From 1941, Italy had been developing a top-secret project to install guided rocket weapons aboard aircraft carriers. Campini Capron s revolutionary guided rocket weapon, the DAAC, which would later become Hitler s Henschel HS-117 Schmetterling ( Butterfly ), was the selected projectile. Classified intelligence on the V-1 flying bomb and other aircraft projects were acquired and then discarded when Ansaldo s naval architect, Lino Campagnoli (1911 1975), issued plans for the Impero battleship to be transformed into a modern fleet carrier. Previously unpublished documentation reveals how the last of the four state-of-the-art Littorio-class battleships, which was in advanced completion (hull components and engines installed), was destined for conversion into a modern aircraft carrier. This is an exhaustive historical review of the Impero and Regia Marina s (Royal Navy) developments as well as the dramatic story of the lack of co-operation and strategic insight with Regia Aeronautica before and during the war (1922-1943). Also, a final evaluation of the revolutionary Pugliese anti-torpedo system, based on unpublished German and Russian documentation, is assessed.

From late 1941 Italy had been developing a secret project to arm aircraft carriers with shipboard strategic weapons. Naval architect Lino Campagnoli's archives unveil the plans of a fleet aircraft carrier, the converted Impero battleship, which was to be provided with embarked German V-1 as testified by the blueprints developed in 1941-43.

For over 40 years, Warship has been the leading annual resource on the design, development, and deployment of the world's combat ships. Featuring a broad range of articles from a select panel of distinguished international contributors, this latest volume combines original research, new book reviews, warship notes, an image gallery, and much more, maintaining the impressive standards of scholarship and research for which Warship has become synonymous. Detailed and accurate information is the keynote of all the articles, which are fully supported by plans, data tables, and stunning photographs.

For its final battleship design Italy ignored all treaty restrictions on tonnage, and produced one of Europe’s largest and most powerful capital ships, comparable with Germany’s Bismarck class, similarly built in defiance of international agreements. The three ships of the Littorio class were typical of Italian design, being fast and elegant, but also boasting a revolutionary protective scheme – which was tested to the limits, as all three were to be heavily damaged in the hard-fought naval war in the Mediterranean; Roma had the unfortunate distinction of being the first capital ship sunk by guided missile. These important ships have never been covered in depth in English-language publications, but the need is now satisfied in this comprehensive and convincing study by two of Italy’s leading naval historians. The book combines a detailed analysis of the design with an operational history, evaluating how the ships stood up to combat. It is illustrated with an amazing collection of photographs, many fine-line plans, and coloured artwork of camouflage schemes, adding up to as complete a monograph on a single class ever published. Among warship enthusiasts battleships enjoy a unique status. As the great success of Seaforth’s recent book on French battleships proves, that interest transcends national boundaries, and this superbly executed study is certain to become another classic in the field.

This book sheds new light on one of the most talked about incidents of the Second World War: the mighty duel betweenHMS Hood and the Bismarck. The author offers fresh evidence from recent studies of the wreck of theHood to unravel what happened on that fateful day.

Hitler's U-boats and his dreaded pocket battleships such as Bismarck and Tirpitz - Churchill dubbed the latter as 'The Beast' - continue to fascinate an ever-growing interest in the Second World War. Despite a numerical disadvantage when compared the Royal Navy, Hitler's U-boats wrecked havoc in the Atlantic against vulnerable convoys and the doomed Bismarck took on the might of Britain's battleships in a mighty clash of the titans. Hitler's Naval Bases, a work of love that took the author over forty years to research and write, is the most comprehensive and dedicated book on the subject matter. A world's first, it covers bases in remarkable detail from the smallest and unmanned locations to the largest dedicated bases in Lorient, Kiel and Wilhemshaven. The book covers the different types of naval base from isolated and forgotten bases, escape and survival bases, to the extremities of the main naval bases. The functions and various departments - artillery, ship construction to dockyard medical service - are explained as are North Sea naval bases in Emden, The Weser Ports and Cuxhaven, Baltic ports, the major bases that never were ('The Lobster's Claw on Heligoland') to France, Asia and German colonies, including re-fuelling in Spain and bases located in Russia and in the 'Heart of England'. Also covered are naval artillery and naval infantry as well as the anatomy of coastal artillery batteries, the shipping yards and even rules for living in such conditions. A most lavish and phenomenal book, it is beautifully illustrated with over 200 unpublished photographs complemented with thousands of unique interviews with veterans during the war as well as survivors. A labour of love, Hitler's Naval Bases is written by a world's leading authoritarian figure and is an essential book for those interested in the armed forces of the Third Reich.

This fully illustrated study details Germany and Italy's failed development of World War II aircraft carriers, and the naval aviation ships that the two Axis powers sent into action in their place. The quest for a modern aircraft carrier was the ultimate symbol of the Axis powers' challenge to Allied naval might, but fully-fledged carriers proved either too difficult, expensive or politically unpopular for either to make operational. After the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935, Hitler publicly stated his intention to build an aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin, which was launched in 1938. A year later, the ambitious fleet-expansion Z-Plan, was unveiled with two additional aircraft carriers earmarked for production . However, by the beginning of World War II, Graf Zeppelin was not yet completed and work was halted. Further aircraft carrier designs and conversion projects such as the ocean liner Europa and heavy cruiser Seydlitz were considered but, in January 1943, all construction work on surface vessels ceased and naval resources were diverted to the U-boat Campaign. This book explains not only the history of Germany's famous Graf Zeppelin fleet carrier and German carrier conversion projects but also Italy's belated attempt to convert two of her ocean liners into carriers. It considers the role of naval aviation in the two countries' rearmament programmes and describes how ultimately it was only Italian seaplane carriers and German ocean-going, catapult-equipped flying boat carriers that both Axis powers did eventually send into combat.