Trumpeter are at it again - this time they are doing a 1/350 kit of the Italian battleship Roma.

WOW, another nice new subject.

Are we living in the best of times ever, modeling wise, or what? A couple years ago who'd have thought we'd have a 1/350 Richelieu, a 1/350 Roma, and a 1/350 Queen Elizabeth. Subjects don't have to be just German, Japanese, and American to be interesting.

Outstanding news!

--Karl

I am doing the Snoopy happy dance right now. This has been #1 on my wish list for the past 5 years. Of course I did get contact from one of the big guys with Trumpeter lst year who tolsd me they were working on her and planned release was this fall. But to see the box and first rendidtion of the kit. WOW !!!!!

I see they also are doing a Hipper 1941. How close will that be to the Eugene of the same time frame. Now all the Denarck Sraits fans will get the final major vessel (other than the UK CA's)

I'm beaming a RM Roma they can then do a Littorio/Italia, Impero and Vittorio Veneto.

Made my year even better if Acadamy announce a HMS Warspite to go along with that QE.

Luciano

Hello All,
Great news about the Roma. 1 question was the Roma sunk by a German Air to Surface Missile as she went to Malta? Also was she the first one to be sunk by a Air to Surface missile in history?
Thanks for you replies,
Cheers,
Bruce

She got hit by not one, but two German air to surface bombs. Lest anybody criticize the Roma no ship in the world could have taken those hits and survived.

I don't know if Roma was the first or not.

Isn't it just a little interesting that Trumpy comes out with the one ship in the class sunk?

Roma is looks different and arguably more beautiful than her sisters.

The German bombs were indeed bombs, not missiles, as they had no propulsion on their own.

[q]I see they also are doing a Hipper 1941. [/q]

The Hipper kit has been in the shops since Xmas.
I got one last week.

The Roma was first capital ship to be sunk by this type of guided bomb, but the first ship was the sloop HMS Egret, on 27 August 1943, which has the dubious honour of being the first ship sunk by a Hs 293 guided missile.

The weapons dropped on the Roma were guided free fall bombs FX 1400 (Fritz-X) which were designed to pierce 130mm of armour plate before exploding.

As a side note to give you an idea of the damage these weapons could do the light cruiser USS Savannah was hit by a Fritz-X at 10:00hrs on 11 September 1943 just two days after Roma, during the invasion of Salerno, and was forced to retire to the United States for repairs. A single Fritz-X passed through the roof of "C" turret and killed the turret crew and a damage control party when it exploded in the lower ammunition handling room. The blast tore a large hole in the ship's bottom, opened a seam in her side, and blew out all fires in her boiler rooms. Savannah lay dead in the water with the forecastle nearly awash and took eight hours to relight boilers and get underway for Malta.

Luciano