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warspite1 -> RE: unlucky navy (4/3/2012 8:30:32 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: micheljq
quote:
ORIGINAL: Centuur
Who needs aircraft carriers if one is fighting in the Med and able to get land based air cover almost everywhere? The main Italian problem was the Italian High Command. They didn't use their navy and airforce the way they should have done, from a military point of view. The use of radar came during the war itself and was in 1940 and 1941 not used extensively on Allied ships. Especially in late 1940, after the fall of France, the Italian navy was superior to the British in the Med. Fact was however that the Italians didn't realise this. If they had...
It is the same in WiF. An Italian player should use his navy wisely with air cover over it. If he does, than the CW might get a nasty surprise, even with CW carrier planes covering the British fleet. The British carrier planes can't cope with the Italians, IMHO. No, if the Euroaxis play it right, the British fleet will be hovering in the Cape St. Vincent after France is conquered/Vichyfied and won't venture a lot into the Med, until they have enough LBA in the Western Med.
Hi Centuur, I am not convinced about the fact that the ritals were able to cover all the Med. My understanding is that they had a good cover in the vicinity of Italy, Malta, Tunisia, Lybia coastlines.
The british were already aware of the threat to their carriers from land based airplanes, they already had experienced it near Narvik where they lost a carrier to the Luftwaffe. They were already cautious about not approaching too much from certain bases where they knew italian airplanes could come.
Another thing the italian navy did not have was the experience many crews of the Royal Navy had, it was one of the old british battleships, the Warspite who scored a record 26000 yards hit on the Guilio Cesare, not the contrary, despite the italian navy having "better guns" theorically.
Maybe the italian fleet was not very eager to engage the older british battleships, who knows if they had done it in 1940, what could have had happened you maybe right, we will never know.
Warspite1
If you refer to the carrier Glorious then that had nothing to do with air power. Glorious was sunk by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
It was the balls of Admiral Cunningham that won the victory of Matapan. He ran the risk of sailing his ships sufficiently close to the mainland such that they would be attacked from the air once daylight came. However, unlike the Italian Admirals (who were in fairness acting on orders from above) Cunningham saw his job as putting himself in harm's way if it meant securing a naval victory.
That, ultimately, was the difference.
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