List of ironclad warships of Italy

By the early 1870s, the Italian government began a new program of construction to counter what was now the Austro-Hungarian Navy, which had built several ironclads after Lissa.

The naval minister Benedetto Brin was responsible for most of the vessels built as part of this program, beginning with the large and powerful Duilio class, two ships that carried four massive 100-ton guns.

These were followed with the two Italia-class ironclads, which dispensed with the heavy side armor of earlier designs in favor of very high speed; this has led to them being described as "proto-battlecruisers."

The first Italian ironclads, the two Formidabile-class ships, were actually ordered from a French shipyard by the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860, shortly before the unification of Italy under the Sardinian King Victor Emmanuel II.

The two ships were initially conceived as armored floating batteries similar to the French Dévastation class that had proved so effective at the Battle of Kinburn in 1855.

After work on the ships had begun, they were redesigned as sea-going broadside ironclads, which necessitated a reduction in their artillery battery by a third (from thirty to twenty guns).

[6] At the same time that Sardinia ordered the two Formidabile-class ships, the navy also awarded contracts for a pair of unarmored steam frigates, Principe di Carignano and Messina.

The ships proved to be disappointments in service, in part due to their sterns, which were not protected and directly led to the loss of Re d'Italia at the Battle of Lissa.

They were also poorly built; the American shipyard used unseasoned timbers to construct their hulls, and Re di Portogallo was discarded relatively early in her career after they were found to have severely rotted.

In the ensuing melee, Re d'Italia had her rudder shot away, and having been rendered unmaneuverable, was rammed and sunk by the Austrian flagship, Erzherzog Ferdinand Max.

In 1875, she was discarded owing to a combination of her badly rotted hull, and as a means reduce naval expenditures while the large and very expensive Duilio-class ironclads were being built.

The design for the new ships was prepared by French naval constructors; since they were built by three different shipyards, they varied slightly in their dimensions, but they were broadly similar in all major respects.

Distributed along the Italian line, they were heavily engaged in the battle; San Martino attempted to rescue Re d'Italia before the latter was rammed and sunk, and in the confusion, she accidentally collided with Regina Maria Pia.

Regina Maria Pia, Ancona, and San Martino were stricken from the naval register in 1903–1904, while Castelfidardo lingered on as a torpedo training ship until 1910, when she too was sold for scrapping.

[20][22] Ironically, by the time Venezia entered service, the Italian navy had begun building even more advanced vessels like the Duilio-class turret ships that were laid down that year.

He attempted to steam up and down the disengaged side of the Italian fleet to issue orders to individual ships, but their captains were unaware that Persano was aboard Affondatore, so they ignored him.

After the two fleets disengaged, the Italians withdrew to Ancona, where Affondatore foundered either due to the damage received in the battle,[26] or the fact that her low freeboard did not permit her to weather a severe storm that struck the port.

[29] In the late 1880s, Principe Amedeo and Palestro were withdrawn from frontline service and employed as headquarters ships for the harbor defense forces of Taranto and La Maddalena, respectively.

[30] By the early 1870s, the Italian government decided to reinvest in the Regia Marina and rebuild its fleet, initially in an attempt to gain a significant advantage over the Austrian navy.

Brin revised the design several times during their construction, ultimately settling on an armament of four massive 100-ton guns in two twin-gun turrets, which were mounted amidships en echelon, allowing both to fire ahead, astern, and on a limited arc to either broadside.

[32] Shortly after the ships entered service, Italy signed the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, rendering moot the original strategic plan for the vessels.

[36] The reduced weight of the hull allowed the vessels to be significantly faster than any other ironclad in the world;[37] in fact, the combination of high speed, heavy guns, and light armor protection has led naval historians like Lawrence Sondhaus to refer to them as "proto battlecruisers".

[36] Both ships were activated during the Italo-Turkish War in 1911, and they were sent to Tripoli to provide gunfire support to Italian forces that had captured the North African city.

In December 1917, she was converted into a grain carrier and thereafter served with the Ministry of Transport and the State Railways, before being returned to the Regia Marina in 1921 and then being scrapped that year.

Having begun building a series of modern battleships, the Regia Marina discarded Ruggiero di Lauria and Francesco Morosini in 1909, the latter being used as a target ship in torpedo tests and the former becoming a floating oil tank.

[40] The new design, for the Re Umberto class, followed the same basic lines as the Italias: Brin emphasized a very large displacement, light armor, and high speed.

In 1918, Re Umberto was converted into an assault ship, mounting numerous light guns in place of her original armament for a planned attack on the Austro-Hungarian base at Pola, but the war ended before it could be carried out.