The History

Caio Duilio and her sister Enrico Dandolo were designed to give the Regia Marina a decisive advantage in the Mediterranean, intended quite simply to be a ship with four of the largest guns that could be carried.

They were designed in a time of rapid progression in warship design - just a few years earlier, ironclad warships had largely resembled old wooden warships with full sailing rigs and broadside guns, the only major differences being their iron armour and additional steam engines.

By the 1870s steam engines were getting more powerful and more efficient. Since the Duilio class were intended only to operate in the Mediterranean (and so didn't need the extra range given by auxiliary sails), and also due to the sheer weight of their armour and armament making sail power impractical, they used steam power alone.

The guns were initially planned as 38-ton Rifled Muzzle Loaders, with a calibre of approximately 305 mm / 12". The Rifled Muzzle Loader was the dominant type of gun at the time, since practical breech loading systems were proving difficult to develop. The guns were much shorter and stubbier than later 20th century naval guns, but they were still too long to be reloaded from within the turret. Therefore the ship had to be designed with a special reloading position - the turret would be turned and the guns depressed so that hydraulic rams mounted in the deck could be used to load the shells and propellant.

The British responded to Duilio and Dandolo by laying down HMS Inflexible, a ship along similar lines to the Duilios, but with larger guns. The Italians immediately modified their design to take larger guns. Eventually, the guns chosen were the British built Armstrong 100-ton gun, with a calibre of 450 mm / 17.76". These were the largest calibre guns ever fitted to a warship at the time, and kept the record until Britain deployed the BL 18" Mk 1 on HMS Furious in 1918.

To this day, they're third in the list of warship gun calibres, behind the Japanese 460 mm and the British 18" Mk 1.

One of Duilio's guns was fractured when firing in 1880, leading to a decision to use smaller powder charges going forward.

Duilio was scrapped in 1909.


The Build

As usual, there's no interior.

   
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