RM Aquilla (CV-1940)

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The Italian Navy was not in a position to lay down the ships they wanted to, on the failure of the 1930 treaty, and had to put the two hybrid classes of the Torino and Livorno into production. It was not until 1935 that a group of six hulls could be started to be laid down in pairs. A pair of battleships went first in 1935, then for the next two years an aircraft carrier and a battleship were put into production. These were all to be big ships, approximately 800 feet, the Littorio Class battleships (4), and the Aquilla Class aircraft carriers (2).

The drawing turned out alright. I tried an overhead but deleted it after 4 hours of despair. Nothing would match up. Ce'st la vie. Below is an overhead of the real life Aquilla (I found on the net) which is totally different to the drawing above.



So the Italian Navy has three aircraft carriers on their joining the war in June 1940 and the fall of France. This is why the Commonwealth forces have more of everything. They need it. The Italians having carriers helps them in some ways, but the bottom line is still that their equipment is not as good as the forces arrayed against them. The Commonwealth aircraft are so much better than the Italian aircraft. C.R.42 fighters and license built Ju.87 Stukas were the aircraft aboard at wars start. The C.R.42's were replaced in early 1941 with Me.109T fighters passed on from Germany when they replaced that type with FW190A carrier aircraft.

The Aquilla was of a size of the Commonwealth Illustrious class carriers but only carried 60 aircraft to the Illustrious' 84 aircraft. Aircraft handling facilities were not as good as they could be. Even things like catapults were not fitted till 1941, when the ship was under repair from damage.
 

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