Italian battleship Impero

Impero was the fourth ship of the Littorio class of battleships ordered for the Italian Regia Marina in the late 1930s, named for the empire Italy claimed after conquering Ethiopia in 1936. Ansaldo of Genoa laid down her keel on 14 May 1938 and launched her on 15 November 1939, but she was never completed. The design called for a standard displacement of about 41,000 long tons, four Belluzzo geared steam turbines of 128,000 shaft horsepower fed by eight oil-fired Yarrow boilers, and a top speed of 30 knots. Because Genoa lay within bombing range of France, the unfinished hull was moved to Brindisi in June 1940. Allied bombers sank her in February 1945. She was refloated in 1947, struck from the naval register, and scrapped at Venice between 1948 and 1950.