The Comandanti Medaglie d'Oro class were a group of 20 destroyers ordered for the (Royal Italian Navy) during World War II. Nine had been laid down by the time of the Italian armistice in September 1943 and all but one of those ships which had not yet been laid down were cancelled. Of those that had been laid down, none had been launched by that time and all were subsequently scrapped. Design and description By mid-1941, the (Navy Ministry) had concluded that its existing destroyer building program was insufficient to replace its losses and authorized a new design that would incorporate the war experience gained thus far. The anti-aircraft armament of the preceding had proven inadequate as had their sustained speed and range. General Carlo Sigismondi of the Corps of Naval Engineering, assisted by Lieutenant Colonel Giuseppe Malagoli, decided upon an enlarged version of the Soldatis with 20% more horsepower and 30% more range. To improve stability, he decided to increase the beam by over . Perhaps the most significant change was the much more capable armament of guns whose ability to elevate to 45 degrees gave them a limited ability to deal with low-flying aircraft and the greatly increased number of AA guns. The Comandanti Medaglie d'Oro-class ships had a length between perpendiculars of and an overall length of . The ships had a beam of and a mean draft of . They were estimated to displace at standard load, and at deep load. Their crew was intended to consist of 15 officers and 262 enlisted men. The Comandanti Medaglie d'Oros were powered by two Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam supplied by a trio of three-drum boilers. They were grouped together in a single compartment aft of the bridge and exhausted through a single funnel. The turbines, each in their own engine room aft of the boiler room, were designed to produce a total of and a speed of in service. The ships carried a maximum of of fuel oil to give them an estimated range of at a speed of . The propulsion machinery for the fourth ship of the third series, Comandante Esposito, was going to be rearranged to improve the survivability of the Comandanti Medaglie d'Oro class as the existing layout meant that a single hit could disable all of the boilers and immobilize the ship. At the cost of