"Raimondo Montecuccoli" - Captain Lamberto DeLebene
Condottieri-class cruiser
Displacement: 7,523 t (7,404 long tons) standard
8,994 t (8,852 long tons) full load
Length: 182.2 m (597 ft 9 in)
Beam: 16.6 m (54 ft 6 in)
Draught: 5.6 m (18 ft 4 in)
Propulsion: 2 shaft Belluzzo geared turbines
6 Yarrow boilers
106,000 hp (79,044 kW)
Speed: 37 knots (43 mph; 69 km/h)
Carried 2 aircraft
1 catapult
47 officers
86 petty officers
318 seamen
278 midshipmen
"Raimondo Montecuccoli" was a Condottieri class light cruiser serving with the Italian Regia Marina during World War II. She survived the war and served in the post-war Marina Militare until 1964.
Montecuccoli, which gives the name to its own sub-class, was part of the third group of Condottieri class light cruisers. They were larger and better protected than their predecessors. She was built by Ansaldo, Genoa, and was named after Raimondo Montecuccoli, a 17th century Italian general in Austrian service.
Montecuccoli entered service in 1935 and was sent out to the Far-East in 1937 to protect Italian interests during the Sino-Japanese War, and returned home in November 1938 after being relieved by the Bartolomeo Colleoni. During the war she participated in the Battle of Punta Stilo and in the successful Battle of Pantelleria, where her guns disabled the British destroyer HMS Bedouin and set the large tanker SS Kentucky on fire.
She was badly damaged by USAAF bombers in Naples on 4 December 1942, but having been repaired and just weeks before the armistice, she shelled without consequences a small Allied convoy off Palermo during the Allied invasion of Sicily. After the Armistice she was interned by the Allies and returned to Italy after the war to serve as a training cruiser until 1964.
