Italian battleship Impero

Impero at her launching on 15 November 1939
History
Italy
Name	Impero
Namesake	Italian Empire[1]
Builder	Ansaldo, Genoa
Laid down	14 May 1938
Launched	15 November 1939
Fate	Scrapped 1948–1950, in Venice
General characteristics
Class and type	Littorio-class battleship
Displacement	Full load: 45,485 long tons (46,215 t)
Length	240.7 m (789 ft 8 in)
Beam	32.9 m (107 ft 11 in)
Draft	9.6 m (31 ft 6 in)
Installed power	8 × Yarrow boilers 128,200 shp (95,600 kW)
Propulsion	4 × steam turbines 4 × screw propellers
Speed	30 kn (56 km/h; 35 mph)
Complement	(planned) 1,920
Armament	9 × 381 mm (15 in) guns 12 × 152 mm (6 in) guns 4 × 120 mm (4.7 in)/40 guns 12 × 90 mm (3.5 in) anti-aircraft guns 20 × 37 mm (1.5 in) guns 20 × 20 mm (0.79 in) guns
Armor	Main belt: 350 mm (14 in) Deck: 162 mm (6.4 in) Turrets: 350 mm Conning tower: 260 mm (10 in)
Aircraft carried	3 aircraft (IMAM Ro.43 or Reggiane Re.2000)
Aviation facilities	1 stern catapult

Impero was the fourth Littorio-class battleship built for Italy's Regia Marina (Royal Navy) during the Second World War. She was named after the Italian word for "empire", in this case referring to the newly (1936) conquered Italian Empire in East Africa (Somaliland, Eritrea and Ethiopia territories) as a result of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. She was constructed under the order of the 1938 Naval Expansion Program, along with her sister ship Roma.

Impero was laid down in May 1938 and launched in November 1939. The entrance of Italy into World War II forced the Regia Marina to refocus its construction priorities on escort warships, so Impero was left incomplete. After Italy surrendered to the Allies on 8 September 1943, the rest of the Italian Navy steamed to Sardinia to rendezvous with their American contemporaries. Still incomplete in Trieste, Impero was captured by the Germans, who used the hulk for target practice. Sunk by Allied bombers in February 1945, she was refloated in 1947 and scrapped in Venice from 1948 to 1950.