor-piercing shells, while the 120 mm guns fired shells. From 1900, the ships had their secondary battery significantly expanded with two guns, ten 40-caliber guns, twelve guns, five 37 mm revolver cannon, and two machine guns. As was customary for capital ships of the period, they carried five torpedo tubes submerged in the hull. The torpedoes carried a warhead and had a range of .

The ships' protection scheme consisted of compound armor. The ''Ruggiero di Lauria''s had an armored belt that was thick; the citadel received the same thickness of steel. They had an armored deck that was thick, and their conning tower was armored with of steel plate. The barbette had of steel armor.

Construction

The ships' construction times were very lengthy; by the time they were completed, the United Kingdom had begun building the s, the first pre-dreadnought battleships, which rendered older ironclad battleships obsolescent. In addition, technological progress, particularly in armor production techniques—first Harvey armor and then Krupp armor—contributed to the ships' rapid obsolescence.

Service history

The three ''Ruggiero di Lauria''s served in the Active Squadron for the first several years of their careers, into the mid-1890s. By 1895, ''Ruggiero di Lauria'' had been transferred to the Reserve Squadron, though ''Andrea Doria'' and ''Francesco Morosini'' remained in the Active Squadron. That year, ''Ruggiero di Lauria'' and ''Andrea Doria'' joined the Active Squadron for a major cruise to Britain and Germany. All three ships were assigned to the Active Squadron in 1899. That year, ''Ruggiero di Lauria'' and ''Andrea Doria'' took part in a naval review in Cagliari for the Italian King Umberto I, which included a French and British squadron as well.

All three ships had been transferred to the Reserve Squadron by 1905, and they were quickly discarded. In 1908, the Italian Navy decided to discard ''Ruggiero di Lauria'' and ''Francesco Morosini'', while ''Andrea Doria'' remained in service until 1911. ''Francesco Morosini'' was expended as a target ship for torpedo experiments in September 1909. ''Ruggiero di Lauria'' was converted into a floating oil tank in 1909 and was renamed ''GM 45''; she was sunk in an air raid in 1943 during World War II. ''Andrea Doria'' served as a depot ship until Italy entered World War I in May 1915, when she was employed as a guard ship in Brindisi. After the war, she too was converted into an oil tank, before being broken up for scrap in 1929.Gardiner & Gray, pp. 255–256

Notes

References

* Brassey, Thomas A., ed. (1896). ''The Naval Annual'' (Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co.).
* Brassey, Thomas A., ed. (1899). ''The Naval Annual'' (Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co.).
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* Brassey, Thomas A., ed. (1908). ''The Naval Annual'' (Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co.).
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* Neal, William George, ed. (1896). ''The Marine Engineer'' (London: Office for Advertisements and Publication) XVII.
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Further reading

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External links

Ruggero di Lauria (1884)
Marina Militare website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruggiero Di Lauria-class battleship

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Battleship classes