What if the battleship Dante Aligiheri had not been scrapped and had been reconstructed instead?

After my recent blog post about the San Giorgio-class cruisers and the battleship Dante Aligiheri, I began wondering what might have happened if the latter had not been scrapped and had been reconstructed by the Italian Navy.

When the Italians decided to reconstruct and modernise the Conte di Cavour-class battleships (which were only a couple of years newer than the Dante Aligiheri), they:

• Added a new bow section.
• Removed two of the four propeller shafts.
• Replaced the existing Parsons turbines (rated at 32,800shp) with Belluzzo geared steam turbines rated at 75,000 shp.
• Replaced the original twenty water-tube boilers with eight Yarrow boilers.
• Bored out the existing 12-inch guns so that they were now 12.6-inch calibre.
• Removed all the existing secondary guns and replaced them with twelve 4.7-inch guns in six twin-gun turrets, eight 4-inch anti-aircraft guns in twin turrets, and twelve Breda 37mm light anti-aircraft guns in six twin-gun mountings.
• The existing armour was increased and the underwater protection was replaced by the Pugliese system that comprised of a large cylinder (usually surrounded by fuel oil or water) that was intended to absorb any blast from an exploding torpedo warhead.
• The existing superstructure was also removed and replaced with one that incorporated a fire tower atop a completely remodelled bridge and new streamline funnels with caps.

If a similar reconstruction had been applied to the Dante Aligiheri, she may have ended up looking something like this:

My version of the reconstructed Dante Aligiheri would have had a new bow, new boilers and engines, improved protection (both armour and underwater protection), new bridgework, new funnels, and an armament of twelve 12.6-inch guns (with increased elevation) in four triple turrets, eight 4.7-inch guns in four twin turrets, and thirty-six Breda 37mm light anti-aircraft guns in eighteen twin mountings. I would also have expected her top speed to have increased from 22 knots to 25 knots due to her increased engine power.

As reconstructed, this 'new' ship would have been a useful addition to the Italian Navy, especially if she had been deployed to protect the Italian colony in Somaliland. From there, she could have ranged far and wide across the Indian Ocean, and in time of war she could have threatened any enemy nation's trade to south Asia and the Far East. She could have beaten off any likely opponent's cruisers with relative ease and would have required the deployment of at least one aircraft carrier and two or three battleships to hunt her down.