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Originally Posted by marhkimov
Does anyone know why Soldati's have red and white stripes painted on their bows?
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It was intended to avoid friendly fire from air attack in the same way of the german svastikas on the Bismark, but it were soon deleted in the very first time of the conflict.
About the camo pattern most of the ships were simply grey but the camoufled ones adopted a great number of pattern variants.
Between 1925 and 1945, the Regia Marina built only one kind of explorer, the "Navigatori" class. These units were classified explorers in 1929 and reclassified destroyers in 1938. During the period leading to World War II, the Regia Marina built or refurbished 8 battleships, numerous light and heavy cruisers, but the units which were built in the largest number were destroyers and explorers. The destroyers were, by then, units belonging to naval squadrons and not any longer than the original torpedo boat hunters. This new class of ships was required to be able to attack using torpedoes and cannon fire and was also expected to provide escort for larger units. These new units not only grew in scope, but also in displacement which from the original 1,560 tons of the "Turbine" class, grew to the 2,460 tons of the "Soldato" class. The armament usually consisted of several 120mm guns and 4 to 6 533mm torpedo launchers.
One of the original requirements was speed. These new units were capable of speed of 38 to 39 knots while being sufficiently seaworthy.
