The fragile Italian cruisers caught at Cape Spada

The Italian Giovanni delle Bande Nere and Bartolomeo Colleoni were early Condottieri-type light cruisers designed primarily to catch and defeat destroyers. On paper, their four twin six-inch turrets could match Sydney's main battery. Their protection was much lighter, however, with roughly 20-millimeter decks, 24-millimeter belts, and 23-millimeter turret armor. They were effectively six-thousand-ton destroyers because speed and armament dominated the design at the expense of resilience. That tradeoff became dangerous once pursuit of the Allied destroyers brought them unexpectedly under Sydney's guns. Nominal gun count alone was a poor guide to a cruiser's ability to survive a peer engagement.