The Trento-class was an Italian heavy cruiser design of the Regia Marina from the late 1920s. The three ships in the class were named after the three unredeemed cities taken from the Austro-Hungarian empire after the victory in World War I: Trento, Trieste, and Bolzano.
The Trentos were the first ships designed specifically to the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty. This limited cruisers to 10,000 tons and 8 inch (203 mm) guns, a limitation that made firepower, speed and protection difficult to build into a single design. A particular problem faced by the Italian designers was that their ships had to be able to protect the lengthy Italian coastline from widely separated naval bases, meaning that high speed was a key feature. In the end they chose to sacrifice armor and fuel storage, and thus range, in order to attain the required speed and weight while still being armed with the latest 8 inch (203 mm) guns.
Trento started construction in 1925 along with her sister ship, Trieste. Trieste was launched first in 1926 and commissioned in 1928, while Trento followed in 1927 and 1929 respectively. A third, Bolzano, started construction in 1930 and was commissioned in 1933; the Bolzano was quite different from the other two vessels, and sometimes it is considered a class on its own. It was later concluded that the tradeoff in armour put the ships at a disadvantage, and an up-armored version of the design was produced as the highly rated Zara-class heavy cruisers in the early 1930s. The three warship constituted Italian Navy's Third Division of cruisers.
Specifications[]
- Type: Heavy Cruiser
- Service Period: 1928-1948
- Characteristics:
- Length: 646 feet (16.9 meters)
- Beam: 67 feet 7 inches (20.6 meters)
- Draught: 21 feet 11.8 inches (6.7 meters)
- Displacement: 12,900 tons (Standard); 13,670 tons (Full Load)
- Crew: 724
- Propulsion: 12 boilers, 4 Parsons turbines, 150,000 hp total
- Range: 4,460 nautical miles (8,260 kilometers) at 16 knots (29.63 km/h)
- Speed: 35 knots (64.82 km/h)
- Armament:
- 8 x 203mm/50-caliber Model 1924 naval guns
- 16 x 100mm/47-caliber Model 1924 dual purpose naval guns
- 8 x Vickers/Terni 40mm/39-caliber Model 1915 anti-aircraft guns
- 8 x Breda 13.2mm/75.7-caliber Model 1931 anti-aircraft machine guns
- 8 x 533 mm torpedo tubes
- Armour:
- Turrets: 100mm
- Aircraft Carried: 3 x reconnaissance planes
Unit Run[]
Regia Marina[]
Trento-subclass[]
- RM Trento
- RM Trieste
Bolzano-subclass[]
- RM Bolzano
[]
- ARA Almirante Brown
- ARA Veinticinco de Mayo