Italian aircraft carrier Sparviero

Sparviero (Italian: "Sparrowhawk") was an Italian aircraft carrier designed and built during World War II of the Regia Marina. She was originally the ocean liner MS Augustus. The conversion was started in 1942 but was never completed, and the ship was never delivered to the Regia Marina. She began to be scrapped in 1946, a process completed by 1952.

For other ships with the same name, see Italian ship Sparviero and Italian ship Falco.

Sparviero under construction
History
Italy
Name:
  • 1939: Falco
  • 1940: Sparviero
Builder: Ansaldo Shipyard, Genoa
Launched: 13 December 1926
Completed: November 1927
In service: 1939–1944
Renamed: 1939
Fate: Taken over by the Kriegsmarine
Germany
Name: Sparviero
Fate: Scuttled in 1944; scrapped, 1946
General characteristics
Type: Aircraft carrier
Displacement: 30418 tons
Length: 232.5 m (762 ft 10 in)
Beam: 29.4 m (96 ft 5 in)
Draught: 7.39 m (24 ft 3 in)
Installed power: 28,000 horsepower (21,000 kW)
Propulsion: diesels
Speed: 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Capacity: 1,420 men (including 107 officers)
Armament:
  • 8 × 135/45 mm
  • 12 × 65/64 mm
  • 22 machine guns 20/65 mm
Armour:
  • 70 mm (vertical)
  • 80 mm (horizontal)
Aircraft carried: 46

As MS Augustus
Main article: MS Augustus

As Sparviero

In 1936, a project to transform the 30,418 GRT ocean liner Augustus into an auxiliary carrier was prepared. The idea was initially abandoned but then resumed in 1942. The passenger ship Augustus was first renamed Falco and then to Sparviero.

The superstructure was to be removed. She would have also been equipped with a single hangar with two lifts and fitted with a flight deck that ended 45 meters (148 ft) before the bow. She would have had a narrow flight deck. Her air group was to be either 34 fighters or 16 fighters and 9 torpedo bombers. The propulsion plant was to remain unchanged, the diesel engines giving an estimated speed of under 20 knots.

Wreck of Sparviero in Genoa, 1944

The conversion began in September 1942, the work undertaken by the Ansaldo Shipyard in Genoa. Apart from removing the superstructure little else was done before the Italian capitulation in September 1943. The hull was captured by the Germans and was sunk on 5 October 1944 to block access to the port of Genoa. The wreckage was recovered after the war and finally scrapped in 1951.

Like Sparviero, the Italian aircraft carrier Aquila, a modification of the sister ship of Augustus, SS Roma, was scuttled and scrapped before the conversion into the aircraft carrier was finished. These two ships were the last attempts to build aircraft carriers for the Italian Navy until 1981, when work began on Giuseppe Garibaldi.

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See also

References
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