Italian battleship Sardegna

Sardegna was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) in the 1880s. She was the third ship of her class laid down, but the second finished.

General characteristics
Sardegna was 411 ft between perpendiculars and 428 ft long overall. She had a beam of 76 ft and a draft of 29 ft. Normally she displaced 13641 LT and displaced 15426 LT at full load. She was built with a ram bow.

Propulsion
Sardegna was the first Italian warship fitted with two three-cylinder vertical triple expansion steam engines with a total designed output of 22800 ihp. Eighteen cylindrical boilers provided steam to the engines. On trials, the ship had a top speed of 20.3 knots. She carried enough coal to give her a range of 4000 - 6000 nmi at 10 knots. She had three funnels, but, unusually, the two forward funnels were side-by-side.

Armament
Sardegna's main armament consisted of two pairs of breech-loading British BL 13.5 in Mk I–IV 30-caliber guns mounted in twin barbettes fore and aft. These guns had a maximum elevation of 13.5° and could depress to -3°. They fired a 1250 lb shell at a muzzle velocity of about 2016 ft/s to a range of about 11950 yd at maximum elevation. They had a rate of fire about 2–3 minutes per round.

The eight 6 in 40-caliber guns were mounted on pivot mounts on the upper deck. They were protected by gun shields 2 in thick. The anti-torpedo boat armament consisted of sixteen 4.7 in 40-caliber guns. Twelve of these were in casemates on the main deck and four were mounted in the fore and aft superstructures, protected by gun shields. Twenty 57 mm six-pounder and ten 37 mm one-pounder guns were mounted in the superstructure. Sardegna carried five 17.7 in torpedo tubes, all above water.

Armor
Sardegna's steel armor was made by the French company Schneider et Cie. The side of the hull between the barbettes was completely protected with a maximum thickness of 4 in of armor. The barbettes were 13.75 in thick and she was the only ship of her class to receive 4-inch gun shields for her main armament. The conning tower had 11.8 in walls. The armor deck was 3 in thick.

Service
Sardegna was named after the island of Sardinia. She was built by the La Spezia Naval Shipyard. She was laid down on 24 October 1885, launched on 20 September 1890, and completed on 16 February 1895. She participated in the Italo-Turkish War, where she used an airplane to spot for her guns. She was stricken on 4 January 1923.