The Emanuele Filiberto underway c. 1901-1910. Enlarge
In every navy there is a ship or two that makes you ask, why? Why did they ever build this thing? What were they thinking? In the Italian navy those ships are the Emanuele Filibertos.
The Regia Marina had its share of brawny contenders who didn't live up to early promise, but even its most extravagant flops had style. The name ship was almost a caricature of the pre-dreadnought battleship, with absurdly long funnels, fat hips and narrow waist, and swept-back bridge wings. Unlike any others in the Regia Marina, they emulated the French design fixation of the 1890s with extreme tumble-home hulls that were as unsightly as they were unseaworthy. Their 10-inch guns were manufactured by Armstrongs at their Elswick gun foundry, like most of the big guns of the 19th-century Italian fleet and even some of Italy's first dreadnoughts. Where the stereotypical Italian battleship was over-engined and over-gunned with understated protection, these ships had neither outstanding speed, overpowering guns, nor adequate protection -- like the tone-deaf actress Lina Lamont in "Singing In the Rain," they were a triple threat.
These were low-freeboard Mediterranean battleships. The weather deck rode only 14 feet above the surface, but tall barbettes projecting from the hull gave the main guns an additional 8 feet of clearance for reasonable weatherliness. Their engines were manufactured in Italy to a Maudslay design.
These ships were the special project of Admiral Pacoret di Saint-Bon (right), for many years Italy's Navy Minister; although the ships supposedly embodied his ideas, he had little time to supervise their construction, being preoccupied with the modernization of Italy's rickety shipyards, and dying in office before the two ships' completion. Anticipating the situation a few years later with Benedetto Brin and the Queen Margherita class, the second ship was named Ammiraglio di Saint-Bon in his honor. These two ships were an attempt to build an effective battleship on the cheap. Beset by construction delays and cost overruns, they failed in that attempt. The strange hull shape and small size combined to render a peculiarly bad sea-boat.
Besides the peculiar hull, the ships had a single central mast with funnels well spaced on either side of it, lending a symmetrical look in the Italian tradition. Below decks, the engine room lodged under the mast, sandwiched by blocks of boiler rooms fore and aft. The ship's redoubt was compact and oblique-ended, butting to the breech-side of the barbettes. These were low-freeboard ships. The good admiral attempted to compensate with extra tall barbettes to keep the guns dry; but the extra topweight made the ships even more unstable. Their overall appearance of the Filiberto was comic, like a caricature of an 1890s battleship, a Monopoly token, or like a submarine sprouting smokestacks and bits of superstructure from its low-riding, whalebacked hull. The St-Bon was slightly less of a Harlequin with her notably shorter funnels.
It cannot be argued that these ships were completely useless as warships. In the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12, Emanuele Filiberto sank an enemy ship -- the 1869 paddle yacht Istaniye -- at Vathi on the island of Samos, April 18, 1912. All respect to the late Admiral di St-Bon aside, the ships' reputation in the fleet was attested by the order to scrap them in 1915, after only 14 years in limited service. However, they were granted a reprieve on the eve of WWI. Both ships served as escorts in the Dardanelles and Balkan campaigns, and in Albania and the Adriatic after Versailles, backing up the Italian irredentists' claims to Trieste and the Istrian ports. The two ships survived into 1920, being among the very first consigned to the scrapyard after peace was signed.
Specifications for the Emanuele Filiberto class:
Dimensions: 367'2" x 69'3" x 23'10" - Filiberto; draft 25'3" - St-Bon. Displacement: ~9,800 tons.* Armament: (4) 10"/40 cal (2x2), (8) 6"/40, (8) 4.7"/40, (6) 3"/40, and (6) 47mm guns; (4) 18" torpedo tubes, all above water. Armor: Harvey type. Belt: 10"/3", connning tower: 6"; turrets: 10", casemates and bulkheads: 6", deck: 2.75"/1.5". Propulsion: (12) cylindrical boilers; (2) Maudslay inverted vertical triple expansion engines developing 12,500 HP, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 18 knots (18.3 achieved under forced draft). Crew: 557-565. Initial cost per ship: ~£700,000 at 1900 valuation.
Ships in class: Ammiraglio di Saint-Bon · Emanuele Filiberto
Metric Specifications:
Dimensions: 111.8m x 21.1m x 7.27m - Filiberto; draft 7.69m - St-Bon. Displacement: ~9,800 tons.* Armament: (4) 254 mm/40 cal (2x2), (8) 152 mm/40, (8) 120mm/40, (6) 76 mm/40, and (6) 47mm guns; (4) 45cm torpedo tubes, all above water. Armor: Harvey type. Belt: 254/76 mm, conning tower 152 mm; turrets: 254 mm; casemates and bulkheads: 152 mm; deck: 70/38 mm. Propulsion: (12) cylindrical boilers; (2) Maudslay inverted vertical triple expansion engines developing 9,321 kW, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 33.3 km/hr (33.89 km/hr achieved under forced draft). Crew: 557-565.
* NOTE: The Castellammare-built Filiberto was marginally smaller than her Venetian-made sister, which drew an additional 18 inches. Figures from Oceania Wiki are as follows:
Emanuele Filiberto: 9,645 tons standard; 9,940 full load.
Ammiraglio di Saint-Bon: 10,082 standard; 10,531 full load.
Overhead view of Emanuele Filiberto shows the ship's chunky proportions and short-ish, tumble-home hull; tall stovepipe funnels lend an additional comic touch. The ships' stability problems were of little consequence, since they both spent much of their time tied up in port looking important, and only ventured forth in fine weather. This was one such occasion: the Mediterranean fleet maneuvers of 1907. Ship was named for a 16th century Duke of Savoy, admired for replacing Latin with modern Italian in his capital of Turin. Markedly taller funnels, rising nearly to the height of the crosstrees, provided immediate visual distinction from Filiberto's sister Saint-Bon.
Side view of the Emanuele Filiberto by Aldo Cherini further shows the ship's verticality and comical proportions. These chunky ships bore more than a passing resemblance to the Garibaldi class armored cruisers, which were sometimes spoken of as Second Class Battleships. Enlarge
Here is the Saint-Bon under forced draft on her trials; note shorter funnels, tall barbettes and low-freeboard hull. Compare to the British Admiral class. These ships' long gestation (they were laid down in 1893 and not completed until 8 years later) guaranteed their obsolescence; the theory of the second-class battleship was current in the early 1890s but passé by the time they joined the fleet. An 18-knot ship in 1893 was a bit above average (the British Royal Sovereigns only made 15-16), but merely average by 1901 and sub-par a very few years later, negating any of the savings in weight and fuel achieved by making smaller ships.
The Saint-Bon whiles away another lazy Mediterranean afternoon under her awnings. It even seems as though the after turret is having a yawn and a stretch!
The Emanuele Filiberto at Fiume after the 1918 Armistice, repainted grey, with a rain cap sealing the after stack only: the sign of a ship with cold grates. She was enforcing Italy's claim to the northern Adriatic territories around the Istrian Peninsula following the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire -- an operation that gave Futurist poet and war hero Gabriele D'annunzio his 15 minutes of fame. As we look at her, this ship has only a few more months to endure before meeting a well-deserved natural death.
Relevant Weblinks
- Interview on St-Bon's Strategic Plans & Policies - New York Times, Jan. 12, 1893
- British Second-Class Battleship HMS Triumph (1902)
- British Second-Class Battleship HMS Renown (1897)
- Russian Second-Class Battleship Rostislav (1894)
- American Second-Class Battleship USS Texas (1895)
- American Second-Class Battleship USS Maine (1895)
- Pre-Dreadnought Warship Models from Kom-Brig
