RN Giuseppe Miraglia - wasted opportunity?

[DarrenMarshall]

The Regia Nave Giuseppe Miraglia was a seaplane carriers, who served the Regia Marina during the second world war.



The ship can launch seaplanes during the navigation, and in the service was used as scout for the Regia Marina.

Now the question, can this ship serve as offensive ship with armed seaplanes? The only offensive operations were did by her seaplanes as ASW, but never with seaplanes armed as torpedo bombers.

[Dili]

It was just a training /logistic ship. Slow 21 kt or less.

Italians didn't even had land torpedo bombers at their war start, and only adopted the S.79 bomber that was itself an adopted fast transport courier aircraft .
They didn't had any floatplane for the job, catapults with weight for that, the embarked flotplanes were Ro.43/44 that were very light could not even take half of a torpedo.

Also Italians did not recovered floatplanes, all embarked floatplanes went to a near base after making their search. It is less practical and safe in such closed sea like Mediterranean to recover them since enemy is always lurking near.

[Urmel]

Where do you put a torpedo on a catapult-launched seaplane?

[Ironmachine]

Wasn't the Aichi M6A Seiran catapult-launched and able to carry a torpedo?

[Dili]

It was. There is no impossibility , it depends how the catapult works.

[Urmel]

It was. There is no impossibility , it depends how the catapult works.

Then you're looking at reconstruction of the catapult, and the question of how many double-float planes (Cant 506?) you can fit on her? The planes in the picture seem quite small.

[Dili]

I meant not about Italians. Just it is not impossible technically. Like ironmachine i thought you were making a generic affirmation.

I made that point in my other post that Italians had no float plane for the objective. If they had to choose one would be probably Fiat RS 14 but would it resist the catapult g's? A catapult plane has to be prepared for a strong acceleration unless has a very low wing loading and that acceleration need is reduced.

[Urmel]

Hi Dili, no I was making a specific point on this idea, not a generic one.

[Dili]

Ok