Regina Margherita-class battleship
The Regina Margherita class was a class of two battleships built for the Italian Regia Marina between 1898 and 1905. The class comprised two ships: and . The ships were designed by the latter's namesake, Benedetto Brin, who died before the ships were completed. They were armed with a main battery of four guns and could steam at a speed of . Both ships saw extensive service with the Italian fleet for the first decade of their careers. They saw action in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912, where they participated in the seizure of Cyrenaica in North Africa and operations in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. They were reduced to training ships by World War I, and both ships were lost with heavy death tolls during the conflict. Benedetto Brin exploded in Brindisi in September 1915, and Regina Margherita struck a mine and sank in December 1916. Design After the negative experience with the preceding , which were too weak to engage foreign battleships, and too slow to catch cruisers, the Italian navy wanted a new battleship that returned to a larger, more effective size. In particular, they wanted to be able to challenge the new s being built in neighboring