Once the French laid down the 16" Dunkerque Class battleships, the original 15" armed Italian battleships were a dead design. Time would be needed to put a new 16" gun through all of its new trials and building phases to get enough of the weapons to arm four new battleships. These were big ships with good armament, the equal to anything being built by the Allied nations. Two of the class were completed in time to join the fleet at the start of Italy's involvement in WW2. The other two were completed and joined the fleet in 1941 and 1942.
Notes to the drawing that are different to the original Littorio class. Increased the size of the turrets and guns to give the 16" weapons. Replaced all of the original secondary and tertiary weapons with dual purpose 5.3" triple turrets. The minor AA weaponry are based around a Bofors 37mm twin mounting and single 20mm mountings. The aircraft have been deleted in favour of more minor weaponry. This should not be a problem as there are plenty of cruisers with aircraft and the Italian Navy now has aircraft carriers thanks to my magic wand.
The Germans were unwilling to let the Italian battleships go meekly into detention and took pains to sink the Roma with Fritz-X glider bombs.
