Lepanto

Lepanto was an Italian ironclad battleship built for the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy), the second and last ship of the . Lepanto was laid down in November 1876, launched in March 1883, and completed in August 1887. She was armed with a main battery of four guns mounted in a central barbette and was capable of a top speed of . Unlike other capital ships of the era, Lepanto had an armored deck rather than the more typical belt armor. Lepanto spent the first two decades of her career in the Active and Reserve Squadrons, where she took part in annual training maneuvers with the rest of the fleet. In 1902, she was withdrawn from service for use as a training ship. During the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912, the ship provided fire support to Italian troops defending Tripoli in Libya. Lepanto was ultimately stricken from the naval register in January 1914 and sold for scrapping in March 1915. Design The Italia class, designed by Benedetto Brin, was ordered in the mid-1870s as part of a naval construction program aimed at countering the Austro-Hungarian Navy. They were based on the preceding Italian design, the , though they incorporated several significant improvements. These included more powerful main guns, higher freeboard, and greater speed. Their speed came at the expense of armor protection, and their hulls carried only light deck plating.