The Sella-class destroyers were a group of four destroyers built for the (Royal Italian Navy) in the 1920s. Two of these ships fought in World War II and both were sunk after the Italian capitulation to the Allies. The two other ships were sold to the Swedish Navy in 1940 and were scrapped in the late 1940s.
These ships formed the basis for most subsequent destroyers built by the Italians, but were disappointing in service with unreliable machinery.
Design and description The Sella-class destroyers were enlarged and improved versions of the preceding and . They had an overall length of , a beam of and a draft of . They displaced at standard load, and at deep load. Their complement was 8–9 officers and 144 enlisted men.
The Sellas were powered by two Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam supplied by three Yarrow boilers. The turbines were rated at for a speed of in service,Roberts, p. 298 although the ships reached speeds in excess of during their sea trials while lightly loaded.McMurtrie, p. 281 They carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of at a speed of .Whitley, p. 159
Their main battery consisted of three guns in one twin-gun turret aft of the superstructure and one single-gun turret forward of it.Fraccaroli, p. 43 Anti-aircraft (AA) defense for the Sella-class ships was provided by a pair of AA guns in single mounts amidships and a pair of machine guns. They were equipped with four torpedo tubes in two twin mounts amidships. The Sellas could also carry 32 mines.
Ships
+ Construction data Ship name Namesake Builder Completed Fate Francesco Crispi Pattison 29 April 1927 Seized by the Germans after the Italian Armistice, September 1943; served as TA15, sunk by air attack in the Aegean Sea, 8 March 1944 Quintino Sella Pattison 25 March 1926 Sunk by German E-boats in the Adriatic Sea, 11 September 1943 Bettino Ricasoli Pattison 11 December 1926 Sold to the Swedish Navy as Giovanni Nicotera Pattison 8 January 1927 Sold to the Swedish Navy as the
Service history During the war, the destroyers were based at the island of Leros, in the Dodecanese. They took part in the Italian retaking of Kastelorizo (named Operation Abstention by the British) on 27 February 1941, and were used as mother ships for the successful attack by explosive motor boats on on 25 March. Crispi led the landing of an Italian division on Sitia, Crete, on 28 May 1941, in the course of the battle of Crete.
Notes
Bibliography
External links Tragedy destroyer Quintino Sella 11 września 1943 r. (PL) Quintino Sella Marina Militare website