The die is cast captains, Giulio Cesare will be joining War Thunder in the next major update as a premium battleship for Italy’s Bluewater fleet!
Giulio Cesare: A Premium Battleship for Italy at Rank VI
At a glance:
Ten 320 mm guns with high penetration
Well protected ammo
Versatile anti-air weaponry
No air detection radar
Pre-order - Giulio Cesare Pack
To get to the Gaijin Store through Steam, go to the in-game hangar > Shop > Online Store.
79.99
This pack includes:
RN Giulio Cesare (Rank VI, Italy)
Premium account for 30 days
3000 Golden Eagles
Pre-order bonus: unique title “Veni, vidi, vici”
Pre-order bonus: unique “Roman Emperor” decal
Pre-order bonus: unique Flag of Genoa
Today we’re covering the Conte di Cavour class battleship Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar). Overall it has some light differences when compared to the existing Conte di Cavour class battleship, but it remains a rugged and particularly survivable ship with a lot to offer!
Giulio Cesare is a ship without any firm drawbacks, allowing you to approach the battle with a lot of freedom. Its ten 320 mm cannons may lack explosive filler comparatively, but they have high penetration and can comfortably engage enemy vessels at long range. Unlike most contemporary battleships though, Giulio Cesare has very well protected ammo, which allows it to head into closer range engagements with less risk of being ammo racked. Longer range positioning is still suggested, but if you close the distance, enemy ammo racks will be easier to hit while your own will stay relatively safe below the waterline. So, be bold and fear naught; you carry Caesar and his fortune in your boat!
Giulio Cesare is similarly well protected from the air. It may lack a search radar but features a set of classic 100 mm dual-purpose cannons along with 37 mm and 13.2 mm guns, differing from Conte di Cavour. Aside from the anti-air, Giulio Cesare inherits the same core firepower, armor and speed from her sister, so you should feel right at home behind the wheel.
One of the key advantages of the Conte di Cavour class is her survivability. Although the armor belt is neither the widest nor the thickest, the protection of the Giulio Cesare’s barbettes is highly reliable. Plus, the gun ammunition is stowed below the waterline, ensuring a high level of protection for these modules. It is not totally immune from ammo detonations of course, but it is significantly harder to detonate than on many contemporary ships, keeping you in the fight for longer. As long as you stay on the move and put out any potential fires in the ammo elevators, Giulio Cesare will be able to take a lot of shots, certainly more than 23 anyway, we would hope.
Developer comment: The arrival of the Giulio Cesare (already present in the game as the Novorossiysk in the USSR tech tree) marks a shift in our approach to adding new ships. Previously, our policy was to include each ship in only one specific configuration; if a vessel had undergone multiple refits, only one version would make it into the game. Since this rule sometimes prevented the inclusion of highly interesting configurations, we decided to revise our approach. Until now, Italy was the only nation in the game without a top-tier premium ship, and the Giulio Cesare, in its original Italian configuration, is the perfect fit for this role.
By the early 1900s, Italy’s naval dominance began to slip. While Italy was still focused on cruiser construction, other naval powers were quickly changing focus in response to HMS Dreadnought. This threat hit close to home in 1909, when leaked Austro-Hungarian plans for a new fleet of dreadnoughts made their way to the Italian admiralty, prompting an immediate response. While the primary Austro-Hungarian threat loomed over the Adriatic, Italy’s new battleships would be shaped more directly by the French Courbet-class. Being prime Mediterranean rivals, Italy could not accept France fielding a superior dreadnought, and the design of the new class occurred rapidly, with Giulio Cesare laid down on the 24th of June 1910.
While seeing no combat in the First World War despite being launched on the 15th of October 1911, Giulio Cesare saw significant action in the Second World War. During the Battle of Calabria, she engaged the British Mediterranean Fleet with her sister in the first capital ship engagement of the campaign. Salvos were traded at roughly 24 km, until a single shell from HMS Warspite struck Giulio Cesare near the rear funnel knocking out 4 boilers; one of the longest range hits in naval history. She survived but was attacked again at Taranto, where British Swordfish aircraft sank her sister Conte di Cavour at anchor. She was untouched from this attack, and as the final sister she remained in operation until the Italian armistice in September 1943, when she was interned by the Allies at Malta.
As part of war reparations, she was handed over to the Soviet Union in 1949 and renamed Novorossiysk, acting as a training ship and flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. Her end would come unexpectedly however, when in the morning of the 29th of October 1955, a huge explosion tore a hole in her bow while she was anchored at Sevastopol harbour. The flooding was instant and uncontrollable, and she capsized with the loss of over 600 crew, marking the largest peacetime naval disaster of the 20th century. The cause was concluded to be an old German mine detonated by her anchor chain, as searches of the harbor discovered numerous such mines nearby. She was later salvaged on the 4th of May 1957, and subsequently scrapped.
That’s all for this one! Consider picking up Giulio Cesare in the next major update if you’re interested in getting into the Italian Bluewater tree. In the meantime we’ve got more upcoming vehicles and features to show you, so stay tuned!
Please note that this vehicle’s characteristics may be changed before it is added to the game.