Italy: completing the Littorios and adding carrier aviation

Impero is expected to enter service rather than remain unfinished, while the next pair of Italian capital ships might be laid down early enough to be launched by the new war date. The potential successor design is tied to French and German construction and could carry twelve 15-inch guns or grow still larger. Range and Italian possessions on the Indian Ocean might also pull the design beyond the Mediterranean-focused Littorio model. Carrier construction becomes likely once French and German carriers appear. Benito Mussolini's personal control of both naval and air policy makes a domestically developed carrier air group more politically plausible than reliance on German aircraft, while the promised delay until 1945 gives Italy time to rebuild after the Ethiopian campaign. Italy's narrower shipyard base still means each large project consumes capacity that Britain and the United States can spread across many more yards.