Post Numéro: 13 de Enrico Cernuschi 15 Juil 2007, 21:00
Salut les gars,
the Italian warships were quite better balanced than the French ones (look at the last Warship 2007 issue; the confrontation by John Jordan between the two Marine Nationale Mogador and Volta and the Italian "Capitani Romani" is a merciless one for the Rayale); the Italian destroyers were the rigth ships for the right task, the French super destoryers were only too much big targets without better fighting qualities.
Le Triomphant was the right choice, lacking better, for a French presence in the South Pacific. An older destroyer had simply not the range and, above all, the sea keeping qualities necessary to cace the oceanic long wave. Anyway she almost sunk in an heavy storm there in Dec. 1943 and had to be sent to the States where remained until March 1945 for repairs and refitting.
Just for history the Regia Marina employed since 1945 until 1945 a sloop in the Indian Ocean, the Eritrea (it become, in 1948, a French ship); this ship was joined, in 1945, by a destroyer, the Carabiniere, which worked with the British carriers during the Summer monsoon season without the seakeeping problems of Le Triomphant.
The submarines Cagni, Bragadin, Giada and Brin were used in the Indian ocean too, but only for training duties.
The USN asked many times the Regia Marina to send the battleships Vittorio Veneto and Italia for the South Pacific since Sept. 1943 until July 1945, but the British opposed always such a chance as it would have menaced the London requests towards Italy after the war.
Au revoir
EC