Heavy Cruiser "Zara"

[Azumazi]

 

The Zara class were laid down between 4/29/1929-3/17/1931 across 4 ships. The Fiume, Gorizia, Pola, and Zara. For her time and quite a bit after, her class was considered the best designed and fielded Heavy Cruisers of World War 2 by many nations. Some other nations had better parts in different areas, but many considered the class to have the best balanced over all important aspects of a Heavy Cruiser. Those being, Speed, Longevity, Firepower, Armor, and Endurance.  She was compared a lot to the Hipper class of the KM, which borrowed some design features of the class. Unlike the Hipper class, the Zara class did not share its issues with its high pressure boilers having issues maintaining speed for long periods of time.

 

The Original requirements for the Zara class to precede the Trento class was that it must have 200mm of belt, good deck protection, 32 knots speed, and 8 8inch guns. Shortly into the design they found out that those requirements would not fit into a 10000 ton design, so they adjusted and decided to raise it above that weight limit. They did attempt to limit the excess by removing torpedo tubes from the design and torpedo's, reducing the belt armor to 150m between the turrets, reducing the size of the superstructure, removing the flush deck design by lowering the rear deck. They also saved weight by using the Condottieri 2 screw design with their newer boilers which in total only weighted in at 1400t's, vs Trento's 2330t boilers and machinery. All in all it still put the ship at roughly 1600 tons over the 10k limit.

 

Now at the time they were in production, they changed designations 3 times. First they designated them as Light Cruisers, then to Armored Cruisers to distinguish themselves against their older sisters the Trento class, and lastly as Heavy Cruisers.

 

The Zara employed the All or Nothing armored system, her belt being 150mm tapering to 100mm under the waterline. It was enclosed by a 70mm armored deck and closed at the ends by 120mm upper and 90mm lower bulkheads. Barbettes were 150mm's above the deck and 140mm below. Communication tube was 120mm above deck into the conning tower and 100mm below. The Conning tower had 150mm walls, 70mm floor and an 80mm roof which was surmounted by a director with 120mm walls and a 95mm roof. Now it had a secondary weather deck of 20mm to fuse bombs and shells hitting it with plunging fire over its 70mm armored deck, with 30mm belt towards the sides tapering into the belt. All in all, its weight was 2700 tons in armor.

 

The boilers generated between 76000 and 95000hp for 32kts 270rpm on the screws. It's normal SHP was 76000, but it could be overloaded to 95000hp and sustain it for a long period. It could however be overloaded to an even higher standard for short periods, the record was Zara at roughly 132000shp putting her at 35.2kts for 1 hour while only at 11,250 tons. On her second test with full load they pushed 33.2 knots at 106060shp. She was regulated to keep within 95000shp on her boilers for endurance reasons.

 

She was armed with the 203mm/53 cailber Mod 29 which fired a 125kg shell at around 3.5 rounds per minute and had a maximum elevation of 45 degrees, with a muzzle velocity of 939m/s and a maximum range of 31455m. She held 157 rounds per gun for her main armament.

 

She also was refitted in the late 30's removing her 100mm gun mounts along with the 40mm and 12.7mm guns and replaced with 8 37mm/54 aa guns in 2 quad mounts, and 8 13.2mm's in 2 quad mounts fitted. She also had 2 120mm/15 guns mounted abreast of the conning tower for starshell use, but were later replaced by 4 37mm/54 aa guns in two twin mounts.

 

In 1942, they replaced their 13.2mm guns with 14 20mm/65 caliber in 6 dual mounts and 2 singles.

 

During the battle of Matapan Pola, Zara and Fiume were destroyed by the British Fleet by Battleships and DD torpedo's during a heavy engagement at night under pure darkness the British managed to sneak up on them at roughly 3km away and opened up on the two CA's before they had a chance to react.

 

The Zara classes only downfall was lack of radar to detect enemy ships and it was their downfall. Many historians agree that if the ships had been set with radar that battle would not have happened the way it did, but the Italians were lacking in upgrading their ships with proper air and ground search radars.

 

 

 

 

Data gathered from www.regiamarina.net and Conway's all the worlds fighting ships 1922-1946.

[Azumazi]

This post is for some pictures :)

 

 

[Flakstorm_]

good information +1

[mr3awsome]

lovely article

[JeeWeeJ]

Very sexy ships, would love to drive them. It's a shame that the Italian admiralty never adopted the radar properly... Otherwise the British would never have be able to sneak up to them like that.

 

Anyway, +1!

[Capcon]

Note how close together the guns are mounted in each turret. This caused a good deal of interference between the shells when fired together leading to inaccuracy at range. Many Italian ships had similar troubles. Other ships/mounting on other navies had the same problem including US triple mounted 8" and 14" guns.

 

The Zara's were good ships in many ways and in other naval games I have played have always given me good service.

 

Thanks for posting Asumazi.

[Tanz]

Great read Asumazi  :medal:

Always liked the cruisers. Its to bad they went down the way they did. The Gorizia was given that sweet looking splinter camo that we see on all Italian warships back in 1942 and she kept it till her end. I think Fiume had a go at the camo back in 1941, but am not to sure  :unsure:

[NGTM_1R]

Mounting the catapult forward probably had its advantages in getting the plane off the deck, but it must have played hell with the aircraft every time they shipped water over the bow, and severely restricted the ship's ability to operate the aircraft in general with recovery and resupply.

[Azumazi]

Capcon, on 02 April 2013 - 02:26 PM, said:

Note how close together the guns are mounted in each turret. This caused a good deal of interference between the shells when fired together leading to inaccuracy at range. Many Italian ships had similar troubles. Other ships/mounting on other navies had the same problem including US triple mounted 8" and 14" guns.

The Zara's were good ships in many ways and in other naval games I have played have always given me good service.

Thanks for posting Asumazi.

Yeah that issue plagued hell for the French quads. Which is why the Zara class learned to stagger their fire by firing one barrel of each turret in a salvo and then the next barrel in a salvo. It let them correct that issue and they could stagger the fire. I'm not sure what the US did with their earlier model 8's and the older Standard Class ships that had their 14's so close, but I am pretty sure the BB's would have just done the same by firing the flanking guns in the turret without the middle gun and after firing the middle to keep it from causing issues.