Pisa-class cruiser

Pisa in February 1932, showing the foremast added in the 1920s
Class overview
Name	Pisa
Operators	Regia Marina  Royal Hellenic Navy
Preceded by	Giuseppe Garibaldi class
Succeeded by	San Giorgio class
Subclasses	Georgios Averof
Built	1905–1909
In commission	1909–1952
Completed	3
Lost	1
Scrapped	1
Preserved	1
General characteristics
Type	Armored cruiser
Displacement	9,832 t (9,677 long tons)
Length	140.5 m (460 ft 11 in) (o/a)
Beam	21 m (68 ft 11 in)
Draft	6.9–7.1 m (22 ft 8 in – 23 ft 4 in)
Installed power	20,000 ihp (15,000 kW) 22 Belleville boilers
Propulsion	2 shafts, 2 vertical triple-expansion steam engines
Speed	23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph)
Range	2,500 nmi (4,600 km; 2,900 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement	32 officers, 652–55 enlisted men
Armament	2 × twin 254 mm (10.0 in) guns or 234 mm (9.2 in) guns 4 × twin 190 mm (7.5 in) guns 16 × single 76 mm (3.0 in) guns 8 × or 4 × single 47 mm (1.9 in) guns 3 × 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes
Armor	Belt: 200 mm (8 in) Gun turrets: 140–160 mm (6–6 in) Deck: 51 mm (2.0 in) Conning tower: 180 mm (7 in)

The Pisa class consisted of three armored cruisers built in Italy in the first decade of the 20th century. Two of these were for the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) and the third was sold to the Royal Hellenic Navy and named Georgios Averof. This ship served as the Greek flagship for the bulk of her active career and participated in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, fighting in two battles against the Ottoman Navy. She played a minor role in World War II after escaping from Greece during the German invasion in early 1941. Influenced by communist agitators, her crew mutinied in 1944, but it was suppressed without any bloodshed. Georgios Averof returned to Greece after the German evacuation in late 1944 and became a museum ship in 1952. She is the only surviving armored cruiser in the world.^[1]

The two Italian ships participated in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912 during which they supported ground forces in Libya with naval gunfire and helped to occupy towns in Libya and islands in the Dodecanese. They played a minor role in World War I after a submarine sank Amalfi shortly after Italy joined the war in 1915. Her sister ship, Pisa, became a training ship after the war and was broken up for scrap in 1937.