Italian Regia Marina, French Built 1860-1904: Formidabile, Terribile The very first Italian ironclads were the Formidabile class. They were at the origin of a now forgotten naval arms race, which concerned the Adriatic during the 1860s. At the price of massive financial efforts, a brand new unified Kingdom of Italy and a fledgling, also new … Read more
Introduction For once, we left the guns to rest, and turn the bar back in time, with one of the most glorious page of sail: A long tradition that still is revered around the world, maintained by naval schools and living museums: The magnificent Tall ships and the invention of trading race: The great clippers … Read more
THE UNION NAVY (“OLD NAVY”) The goal of this chapter is not to portray every single ship featured during the American Civil War (1861-1865), on the union side – it would be useless and time consuming. But rather we will try here to show the main classes and most important ship, of military or historical … Read more
THE CONFEDERATE NAVY (CSS) The confederate fleet was actually more the amount of ships that were seized in the Confederate ports and captured or requisitioned vessels than a coherent pre-existing fleet. The Confederates tried to cope with the huge industrial and technical resources of the Union, massive private arsenals, engineers and manpower, while trying revolutionary … Read more
