Sparviero (Italian: "Sparrowhawk") was an Italian aircraft carrier designed and built during World War II of the Regia Marina. She was originally the ocean liner MS Augustus built in 1927 for Navigazione Generale Italiana, but was transferred to the new Italian Line after the merger of Navigazione Generale Italiana. The conversion was started in 1942 originally under the name Falco but was never completed, and the ship was never delivered to the Regia Marina. She began to be scrapped in 1946, a process completed by 1952.[1]

Sparviero under construction
History
Italy
Name	1939: Falco 1940: Sparviero
Builder	Ansaldo, Genoa
Launched	13 December 1926
Completed	November 1927
In service	1939–1944
Renamed	1939
Fate	Taken over by the Kriegsmarine
Germany
Name	Sparviero
Fate	Scuttled in 1944; scrapped, 1946
General characteristics
Type	Aircraft carrier
Displacement	30418 tons
Length	232.5 m (762 ft 10 in)
Beam	29.4 m (96 ft 5 in)
Draught	7.39 m (24 ft 3 in)
Installed power	28,000 horsepower (21,000 kW)
Propulsion	diesels
Speed	20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Capacity	1,420 men (including 107 officers)
Armament	8 × 135/45 mm 12 × 65/64 mm 22 machine guns 20/65 mm
Armour	70 mm (vertical) 80 mm (horizontal)
Aircraft carried	46 aircraft: 34 or 16 fighters 9 torpedo bombers

Service History

As MS Augustus

MS Augustus and her sistership, were a group combined ocean liner and cruise ship built in 1927 for Navigazione Generale Italiana. She was launched in December 1926 at the Ansaldo Shipyard and was christened by Edda Mussolini (daughter of dictator Benito Mussolini). The ship was later transferred to the new Italian Line after the merger of Navigazione Generale Italiana. When the war started in 1939, she and her sister ship, the Roma were laid up before Commissioned by the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina).[2][3]

As 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 in 1939 and then to Sparviero in 1940. The project resumed the one developed by the Colonel of the Naval Engineers Luigi Gagnotto and the transformation works began in September 1942 in the Ansaldo Shipyards in Genoa.

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 (148 ft) before the bow. The main armament would have been placed at the sides of the forecastle at the level of the hangar deck, and at the stern and there was no island structure because the exhaust gases of the diesel engines would have been expelled laterally below the level of the flight deck.[1]

She would have had a narrow flight deck. Her air group was to be either 34 fighters or 16 fighters and 9 torpedo bombers.[2] The propulsion plant was to remain unchanged, the diesel engines giving an estimated speed of under 20 knots.[3]

The Sparviero was going to have an armament of six 152 mm guns and four of 102, as well as several anti-aircraft machine gun positions.

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 in September 1943.[1][2] 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 Sparviero, the Italian aircraft carrier Aquila, a modification of the sister ship of Augustus, SS Roma, was scuttled and scrapped before the conversion into the aircraft carrier was finished.[2]

These two ships were the last attempts to build aircraft carriers for the Italian Navy until 1981, when work began on Giuseppe Garibaldi.

See also

• SS Roma (1926)
• MS Augustus (1926)
• Italian aircraft carrier Aquila

Notes

Bibliography

• Pierluigi Malvezzi, Regia Marina Italiana: Italian Carriers – regiamarina.net

External links

• Aircraft carrier Aquila and Sparviero
• Portaerei Sparviero
• Sparviero Marina Militare website

На других языках

[es] Sparviero (1942)

[fr] Sparviero (porte-avions)

[it] Sparviero (portaerei)

[ru] Спарвьеро (авианосец)