From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Italian aircraft carrier Sparviero
Italian aircraft carrier Sparviero
Capacity: 1,420 men (including 107 officers)
Armament: 8 x 135/45 mm
12 x 65/64 mm
22 machine-guns 20/65 mm
Armour: 70 mm (vertical)
80 mm (horizontal)
Sparviero (Italian: "Sparrowhawk") was an Italian aircraft
The Sparviero under construction carrier designed and built during World War II. She was
originally the ocean liner MS Augustus. The conversion
Career (Italy)
was started in 1942 and was almost completed, but the
ship was never delivered to the Regia Marina. She began
Name: 1939: Falco to be scrapped in 1946, a process completed by 1952.
1940: Sparviero
Operator: Italian Navy As the MS Augustus
Builder: Ansaldo Shipyard, Genoa Main article: MS Augustus
Launched: 13 December 1926
Completed: November 1927
As the Sparviero
In 1936, a project to transform the 30,418 GRT ocean liner
In service: 1939-1944
Augustus into an auxiliary carrier was prepared. The idea
Renamed: 1939 was initially abandoned but then resumed in 1942. The
passenger ship Augustus was first renamed Falco and then
Fate: Taken over by the Kriegsmarine
to Sparviero.
Career The superstructure was to be removed. She would
(Germany) had also been equipped with a single hangar with two
lifts and fitted with a flight deck that ended 45 meters be-
Name: Sparviero fore the bow. She would have had a narrow flight deck.
Operator: Kriegsmarine Her air group was to be either 34 fighters or 16 fighters
and 9 torpedo bombers.[citation needed] The propulsion
Fate: Scuttled in 1944, then raised and scrapped
plant was to remain unchanged, the diesels giving an es-
in 1946
timated speed of under 20 knots.
Status: Scrapped The conversion began in September 1942, the work
General characteristics undertaken by the Ansaldo Shipyard in Genoa. Apart
from removing the superstructure little else was done
Type: Aircraft carrier before the Italian capitulation. The hull was captured by
the Germans and was sunk on 5 October 1944 to block ac-
Displacement: 30418 tons
cess to the port of Genoa. The wreckage was recovered
Length: 232.5 m after the war and finally scrapped in 1951.
Beam: 29.4 m
Like the Sparviero, the Italian aircraft carrier Aquila, a
modification of the sister ship of the Augustus, SS Roma,
Draught: 7.39 m was scuttled and scrapped before the conversion into the
Installed 28,000 HP aircraft carrier was finished. These two ships were the
power: last attempts to build aircraft carriers for the Italian Navy
until 1981, when work began on the Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Propulsion: diesels
Speed: 20 knots
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Italian aircraft carrier Sparviero
See also • http://www.regiamarina.net/arsenals/ships_it/
carrier/carrier_us.htm
• SS Roma (1926)
• MS Augustus
• Italian aircraft carrier Aquila
External links
• Aircraft carrier Aquila and Sparviero
References • Portaerei Sparviero
• http://forum.axishistory.com/
viewtopic.php?t=26059
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Italian_aircraft_carrier_Sparviero&oldid=448775512"
Categories:
• Ships built in Italy
• 1926 ships
• Aircraft carriers of the Regia Marina
• Unique aircraft carriers
• World War II aircraft carriers of Italy
• Aircraft carriers of the Kriegsmarine
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