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Italian battleship Conte di Cavour
Sunk (1945) / Scrapped (1946)
Conte di Cavour was the lead ship of the three Conte di Cavour-class dreadnought battleships built for Italy's Regia Marina in the 1910s, and is one of the more dramatic modeling subjects for its "before and after" transformation between World War I and World War II configurations.
Kits of this ship
+ Add a kit| 1/700 Italian Navy Conte Di Cavour w/Savoia | Pit-Road | 1:700 | Resin | Discontinued | |
| 1/700 WWII Regia Marina Battleship Conte di Cavour 1940 (Water Line Ver.) | Triumph Model | 1:700 | Resin | Available | |
| 1/700 Battleship Conte Di Cavour 1940 | Combrig Models | 1:700 | Resin | Discontinued | |
| BB Conte di Cavour | GHQ Models | — | Metal | Available | |
| 1/700 Italian Navy Conte De Cavour | Pit-Road | 1:700 | Resin | Discontinued | |
No image | 1/700 Italian Navy BB Conte Di Cavour | Pit-Road | 1:700 | Resin | Discontinued |
| 1/2000 Navi da battaglia della Classe Conte di Cavour 2 Ships Set | HMA | — | Resin | Discontinued |
Plans
No plan sets listed for this ship yet. Know of museum, archive or publisher drawings? Add them so the next builder can find them.
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Build logs
+ Link a build logNo build logs linked yet.
Resources
+ Submit a resourceHistory & specifications
- Naval Encyclopedia: Conte di Cavour class BattleshipsArticle
Detailed class history and original specifications, including armor layout and propulsion details helpful for scale accuracy.
- Wikipedia: Conte di Cavour-class battleshipWebsite
Class-level article covering the design, armament, armor, and 1933-37 reconstruction details shared by all three sister ships.
- Wikipedia: Italian battleship Conte di CavourWebsite
Primary overview of the ship's design, construction, and service history, with full specifications useful for modelers.
- WW2DB: Battleship Conte di CavourWebsite
Concise specification sheet and timeline including the post-reconstruction armament and WWII service, useful for cross-checking dimensions.
History
Specifications
As built she displaced roughly 23,088 long tons standard (up to 25,086 long tons deep load), was 176 m long overall with a 28 m beam, and carried thirteen 305 mm guns in five centerline turrets (twin-over-triple fore and aft, plus a third triple turret amidships) alongside eighteen 120 mm secondary guns. Her 1933–1937 reconstruction lengthened the hull to 186.4 m, removed the central 305 mm turret, rebored the remaining guns to 320 mm, and boosted power to roughly 93,000 shp for a top speed near 28 knots — giving modelers two visually distinct versions of the ship to choose from.
Service history
Completed in April 1915, she served as an Adriatic flagship in World War I but saw no combat, later supporting the 1923 Corfu Incident with a bombardment of the town. After her extensive 1930s rebuild she fought at the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, but was torpedoed and sunk in shallow water during the British air raid on Taranto in November 1940. She was salvaged and under repair at Trieste when Italy surrendered in 1943, was then seized by occupying German forces, and was finally damaged in an Allied air raid and capsized in February 1945.
Notable facts
Her near-total reconstruction in the 1930s was so extensive that she and sister ship Giulio Cesare were effectively rebuilt as new "fast battleships," making her a popular subject for modelers wanting to depict either the original WWI dreadnought or the modernized WWII fast battleship. She was refloated after the war but never repaired again, and was ultimately scrapped in 1946–47.