Italian battleship Giulio Cesare
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| Missing image GiulioCesare1914.jpg RN Giulio Cesare, speed tests, 1914 | |
| Career | Missing image Regia_Marina_Ensign.png Kingdom of Italy |
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| Laid down: | June 24, 1910 |
| Launched: | October 15, 1911 |
| Commissioned: | 1915 |
| Decommissioned: | 18 May 1928 |
| Reconstructed: | 1933–1937 |
| Fate: | Given to Soviet Navy, sunk 1955 |
| Struck: | 1947 |
| General Characteristics (before reconstruction) | |
| Displacement: | 23,088 tons standard,
25,086 tons full load |
| Length: | 168.9 - 176.1 m |
| Beam: | 28 m |
| Draught: | 9.4 m |
| Propulsion: | 20 boilers, 4 shafts, 31,000 hp |
| Speed: | 21.5 knots (41 km/h) |
| Range: | 4,800 miles at 10 knots |
| Complement: | 1,000 |
| Armament: | 13 305/46 mm,
18 120/50 mm, 16 76/50 mm, 6 76/40 mm, 3 450 mm torpedo launchers |
| Aircraft: | 0 |
| Protection: | max 280 mm (vertical)
111 mm (horizontal) |
| General Characteristics (after reconstruction) | |
| Displacement: | 28,800 tons standard,
29,100 tons full load |
| Length: | 168.9 - 186.4 m |
| Beam: | 28 m |
| Draught: | 10.4 m |
| Propulsion: | 8 boilers, 2 shafts, 93,000 hp |
| Speed: | 28 knots (53 km/h) |
| Range: | 3,100 miles at 20 knots |
| Complement: | 1,236 |
| Armament: | 10 320/44 mm,
12 120/50 mm, 8 100/47 mm, 8 37/54 mm, 12 20/65 mm |
| Aircraft: | 0 |
| Protection: | max 280 mm (vertical)
135 mm (horizontal) |
Giulio Cesare was an Italian Conte di Cavour-class battleship that served in the Regia Marina in both World Wars before joining the Soviet Navy. Her keel was laid down on June 24, 1910 at Cantieri Ansaldo, Genua. She was launched October 15, 1911, and construction was completed May 14, 1914.
Giulio Cesare (Italian for Julius Caesar) had no active missions during World War I. In 1926 attacked the Greek island of Corfu, as a reaction against the killing of Italian representatives in Jamina; later was renovated. From 1928 to 1933 she was used as an artillery training ship, then went into the yards for extensive modernization.
Between 1933 and 1937 she was completely rebuilt, changing her silhouette and increasing her combat capabilities. Length was increased by 10.3 meters, and she was given new armored decks and new propulsion machinery that uprated her to 93,000 horsepower (69 MW), and allowed a speed of 28 knots (52 km/h).
During the Battle of Punta Stilo on July 9, 1940, Giulio Cesare was hit by a 15 inch (381 mm) shell as HMS Warspite set the record for naval gunnery against a moving target at well over 24,000 meters (26,000 yards).
Giulio Cesare was assigned to covering convoys until 1942, when she was declared obsolete for operative missions and used for training purposes only.
After the war Giulio Cesare, for compensation of war damages, was ceded to the Soviet Union who commissioned her as the Soviet battleship Novorossiysk.
Novorossiysk
As the Novorossiysk, she was a battleship of the Soviet Navy, which sank in 1955 with the loss of 608 lives, one of the worst maritime disasters after World War II.
Novorossiysk was originally the Italian battleship Giulio Cesare and on 3 February 1949 at Vlorė she was ceded to the Soviet Union as war reparations. The ship was commissioned into the Soviet Navy as Novorossiysk, and from July 1949 was based at Sevastopol, serving as flagship of the Black Sea Fleet and later as a gunnery training vessel.
On 1955-10-29, the Novorossiysk was moored in Sevastopol Bay, 300 meters (1000 feet) from shore and opposite a hospital. At 1:30am, an explosion estimated to be the equivalent of 1,200 kilograms of TNT under the bow of the ship pierced all decks from the bottom plating to the forecastle deck. In the forecastle deck there was one hole which measured 14×4 meters in size. The damage extended from the bow aft 22 meters.
The ship sank slowly from the bow, capsizing at 4:15am, 2 hours 45 minutes after the explosion, and 18 hours later became fully submerged. The capsizing resulted in the death of 608 sailors, most of whom were staying in the ship's compartments -- the greatest disaster in Russian naval history.
Because of the politics of the Cold War, the fate of the Novorossiysk remained clouded in mystery until the late 1980s.
The cause of the explosion is still unclear. As most probable was officially regarded sinking on a magnetic naval mine RMH, that had been laid by the Germans during the war. During the next two years divers found 19 German mines on the bottom of Sevastopol Bay. Eleven of the mines had the same TNT equivalent as the blast under Novorossiysk. There are however many doubts if it was a mine. The place, where Novorossiysk was, was considered as swept, and used for multiple stayings of ships. Some experts say, that electric ignitors in magnetic mines say could not work afer 11 years, because maximum battery life period was 9 years. Some experts say, that dimensions of a crater in a bottom (1 - 2.1 m deep) were to small for such a big mine. On the other hand, damage to the ship was extensive, and according to some research, fitting for an equivalent of 5,000 kilograms of TNT.
A more theatrical explanation was that Italian frogmen were avenging the transfer of the formerly-Italian battleship to the USSR. Covert action by the Italian special operations unit Decima Flottiglia MAS has often been surmised, and there are reports that not long thereafter a small group of Italian Navy frogmen received high military awards. However, no firm evience exists for this hypothesis. Other theory was hiding an explosive in a ship, before she was given to the Russians. No real traces of any type of sabotage have been found, though Soviet enquiries did not rule out this possibility because of the poor safeguarding of the fleet base on the night when the explosion happened. It should be noted, that such action could cause world war, if it was detected, so it would be extremely risky move.
The enormous loss of life was directly blamed on the incompetent actions of her captain, Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Victor Parkhomenko. Among other underestimates of the danger to his ship, he did not know the conditions of the sea bottom, believing that the ratio between the sea depth (17 meters) and the ship's beam (28 meters) would prevent capsizing. However, the bottom was soft ooze, 15 meters deep, which offered no resistance. It was also reported that the commander displayed conceit and groundless calmness during this critical situation, and had even expressed the wish to "go have some tea."
Because of the loss of Novorossiysk, the First Deputy Minister of Defence and the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov was fired from his post in November 1955, and in February 1956 he was demoted to the rank of vice admiral and sent to retirement without the right to return to active service in the Navy.
There is also a conspiracy theory on sinking Novorossisyk by the Soviet secret service divers in order to blame Turkey for the sabotage, that would be a pretext for alleged action of taking control over Bosporus and Dardanelles by the Soviets, which finally was abandoned. There is no strong evidence to support this hypothesis as well.