A Regia Marina Question

[Landshark]

Between the World Wars could the Italian Navy afford to scrap the Conte di Cavour and Andrea Doria class battleships and replace them with new capital ships or was modernising the four vessels all they could manage?

 

[sharlin]

The WW1 ships were not that old and had seen little service or sailing or action in the war so were in very good condition. The refits kept them capable and really they were not bad, sure they were not that well protected but they were still good ships. There were plans to build a 6 x 15 inch gunned ship but they fell through due to finances, really refitting the WW1 ships was the best option.

 

[alspug]

I think rather then a question of cost it was a question of building capacity . The Littorio class were very long in building with 6 years for the first two . Number three took 4 years and number 4 was never completed . Italy was in a difficult position in that they could build new ships but it was going to take a long time . Modernising the 4 older battleships kept the navy equipped with battleships until the Littorio class arrived. they modernised two from 1934 to 1937 and the next two from 1937 to 1940 . This kept the Italians in a reasonable position with regards to the French Navy .

 

[Yanez de Gomera]

I think that scrapping the ww1 battleships and building new ones, even if it were possible (I don't have specific knowledge on Italian interwar shipbuilding capabilities) would not have solved Italy's problems.
The worst was of strategic nature:Italy depended from imports of oil to keep its navy going, after the start of the war it had to move very conservatively to avoid using up all its fuel too fast.
The other problems are tactical and may be easier to solve: eg better coordination between naval and aerial forces and training for night actions might have avoided some of the defeats the Regia Marina suffered. Maybe it could have been possible to introduce the Radar, but I am not sure if italy could do that.

In any case it could never outproduce the UK, it was simply a war Italy could not win and shouldn't have entered in the first place.

 

[Landshark]

I think rather then a question of cost it was a question of building capacity . The Littorio class were very long in building with 6 years for the first two . Number three took 4 years and number 4 was never completed . Italy was in a difficult position in that they could build new ships but it was going to take a long time . Modernising the 4 older battleships kept the navy equipped with battleships until the Littorio class arrived. they modernised two from 1934 to 1937 and the next two from 1937 to 1940 . This kept the Italians in a reasonable position with regards to the French Navy .

I think that touches on something I wrote in the original version of this question that I lost a couple of days ago when my internet connection went down. Whether Italy could scrap the older ships and still maintain the numbers it wanted.