Principe Amedeo-class ironclad

The Principe Amedeo class was a pair of ironclad warships built for the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) in the 1870s and 1880s. They were the culmination of a major naval construction program designed to give Italy a powerful fleet of ironclads. The two ships, ITALIAN IRONCLAD Principe Amedeo and ITALIAN IRONCLAD Palestro, were the last Italian ironclads to feature sailing rigs and wooden hulls. They were armed with a battery of six 10 in guns and were capable of a speed in excess of 12 kn. The ships had uneventful careers, spending much of it in Italy's colonial empire. By the late 1880s, they were withdrawn from service and employed in secondary roles, first as headquarters ships for harbor defenses. Principe Amedeo was converted into a depot ship in 1895 and was discarded in 1910, while Palestro was used as a training ship from 1894 to 1900 before being scrapped between 1902 and 1904.

Design
In 1862, the Italian government under Prime Minister Urbano Rattazzi and his naval minister Carlo Pellion di Persano made the decision to build a fleet of ironclad warships. The Italian fleet had already acquired a pair of small, French-built armored frigates of the Formidabile-class ironclad, and two more vessels of the Re d'Italia-class ironclad had been ordered from the United States. Five more ironclads were ordered from foreign shipyards, three wooden steam frigates already under construction were converted into armored ships, and four more ironclads were ordered from Italian shipyards. The two Principe Amedeo-class ships were the last two of this first generation of Italian ironclads. The design for Principe Amedeo was prepared by Inspector Engineer Giuseppe De Luca. He had initially planned on using entirely wooden hulls for the ships, but had changed to composite wood and iron construction by the time the ships were laid down.

General characteristics and machinery
The two ships differed slightly in size. Principe Amedeo was 79.73 m long between perpendiculars, while Palestro was 78.82 m long. Principe Amedeo had a beam of 17.4 m and a draft of 7.9 m; Palestro's beam measured 17.3 m, and she had a draft of 8 m. Both ships displaced 5761 LT normally, but Principe Amedeo displaced 6020 LT at full load and Palestro reached 3218 LT. The ships had an inverted bow with a naval ram below the waterline. Their superstructure was minimal, consisting primarily of a small conning tower forward. They had a crew of 548 officers and men.

The ships' propulsion system consisted of one single-expansion steam engine that drove a single screw propeller, with steam supplied by six coal-fired, cylindrical fire-tube boilers. The boilers were trunked into a single funnel. The lead ship's engine produced a top speed of 12.2 kn at 6117 ihp, while Palestro made 12.85 kn at the same horsepower. They could steam for 1780 nmi at a speed of 10 kn. The ships were barque-rigged to supplement the steam engine; Principe Amedeo and her sister were the last rigged ironclad to be built by Italy. The ships' sail area were 36738 sqft for Principe Amedeo and 37361 sqft for Palestro.

Armament and armor
Palestro and Principe Amedeo were both armed with a main battery of six 10 in guns, though they were mounted differently in each ship. Principe Amedeo carried hers in a single armored casemate located amidships, while Palestro's guns were mounted in three armored casemates. The first was located forward, toward the bow, the second and third were placed close to the stern on each side of the ship. Both ships also carried an 11 in gun that was mounted forward as a bow chaser. Later in her career, Principe Amedeo received a secondary battery of six 2.9 in guns and six machine guns, along with two torpedo tubes.

The two ships were protected by iron belt armor that was 8.7 in thick and extended for the entire length of the hull. The casemates were protected with 5.5 in of iron plating, and the small conning tower had 2.4 in thick iron plates.

Service history
Neither ship had a particularly eventful career. They were completed too late to take part in the final stages of the wars of Italian unification. Instead, they were assigned to the Italian colonial empire, with occasional stints in the main Italian fleet. In 1880, Palestro took part in a naval demonstration off Ragusa in an attempt to force the Ottoman Empire to comply with the terms of the Treaty of Berlin and turn over the town of Ulcinj to Montenegro. The following year, Principe Amedeo was involved in a collision with the ironclad ITALIAN IRONCLAD Roma during a hurricane, though neither ship was damaged.

In the late 1880s, both ships were withdrawn from frontline service and employed as headquarters ships for the defense of Taranto&mdash;Principe Amedeo&mdash;and La Maddalena&mdash;Palestro. Principe Amedeo was stricken from the naval register in 1895 and used as an ammunition depot ship in Taranto until 1910, when she was sold for scrap. Palestro was employed as a training ship between 1894 and 1900, when she too was stricken from the register. She was broken up between 1902 and 1904.