Conte di Cavour

Named after the statesman Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the battleship was laid down at the Arsenale di La Spezia on 10 August 1910, launched exactly a year later on 10 August 1911, and completed on 1 April 1915. Her class was designed to counter the French Courbet-class dreadnoughts, a brief that made her slower and more heavily armoured than Italy's first dreadnought, Dante Alighieri. She measured 176 metres overall, displaced 23,088 long tons at normal load, and carried a crew of 31 officers and 969 enlisted men.

She carried thirteen 305 mm guns in five centreline turrets — twin turrets superfiring over triples fore and aft, with a third triple amidships — behind a complete waterline belt up to 250 mm thick. Twenty Blechynden boilers and three sets of Parsons turbines were designed for 22.5 knots, though on trials she managed only 22.2 knots even while mildly exceeding her rated power.

She served as a flagship in the southern Adriatic through the First World War but saw no combat and spent little time at sea. Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel judged the narrow Adriatic too dangerous for capital ships against Austro-Hungarian submarines and minelayers, so the battle fleet held a blockade at the safer southern end while MAS torpedo boats raided — the dreadnoughts preserved for a decisive engagement that never came. In 1923 she supported the seizure of Corfu, bombarding the island's main town with her 76 mm guns, killing 20 civilians and wounding 32.

Between October 1933 and June 1937, at Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico in Trieste, she was rebuilt almost beyond recognition. A new bow section lengthened her by over ten metres; new Belluzzo turbines of 75,000 shaft horsepower lifted her to about 27 knots; her main guns were bored out from 305 mm to 320 mm, with the amidships turret and torpedo tubes removed; and the Pugliese underwater defence system was worked in. The rebuild had flaws: the layered deck armour was less effective than single plates, and her deeper draft left the belt almost completely submerged under load.

At the Battle of Calabria on 9 July 1940, Conte di Cavour and her sister Giulio Cesare, in Admiral Campioni's 1st Battle Squadron, engaged the British Mediterranean Fleet. The Italian battleships opened fire at 15:53 at nearly 27,000 metres, answered by Warspite and Malaya; when a shell from Warspite struck Giulio Cesare at about 24,000 metres, Campioni, facing superior numbers with uncertain damage, turned his battleships away and successfully disengaged.

On the night of 11 November 1940 she lay at anchor in Taranto harbour when 21 Fairey Swordfish from HMS Illustrious attacked the fleet. Her gunners shot one aircraft down moments after it dropped — but its torpedo exploded beneath 'B' turret at 23:15, knocking out the main bow pump. Her captain asked for tugs to ground her on a nearby 12-metre sandbank; Admiral Brivonesi vetoed the request until it was too late, and she had to settle for a deeper 17-metre bank, going to the bottom by 08:00 with only her superstructure and turrets above water.

Ranked last for salvage among Taranto's three sunken battleships, she waited months for attention. Holes were patched, guns and superstructure stripped to lighten her, false bulwarks welded to the hull; some 15,000 tons of water were pumped out before she was refloated on 9 June 1941 and entered the ex-Austro-Hungarian floating dock GO-12. The damage proved worse than thought, and temporary repairs to get her to Trieste took until 22 December.

Her guns were workable by September 1942, but her electrical system needed complete replacement, and in June 1943 — with an estimated six months of work remaining — repairs were suspended to expedite urgently needed smaller ships. The Germans captured her at Trieste on 8 September 1943 when Italy surrendered, made no effort to finish her, and reduced her to a hulk. Damaged in an Allied air raid on 17 February 1945, she capsized on 23 February, was refloated shortly after the war, and was scrapped in 1946.