Italian aircraft carrier Sparviero
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The Sparviero under construction
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| History | |
|---|---|
 Italy |
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| Name: |
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| Operator: | Italian Navy |
| Builder: | Ansaldo Shipyard, Genoa |
| Launched: | 13 December 1926 |
| Completed: | November 1927 |
| In service: | 1939–1944 |
| Renamed: | 1939 |
| Fate: | Taken over by the Kriegsmarine |
 Germany |
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| Name: | Sparviero |
| Operator: | Kriegsmarine |
| Fate: | Scuttled in 1944, then raised and scrapped in 1946 |
| Status: | Scrapped |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Aircraft carrier |
| Displacement: | 30418 tons |
| Length: | 232.5 m |
| Beam: | 29.4 m |
| Draught: | 7.39 m |
| Installed power: | 28,000 HP |
| Propulsion: | diesels |
| Speed: | 20 knots |
| Capacity: | 1,420 men (including 107 officers) |
| Armament: |
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| Armour: |
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Sparviero (Italian: "Sparrowhawk") was an Italian aircraft carrier designed and built during World War II. She was originally the ocean liner MS Augustus. The conversion was started in 1942 and was almost completed, but the ship was never delivered to the Regia Marina. She began to be scrapped in 1946, a process completed by 1952.
As the MS Augustus
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As the Sparviero
In 1936, a project to transform the 30,418 GRT ocean liner Augustus into an auxiliary carrier was prepared. The idea was initially abandoned but then resumed in 1942. The passenger ship Augustus was first renamed Falco and then to Sparviero.
The superstructure was to be removed. She would have also been equipped with a single hangar with two lifts and fitted with a flight deck that ended 45 meters before the bow. She would have had a narrow flight deck. Her air group was to be either 34 fighters or 16 fighters and 9 torpedo bombers.[citation needed] The propulsion plant was to remain unchanged, the diesels giving an estimated speed of under 20 knots.
The conversion began in September 1942, the work undertaken by the Ansaldo Shipyard in Genoa. Apart from removing the superstructure little else was done before the Italian capitulation. The hull was captured by the Germans and was sunk on 5 October 1944 to block access to the port of Genoa. The wreckage was recovered after the war and finally scrapped in 1951.
Like the Sparviero, the Italian aircraft carrier Aquila, a modification of the sister ship of the Augustus, SS Roma, was scuttled and scrapped before the conversion into the aircraft carrier was finished. These two ships were the last attempts to build aircraft carriers for the Italian Navy until 1981, when work began on the Giuseppe Garibaldi.
See also
References
- http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=26059
- http://www.regiamarina.net/arsenals/ships_it/carrier/carrier_us.htm
External links
| Shipwrecks |
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| Other incidents |
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- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with unsourced statements from September 2010
- Use dmy dates from September 2010
- Ships built in Genoa
- 1926 ships
- Aircraft carriers of the Regia Marina
- World War II aircraft carriers of Italy
- Aircraft carriers of the Kriegsmarine
- Naval ships of Italy captured by Germany during World War II
- Ships built by Gio. Ansaldo & C.
- Maritime incidents in October 1944
- Proposed aircraft carriers
