The Italians laid down the five ship Cavour class in reply to the Austro-Hungarian Viribus Unitis class battleships. The Cavour type were designed with 13x12" to give them the one gun edge over the Austro-Hungarian ships. The first three ships of the Cavour type were laid down with a 4.7" secondary battery. The last two of the class were upgraded to a 6" secondary battery and became a separate class.
With the three Cavour class, the five ships made up Battle Division One based at Taranto and keeping the Austro-Hungarian Navy bottled up in the Adriatic Sea. These two ships had no combat during World War One and really very little steaming time. The ships were still in pristine condition when taken in hand for their life extension refits in 1935/36. The rebuilds followed the Cavour type, but the twin 5.3" were replaced with triple turrets, raising the number from 16 to 18.
One thing I did read about the rebuilding of the four Italian battleships, was that the rebuilding was to have taken the ships to the point where they would be equivalent to the Queen Elizabeth class British battleships. The only way the Italians could have managed that feat was to scrap the four and replace them with more Littorio's. The only thing the Italian battleships had in their favour was that they were faster than the Queen Elizabeth type and could outrun them. The other major power in the Mediterranean was the French, and these four ships were better than the French equivalent WW1 battleships and I would consider them almost the equal of the Dunkerque class. They were by no means failures. But the amount of money spent on their rebuilding would have just about paid for another pair of Littorio class, which may have been a better investment.
After reconstruction.
