The previous Trento class were good ships of their type, but they still had many shortcomings. Too much reliance on speed, not enough armour, those were the main problems. The Zara class did a few things to alleviate these problems, the hull was fifty feet shorter, a good saving in weight, but most of all, with the connivance of Il Duce, the ships standard weight was nearly 2000 tons more than the 10,000 ton limit. How could they lose.
With those advantages the Zara class turned out to be the best of the heavy cruiser of the late 20's early 30's before the world went back to smaller cruisers. The cruisers of the late 1930's were built with no limits and were definitely a different class of ship. They still had some of the disadvantages of the Trento's, the awkward main armament, the awkward aircraft handling arrangements, the fixed torpedoes were removed and not replaced.
The magic wand is ready to go!
.png)
I like the way it has turned out, the chunky turrets give it a 'tough' look. Changing to a cross deck catapult doesn't take away from the good looks of the Italian cruisers.
