Vittorio Veneto

Vittorio Veneto

The Littorio class was the first new Italian battleship class in almost a decade when design work began in 1930. Originally designed to stay within the 35,000-ton limit laid down in the Washington Treaty, the final displacement was just over 40,000 tons. As well as being good looking, the Littorio class incorporated a number of new features, including high-velocity guns. They were probably the first of the "fast battleships" that were to dominate capital ship design in the late 1930s and beyond.

The Vittorio Veneto saw extensive action in WWII, taking part in the battles of Cape Spartivento in November 1940 and Cape Matapan in March 1941. Although she was torpedoed in this latter action, and later again courtesy of a British submarine, she escaped unscathed from the British attack on Taranto in November 1940. In 1941 and early 1942, attempts were made to attack British convoys heading for Malta, until fuel shortages forced an end to these activities. In the armistice of 1943, with Italy's withdrawal from the war, she was handed over to the Allies, spending the next three years under British control in Egypt. Thereafter, she was allocated to Great Britain as a prize of war and scrapped.

Models supplied unpainted and unassembled.