Italian cruiser Agordat

Agordat was a protected cruiser of the Italian Regia Marina built in the late 1890s. She was the lead ship of the, which had one other member, ITALIAN CRUISER Coatit. The ship, which was armed with twelve 76 mm guns and two 450 mm torpedo tubes, was too slow and short-ranged to be able to scout effectively for the fleet, so her career was limited. She saw action during the Italo-Turkish War in 1911–12, where she provided gunfire support to Italian troops in North Africa. She assisted in the occupation of Constantinople in the aftermath of World War I, and in 1919 she was reclassified as a gunboat. In January 1923, Agordat was sold for scrapping.

Design
Agordat was 91.6 m long overall and had a beam of 9.32 m and a draft of 3.64 m. She displaced up to 1340 MT at full load. Her propulsion system consisted of a pair of horizontal triple-expansion steam engines each driving a single screw propeller, with steam supplied by eight Blechynden water-tube boilers. Her engines were rated at 8129 ihp and produced a top speed of 22 kn. The ship had a cruising radius of about 300 nmi at a speed of 10 kn. She had a crew of between 153–185.

Agordat was armed with a main battery of twelve 76 mm L/40 guns mounted singly. She was also equipped with two 450 mm torpedo tubes. The ship was only lightly armored, with a 20 mm thick deck.

Service history
Agordat was built at the Castellammare shipyard; her keel was laid down on 18 February 1897 and her completed hull was launched on 11 October 1899. After completing fitting-out work, the new cruiser was commissioned into the Italian fleet on 26 September 1900. Sea trials lasted from 11 February 1901 to 6 March, and during the final speed trial she exceeded her design speed by a knot. She nevertheless proved to be too slow and short-legged to be useful as a fleet scout, which limited her active duty career. She served in the main fleet in 1903–1904, during which time the fleet was kept in a state of readiness for seven months. For the remaining five months, the ships had reduced crews. During the 1908 fleet maneuvers, Agordat was assigned to the hostile force that was tasked with simulating an attempt to land troops on Sicily.

At the outbreak of the Italo-Turkish War against the Ottoman Empire in September 1911, Agordat was assigned in the 2nd Division of the 1st Squadron, under the command of Rear Admiral Ernesto Presbitero, the divisional commander. On 15 October, Agordat and her sister joined the battleship ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Napoli, the armored cruisers ITALIAN CRUISER Pisa, ITALIAN CRUISER Amalfi, and ITALIAN CRUISER San Marco, three destroyers, and several troop transports for an attack on the port of Derna. Negotiators were sent ashore to attempt to secure the surrender of the garrison, which was refused. Napoli and the armored cruisers bombarded the Ottoman positions throughout the day, and on 18 October the Ottomans withdrew, allowing the Italian troops to come ashore and take possession of the port. The fleet remained offshore and helped to repel Ottoman counterattacks over the following two weeks. In December, Agordat joined San Marco and the battleships ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Roma and ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Regina Margherita at Benghazi. There, they provided gunfire support to the Italian garrison against repeated Turkish assaults. In early April 1912, Agordat and several other vessels rendezvoused with a troop convoy carrying 10,000 men to Zuwarah near the border with Tunisia.

In November 1918, Agordat participated in the occupation of Constantinople following the surrender of the Ottoman Empire. She and the battleship ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Roma joined a fleet of British, French, and Greek warships that entered the Dardanelles and landed troops to occupy the city. In 1921, Agordat was reclassified as a gunboat and her armament was modified; four of the 76 mm guns were replaced by a pair of 12 cm L/40 guns and the torpedo tubes were removed. This service lasted less than two years, and on 4 January 1923 the ship was sold for scrapping.