WW II Italian Battleships

Oz,

Roma was hit by a German Fritz X guided bomb on Sept. 9, 1943. She was sunk with large loss of life. On Sept. 11, 1943, the USS Savannah was hit by this same type of bomb. One of museum staff was aboard her when she was hit. You can read his story on Modelwarships.com in the 'In Their Own Words' section.

Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com

Harry Dente is a close personal friend of mine...he carries the Regia Marina kits. In addition, you can contact Giampiero by clicking on the Regia Marina logo on my website.

Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com

Hey Mr. Hansen, how come you guys never photograph any of my ships?? You must not like me :-)

Lawrence,

Thank you very much for looking into this for me. I'll be sure to check it out.

Ted

The scoop from James Kloek, whose Vittorio Veneto will appear in GSM04:

QUOTE: I bought mine from Harry Dente, who runs Research in Scale.  From time to time he advertises in FSM. The other good source for ship models from Europe is Bill Gruner who runs Pacific Front Hobbies.  He also almost always has an ad in FSM.

There's an Italian company called "Regia Marina" that offers 1/700 scale resin kits of a lot of subjects. We photo'd a stunning Vittorio Veneto at NorEastCon this year (it'll be in the "Contests Around the World" gallery in GSM2004). The modeler said they're basically good kits, and he'd built the Veneto pretty much straight out of the box. I'll just e-mail him for some info on where to get these kits.

If I remember correctly, wasn't the Roma sunk by a German "guided missle " ? I also think it was the first ship ever sunk by one. If so, you would think that would warrant a large scale representation from SOME kit manufacturer for the historical significance alone. Jeez.....

I am building a collection in 1/400 scale or larger of at least one battleship from each major power in WW II. The only one I'm missing is Italy. Guess I'll have to keep hoping one of the major kit manufacturers wakes up.

Ted

I personally would love to see Vittorio Venetto in 1/350. Ciao Dulio would also be a first rate option.

Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com

Thanks for the responses, guys. I can't understand why the Italian battlewagons are not represented in large scale. They were beautiful ships. I guess I'll just have to keep waiting and hoping....

In the meantime, I'll check out the 1/700 version Jeff mentioned. Something is better than nothing, right ?

Sorry, nothing available. I've heard nothing about any rumors either, not even in resin. As a consolation, the 1/700 Regia Marina kit of the Vittorio Venetto is absolutely stunning.

Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com

I think theres nothing above 1:700.
I'm waiting for 11year for an Italian battleship 1:350, problably will wait a lot more.
However if you interested to spend large hundreds of British Pounds theres one i think.
Vittorio Veneto 1:128
http://www.fleetscale.co.uk/system/index.html