The Italia-class battleships were a class of two Italian battleships which served in the Regia Marina

Regia Marina

The Regia Marina dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification...

 (Italian Royal Navy) during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were the largest and fastest warships in the world for several years after they entered service, and in many ways were the forerunners of the battlecruiser

Battlecruiser

Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...

s that appeared in the early 20th century.

Technical characteristics

Insp Eng Benedetto Brin

Benedetto Brin

Benedetto Brin was an Italian naval administrator and politician.-Biography:Born in Turin, he worked with distinction as a naval engineer until the age of forty. In 1873, Admiral Simone Arturo Saint-Bon, Italy's Naval Minister, appointed him undersecretary of state...

 (1833–1898) designed the Italia-class battleships in the 1870s. They were faster and more seaworthy than the Duilio-class battleships that had preceded them, and Brin intended them to be capable of fighting successfully against any foreign warship in commission

Ship commissioning

Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service, and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to the placing of a warship in active duty with its country's military...

. They were very large and fast warships for their time, displacing over 15,000 tons at full load; Italia

Italian battleship Italia (1880)

Italia was an Italian battleship launched in 1880, the lead ship of the Italia class. She served in the Regia Marina during the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

 could make 17.8 knots (34.9 km/h), while Lepanto

Italian battleship Lepanto

Lepanto was an Italian battleship launched in 1883, the second and last ship of the Italia class. She served in the Regia Marina during the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

 could achieve 18.4 knots (36.1 km/h) in an era when no other ironclad in the world could make better than 15 knots (29.4 km/h).

Reflecting the thinking of the time that modern guns could penetrate any armor, Brin designed the Italia-class ships without any side armor, instead employing a cellular raft design; he did, however, design them with steel armor for their decks, citadels, and conning towers. The armored deck sloped downward to meet the ships' sides at a point 6 feet (1.8 m) above the waterline

Waterline

The term "waterline" generally refers to the line where the hull of a ship meets the water surface. It is also the name of a special marking, also known as the national Load Line or Plimsoll Line, to be positioned amidships, that indicates the draft of the ship and the legal limit to which a ship...

 and combined with two bulkheads that ran the entire length of the ships, set back several feet from the side, and numerous other bulkheads interspaced among the two main bulkheads; the resulting cellular raft of small compartments was designed to detonate shells before they could penetrate very far into the ships and contain or dampen the effects of the resulting explosion by confining it to small compartments.

An unusual feature of the Italia class was the ability of each ship to carry an entire infantry

Infantry

Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...

 division

Division (military)

A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions typically make up a corps...

 of 10,000 men, allowing them to play a strategic role in deploying Italian troops.
Italia and Lepanto each carried a main armament of four 17 inches (432 mm) guns which fired a 2,000-pound (907-kilogram) shell with a muzzle velocity

Muzzle velocity

Muzzle velocity is the speed a projectile has at the moment it leaves the muzzle of the gun. Muzzle velocities range from approximately to in black powder muskets , to more than in modern rifles with high-performance cartridges such as the .220 Swift and .204 Ruger, all the way to for tank guns...

 of 1,755 feet (535 m) per second; each gun could fire one round every five minutes.The guns were mounted in pairs en echelon amidships in a single, large, diagonal, oval barbette

Barbette

A barbette is a protective circular armour feature around a cannon or heavy artillery gun. The name comes from the French phrase en barbette referring to the practice of firing a field gun over a parapet rather than through an opening . The former gives better angles of fire but less protection...

, with one pair of guns on a turntable to port and the other to starboard; the port pair was mounted aft of the starboard pair. The barbette had 19 inches (483 mm) of compound armor. The magazine

Magazine (artillery)

Magazine is the name for an item or place within which ammunition is stored. It is taken from the Arabic word "makahazin" meaning "warehouse".-Ammunition storage areas:...

 was below the armored deck, and ammunition was brought up to the main guns via an armored trunk. The ships had 25 feet (7.6 m) of freeboard

Freeboard

Freeboard may refer to:* Freeboard , the height of a ship's deck above the water level.* Freeboard , a six-wheeled skateboard designed to act like a snowboard....

, allowing the main guns to be mounted 33 feet (10 m) above the waterline, and the design and location of the barbette and turntables gave the guns good fields of fire.

Brin originally planned for the ships to displace 13,850 tons (14,066 tonne

Tonne

The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...

s), to have a secondary armament of eighteen 6-inch (152-mm) guns, and to carry 3,000 tons (3,047 tonnes) of coal for increased range over that of the Duilio class; in the end, however, the 6-inch (152-mm) armament was reduced to eight 6-inch (152-mm) and the coal capacity to 1,700 tons (1,727 tonnes) on 15,000 tons (15,237 tonnes) displacement. The number of 6-inch (152-mm) guns was reduced because it was found that the additional guns could not have been manned when the 17-inch (432-mm) guns were in use.

The two ships differed in many significant ways. Italias hull

Hull (watercraft)

A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and/or deckhouse, where present. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.The structure of the hull varies depending on the vessel type...

 was constructed of iron and steel covered by wood, which in turn was covered by zinc

Zinc

Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...

, while Lepantos hull was made entirely of steel. Lepantos main battery was uniform, consisting of four 26-caliber Model 431C guns weighing 102.5 tons each, while Italia had a heterogenous main battery of three Model 431C guns and one 27-caliber Model 431B gun weighing 103.5 tons which fired the same round at the same muzzle velocity as the Model 431C. Their secondary and tertiary armament differed as well, and changed in differing ways during their careers.

Built with six funnels

Funnel (ship)

A funnel is the smokestack or chimney on a ship used to expel boiler steam and smoke or engine exhaust. They can also be known in as stacks.-Purpose:...

 and one central mast, Italia underwent a refit between 1905 and 1908 in which her funnels were reduced to four and her mast was replaced by two new masts; Lepanto always had four funnels. Lepanto had a significantly more powerful propulsion plant than Italia, giving her a maximum speed 0.6 knots (1.2 km/h) higher than that of Italia.

Naming

Italia was named after Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 itself. Lepanto was named for the Battle of Lepanto

Battle of Lepanto (1571)

The Battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571 when a fleet of the Holy League, a coalition of Catholic maritime states, decisively defeated the main fleet of the Ottoman Empire in five hours of fighting on the northern edge of the Gulf of Patras, off western Greece...

, a Holy League naval victory over the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 in 1571 in which Italians played a major role.

Construction

Both ships were laid down in 1876 and underwent protracted construction periods; it took nearly 10 years to build Italia and nearly 11 to build Lepanto. Not launched

Ship naming and launching

The ceremonies involved in naming and launching naval ships are based in traditions thousands of years old.-Methods of launch:There are three principal methods of conveying a new ship from building site to water, only two of which are called "launching." The oldest, most familiar, and most widely...

 until 1880, Italia was not completed until 1885; it took until 1883 to launch Lepanto, and she was not finished until 1887.

During the lengthy construction of the Italia-class ships, advances Brin could not have foreseen in the development of quick-firing guns and high-explosive shells rendered them obsolete as battleships before they could be completed. They soon became the functional equivalent of enormous protected cruiser

Protected cruiser

The protected cruiser is a type of naval cruiser of the late 19th century, so known because its armoured deck offered protection for vital machine spaces from shrapnel caused by exploding shells above...

s because of their lack of side armor.

Operational history

The Italia-class ships remained in front-line service until just after the turn of the 20th century, when both were reduced to training and other subsidiary roles. Lepanto was sold for scrapping in 1915 just before Italy entered World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, but Italia was retained for wartime service as a defensive floating battery and was not discarded until 1921.

Italia

Italia

Italian battleship Italia (1880)

Italia was an Italian battleship launched in 1880, the lead ship of the Italia class. She served in the Regia Marina during the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

 was laid down in 1876, launched in 1880, and completed in 1885. After a major 1905-1909 refit, she served as a training ship until 1912, then as a harbor defense ship until stricken in 1914. Reinstated in 1915, she served during World War I as a defensive floating battery from 1915 until 1917. Converted into a cereal

Cereal

Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...

 carrier between the end of 1917 and mid-1919, she served under the Italian State Railways from then until being returned to the Regia Marina in 1921. She was discarded in 1921 and scrapped.

Lepanto

Lepanto

Italian battleship Lepanto

Lepanto was an Italian battleship launched in 1883, the second and last ship of the Italia class. She served in the Regia Marina during the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

 was laid down in 1876, launched in 1883, and completed in 1887. She served as a training ship from 1902 until 1910, then as a depot ship

Depot ship

A depot ship is a ship which acts as a mobile or fixed base for other ships and submarines or supports a naval base. Depot ships may be specifically designed for their purpose or be converted from another purpose...

until stricken in 1912. Reinstated in 1913, she served as a "first-class auxiliary" for a year until stricken again in 1914. She was sold for scrapping in 1915.

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