The Conte di Cavour class was designed to counter the French dreadnoughts which caused them to be slower and more heavily armored than the first Italian dreadnought, .[1] The ships were 168.9m (554.1feet) long at the waterline and 176m (577feet) overall. They had a beam of 28m (92feet), and a draft of 9.3m (30.5feet).[2] The Conte di Cavour-class ships displaced 23088LT at normal load, and 25086LT at deep load. They had a crew of 31 officers and 969 enlisted men.[3] They were powered by three sets of Parsons steam turbines, two sets driving the outer propeller shafts and one set the two inner shafts. Steam for the turbines was provided by twenty Blechynden water-tube boilers, eight of which burned oil and twelve of which burned both fuel oil and coal. Designed to reach a maximum speed of 22.5kn from 31000shp, Leonardo da Vinci only reached a speed of using 32800shp. The ships carried enough coal and oil[4] to give them a range of 4800nmi at 10kn.[2]
The main battery of the Conte di Cavour class consisted of thirteen 305-millimeter Model 1909 guns, in five centerline gun turrets, with a twin-gun turret superfiring over a triple-gun turret in fore and aft pairs, and a third triple turret amidships.[5] Their secondary armament consisted of eighteen 120mm guns mounted in casemates on the sides of the hull. For defense against torpedo boats, the ships carried fourteen 76.2sp=usNaNsp=us guns; thirteen of these could be mounted on the turret tops, but they could be positioned in 30 different locations, including some on the forecastle and upper decks. They were also fitted with three submerged 450mm torpedo tubes, one on each broadside and the third in the stern.[6]
The Conte di Cavour-class ships had a complete waterline armor belt that had a maximum thickness of 2501NaN1 amidships, which reduced to 130sp=usNaNsp=us towards the stern and 80sp=usNaNsp=us towards the bow. They had two armored decks: the main deck was 24mm thick on the flat that increased to 40mm on the slopes that connected it to the main belt. The second deck was 30mm thick. Frontal armor of the gun turrets was 2800NaN0 in thickness and the sides were 240sp=usNaNsp=us thick. The armor protecting their barbettes ranged in thickness from 130to. The walls of the forward conning tower were 280 millimeters thick.[7] [8]
Leonardo da Vinci, named after the artist and inventor,[9] was built by the Odero Shipbuilding Co., at their Sestri Ponente, Genoa shipyard. She was laid down on 18 July 1910, launched on 14 October 1911, and completed on 17 May 1914. The ship saw no combat during the war and spent most of it at anchor.[10] Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, the Italian naval chief of staff, believed that Austro-Hungarian submarines and minelayers could operate too effectively in the narrow waters of the Adriatic. The threat from these underwater weapons to his capital ships was too serious for him to actively deploy the fleet. Instead, Revel decided to implement a blockade at the relatively safer southern end of the Adriatic with the battle fleet, while smaller vessels, such as MAS torpedo boats, conducted raids on Austro-Hungarian ships and installations. Meanwhile, Revel's battleships would be preserved to confront the Austro-Hungarian battle fleet in the event that it sought a decisive engagement.[11]
She capsized in Taranto harbor,[12] in 36feet of water,[13] after an internal magazine explosion on the night of 2/3 August 1916 while loading ammunition. Casualties included 21 officers and 227 enlisted men.[14] The subsequent investigation blamed Austro-Hungarian saboteurs, but unstable propellant may well have been responsible.[5] [15]
The Regia Marina wanted to raise the ship and rejected initial plans to demolish the wreck with explosives. They ultimately settled on a plan to make the ship's hull airtight and raise it using compressed air and pontoons. This required that the ship's coal, ammunition, and gun turrets be removed or cut loose, respectively, by divers to reduce her weight. A further complication was that the largest drydock in Taranto had a maximum depth of only 40order=flip1order=flip and the upside-down Leonardo da Vinci drew 50order=flip1order=flip. This meant that her funnels had to be cut off as well.[16]
All of this preparation required over two years and the ship was refloated on 17 September 1919. A deep channel had been dredged from her location to the drydock and she was moved there. A special wooden framework had to be built to support her, still inverted, after the water in the drydock had been drained. Her decks were not designed to handle the stresses involved in her unique situation and had to be reinforced to withstand the weight of the hull and preliminary repairs were made in preparation for righting her. A deep spot in the harbor was dredged for this task and some 400LT of ballast were added in spots calculated to assist in the righting effort. The primary work was done by 7500LT of water pumped into the ship's starboard side[17] and she was successfully righted on 24 January 1921.[18] The Regia Marina planned to modernize Leonardo da Vinci by replacing her amidships turret with six 1020NaN0 anti-aircraft guns,[2] but ultimately lacked the funds to do so and sold her for scrap on 22 March 1923.[19]
. Battleships of World War I: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Battleships of All Nations 1914–1918. Galahad Books. New York. 1972 . 0-88365-300-1. Antony Preston.
. Battleships of World War II. 1998. Annapolis, Maryland. Naval Institute Press. 1-55750-184-X. Michael J. Whitley.
