Folding Wings for the Royal Navy
The Macchi M.18 ARs of the Italian Royal Navy by Gianclaudio Polidori After the WWI experience with the Nave (Ship) Elba, the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) wanted to improve the capabilities of her maritime reconnaissance service with up-to-date assets. In 1925, the railroad carriage civilian ferry ship Città di Messina was purchased and converted into a seaplane-tender ship named Giuseppe Miraglia, in honor of an Italian Navy pilot who had died in 1915. During the conversion work, the ship was damaged because, due to the water it had collected after heavy rains and the unbalancing of weights created by the ongoing work, it listed and sank in the shipyard. When the Giuseppe Miraglia was finally completed, it was equipped with two catapults, ample hangars for the aircraft and good defensive armament consisting first in four 102/35 guns, to which twelve mm 13,2 Breda Model 31 were added later. Nave Giuseppe Miraglia Twenty-five Macchi M.18 AR (Ali Ripiegabili, i.