Roma (1942 battleship)

Type

Battleship

Period

20th Century

Nation

Italy

Overview: Roma was the third and final completed Littorio-class battleship of Italy's Regia Marina, entering service in the closing years of World War II. She is best remembered as the first warship ever sunk by a radio-guided precision munition, the German Fritz-X glide bomb, making her loss a landmark moment in the history of naval warfare. Specifications: As a Littorio-class ship she displaced roughly 45,485 long tons at full load, measured about 240.68 m (789 ft 8 in) overall with a beam of 32.82 m and a draft of 9.6 m. Her main battery comprised nine 381 mm (15 in) guns in three triple turrets, backed by twelve 152 mm secondary guns and a heavy array of 120 mm, 90 mm, 37 mm and 20 mm anti-aircraft weapons, with belt armor up to 350 mm thick and a top speed near 30 knots. Service History: Commissioned on 14 June 1942, Roma was hampered from the start by Italy's crippling wartime fuel shortages and spent most of her short career in port, serving mainly as a floating anti-aircraft platform defending naval bases rather than putting to sea in fleet actions. In June 1943 she was damaged twice by Allied bombing raids on La Spezia; after repairs she became flagship of Admiral Carlo Bergamini's battle fleet. On 9 September 1943, while steaming with the Italian fleet toward Malta to surrender under the armistice terms, she was attacked in the Strait of Bonifacio by German Do 217 bombers using Fritz-X guided bombs; hits detonated a forward magazine, and Roma capsized and broke in two, sinking with roughly 1,350–1,393 of her crew, including Bergamini. Notable Facts: The wreck was eventually located on the seabed off northern Sardinia after a lengthy, decades-long search involving multiple expeditions, finally being confirmed at great depth in the area's deep canyons. Roma's loss to a stand-off precision weapon is frequently cited as an early demonstration of the vulnerability of even heavily armored battleships to guided munitions, a fact of particular interest to modelers researching her wartime camouflage and anti-aircraft fit in her final months.