The Ships of Battlegroup: Italy Giulio Cesare (BB)

Displacement	23,500 tons	Belt Armor	10 inches
Overall Length	557 feet	Deck Armor	4.4 inches
Beam	92 feet	Main Turret Armor	10 inches
Speed	27 knots	Main Guns	10 × 12.4″

Laid down on June 24, 1910, launched on October 15, 1911 and commissioned on May 14, 1914, the ship originally carried a main armament of thirteen 12 inch main guns with three turrets having three guns each and two turrets having two guns each; two centerline superfiring forward, two centerline superfiring aft and one centerline amidships that could fire to both sides. The higher superfiring turrets fore and aft were the ones with only two guns. The ship is named after the famous ancient Roman, Julius Caesar, using the modern Italian spelling. The two ship class (which was named for the Conte di Cavour) was powered by turbines with both oil-fired and coal-fired boilers and supplementary oil burners. Compared to contemporary foreign battleships, the Giulio Cesare was slightly faster, slightly under armed (the 12 inch gun was rapidly being replaced by something larger in most navies) and not as well protected.

During World War One, she saw no action, as the Italian fleet watched the Austrian Fleet in the Adriatic and nothing much happened. From October 1933 to June 1937, the ship went through a total overhaul and modernization into a "fast battleship" configuration. The propulsion system was replaced by new oil-fired turbines that increased the ship’s speed from 21.5 to 27 knots. In other important changes, the amidships turret was removed and the guns in the other turrets bored out and re-chambered to 12.6 inch main guns, the island structure was centralized and modernized, a "clipper" bow was added to a lengthened hull, deck armor was improved and many new anti-aircraft guns were mounted. The ship looked utterly different after these changes. The ship looked utterly different after these changes. Intended to match the new French Dunkerques, the much-modified Italian ship was still inferior to them and, except for speed, totally inferior to the rebuilt British Queen Elizabeth class, although still a useful vessel for Mediterranean service.

Giulio Cesare participated (accompanied by Conte di Cavour) in the Battle of Punta Stilo on July 9, 1940, an indecisive action against Malaya, Warspite and Royal Sovereign. Giulio Cesare’s great claim to fame here is that she was hit by the Warspite at a range in excess of 26,000 yards, one of the longest naval gunfire hits on a moving target in history. After repairs, she participated in an indecisive action at Cape Teulada on November 27, 1940, took some bomb damage in Naples on January 8, 1941 and skirmished with British light forces on a number of occasions. By the end of 1942, she was unfit for service and reduced to use as a training ship. The Italian Navy in World War II had some good ships but timid leadership and many technical shortcomings. Dependent on their German allies for fuel oil, they could only sortie when the Germans gave them enough oil to do so. They had few radar sets, old fashioned fire control and a communications system so bad that the Allies, via their Ultra radio intercepts and decryptions, sometimes had a better idea of an Italian naval squadron’s location than its assigned air cover from the Italian Air Force. After the war, Giulio Cesare was turned over to the Soviet Union in 1949 as post-war reparations, where she served as Novorossiysk in the Black Sea until her unexplained loss (possibly she struck a mine or suffered an internal explosion) either on October 29, 1955 or during November of that same year.

For other World War One ships extensively modernized between the wars, see: Haruna, Hiei, Kirishima, Kongo and Repulse .

For a further discussion of what happened to the battleships of World War One, see the Introduction to these articles.