Service Career
Conte di Cavour was made ready for the fighting of World War 1 but managed little impact in the conflict - spending her uneventful time cruising the southern Adriatic by which point the conflict had turned mainly into a land- and air-based affair. During 1919, she made a goodwill voyage to the shores of the United States. In the immediate post-war period, her armament, equipment, and her mast structure were redone for the better. A seaplane launching/retrieval system was also installed to broaden her tactical value out in open sea.
The warship was used in support of Italian forces at Corfu in 1923 but the ship saw little action beyond that for the decade. She underwent a major reconstruction effort from 1933 to 1937 as Europe geared up for, yet another, World War. Her hull was lengthened to coincide with the changes and improve seakeeping while her machinery was of an all-new design and arrangement: 8 x Yarrow boilers were installed which fed 2 x Geared steam turbines developing around 75,000 horsepower to drive 2 x Shafts. This gave the warship improved ocean-going speeds reaching 27 knots out to a range of 6,400 nautical miles. In addition to this, her crew complement increased to 1,260 personnel. Her primary battery was now 7 x 320mm main guns in two triple-gunned and two twin-gunned turrets. There were also 6 x 120mm guns in twin-gunned mountings and 4 x 100mm Anti-Aircraft (AA) guns in twin-gunned mountings.
After all of the work, the warship was essentially an all new design with improved performance and offensive/defensive firepower fit for the times all the while retaining her armor protection and tactical/strategic value.
With the arrival of World War 2 in September of 1939, di Cavour managed to not avoid the fighting. Along with sister-ship Giulio Cesare (detailed elsewhere on this site), she partook in the ultimately indecisive Battle of Calabria against British and Australian naval units during July of 1940. She incurred some damage to her structure but survived though her fortunes took a turn for the worse when, in November of that year, she fell victim to the British torpedoes during the Attack on Taranto and sunk where she berthed. The warship was eventually refloated and taken to Trieste to enact repairs and, with the Italian surrender of September 1940, the ship was claimed by the Germans (but never brought back into the war again). An Allied bombing raid then sunk her again in early-1945.
With the end of World War 2 in 1945, the warship was stripped of her usefulness and ultimately scrapped in 1946 bringing about an end to her sailing tenure.
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