History | |
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Italy | |
Name: | Eugenio di Savoia |
Namesake: | Prince Eugene of Savoy |
Laid down: | 6 July 1933 |
Launched: | 16 March 1935 |
Commissioned: | 16 January 1936 |
Fate: | Transferred to Greece, 1950 |
Greece | |
Name: | Elli |
Namesake: | Naval battle of Cape Helle |
Commissioned: | June 1951 |
Decommissioned: | 1965 |
Fate: | Scrapped, 1973 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type: | Condottieri-class cruiser |
Displacement: | 8,450 tons standard, 10,539 tons full load |
Length: | 186.9 m (613 ft) |
Beam: | 17.5 m (57 ft) |
Draught: | 6.1 m (20 ft) |
Propulsion: | 2 Belluzzo/Parsons geared turbines, 6 Yarrow boillers, 110,000 hp (82,000 kW) |
Speed: | 36.5 knots (68 km/h) |
Range: | 3,900 nautical miles (7,220 km) at 14 knots (26 km/h) |
Complement: | 578 |
Armament: |
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Armour: |
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Aircraft carried: | 2 |
Aviation facilities: | 1 catapult |
Eugenio di Savoia was a Condottieri-class light cruiser, which served in the Regia Marina during World War II. She survived the war but was given as a war reparation to the Hellenic Navy in 1947. She was renamed Elli and served until 1964.
Eugenio di Savoia was part of the fourth group of Condottieri-class light cruisers, also known as the Duca d'Aosta class. The design of the Duca d'Aosta class was based on the Montecuccoli class, with a slight increase in size and a significant increase in armour. The machinery was also re-arranged.
Eugenio di Savoia was built by Ansaldo, Genoa, and named after Prince Eugene of Savoy. It is ironic that both Eugenio di Savoia and her Kriegsmarine namesake Prinz Eugen honour a general who was such a staunch ally of the British in an earlier era.
As results of the pact between Franco and Mussolini during the Spanish Civil War, on 13 February 1937, the ship went into action off the coast of Barcelona, Spain, bombarding the city and causing 18 deaths.
The cruiser joined the 7th cruiser division and went on a circumnavigation of the globe with her sister ship in 1938-39, returning to La Spezia in March 1939. During World War II she fought in the following actions:
She was hit during an air strike carried out by Liberator bombers while berthed in Napoli on 4 December 1942. Two other cruisers, Raimondo Montecuccoli and Muzio Attendolo were badly hit and the latter sunk. After the armistice in 1943, she was used as a training ship at Suez.