Vittorio Cuniberti - Cuniberti's Article

Cuniberti's Article

Born in Turin, Cuniberti is best known for an article he wrote in Jane's Fighting Ships, advocating a concept known as the "all-big-gun" fighting ship.

Up till then naval powers had developed ships with a mixture of guns with different calibres. There was constant experimentation with calibres and layout. Ships, at the time, were driven by lumbering great reciprocating engines.

The ship Cuniberti envisaged in his article was a "colossus" of the seas. His main idea was that this ship would carry only one calibre of gun, the biggest.

Powerfully armoured, this colossus would be impervious to all but the 12-inch (305 mm) guns of the enemy. Cuniberti saw the enemy's small calibre gun as having no effect on his heavily armoured colossus. His ship would carry a single calibre of gun, the largest; at the time 12 inch. Cuniberti's "ideal ship" had 12 of these large calibre guns and she would show a significant advantage over the (usual) 4 of the enemy ship.

His ship would be fast, so that this colossus would choose her point of attack.

Cuniberti saw this ship able to discharge such a heavy broadside, all of one heavy calibre, that she would engulf first one enemy ship, moving on to the next, and the next, disdainfully destroying an entire enemy fleet. He conjectured the effect of a squadron of, say six, "colossi" would give this fleet such an overwhelming power as to deter all possible opponents.

Naturally there was a cost and part of Cuniberti's contention was that this colossus was available only to a "navy at the same time most potent and very rich".

Cuniberti approached the Italian government to build a ship based on his ideas. The Italian government declined, but gave Cuniberti permission to write an article for Jane's Fighting Ships.

Cuniberti's article was published before the Battle of Tsushima, which vindicated his ideas. There, the real damage was inflicted by the large calibre guns of the Japanese fleet.

He died in Rome.