Assessment
Had Aquila′s conversion begun in 1938 instead of 1941, she might have been completed and worked up in time to accompany Italy’s main fleet units during the critical period of 1941–1942. Her presence then could have potentially altered the outcomes of some battles, with her fighters intercepting British recon planes and parrying their carrier-borne air strikes, while her bombers carried out more timely and effective recon patrols than the Regia Aeronautica could provide and conducted their own attacks on British warships and convoys. Thus, Aquila might have prevented some historical Italian losses (such as at Cape Matapan) and inflicted a few of her own against Great Britain's Royal Navy.
As it was, however, Aquila came far too late to affect the war in the Mediterranean. Even at her advanced stage of construction in September 1943, she would have required another six months to a year to conduct service trials, convert sufficient carrier aircraft, train her pilots and flight deck crews, manufacture and install her newly-designed AA guns and solve the vexing arrester wire problem. By February 1943, however, the combined Anglo-American armies had expelled Axis forces from North Africa, and by August 1943 they had conquered Sicily. Time had run out for Italy’s fledgling carrier aviation effort.
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