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Condottieri Class CruiserCondottieri was a light cruisers class of the Regia Marina, built before World War II to gain predominance in the Mediterranean Sea. It is also known as da Giussano class, from the name of the first ship of this class. Between the two World Wars, the world powers started a rush to gain the supremacy on the seas. In 1926, France started to produce a new class of destroyers, which were superior in displacement and firepower to the destroyers of that period. In order to counter the French menace, Regia Marina decided to produce a new class of cruiser which would be intermediate between the new French destroyer class and the cruisers built in that period. Condottieri cruisers was designed by general Giuseppe Vian as a class of four ships: The ships were named after military commanders of the Italian Medioeval and Reinassance, and were classified as light cruisers. Condottieri were fast ships, with a good firepower; however, their design had to sacrifice protection, making these ships well vulnerable to enemy cruisers. Infact, none of these cruisers survived until the end of the war: - Colleoni sunk during the battle of Cape Spada (1940)
- da Barbiano and di Giussano were sunken by a group of Royal Navy destroyers, while carrying oil tanks on the decks, in order to refill the Italian aircrafts in Lybia (1941)
- Bande Nere was hit by a torpedo and sunk (1942)
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