Zara was a heavy cruiser built for the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy), the lead ship of the . Named after the Italian city of Zara (now Zadar, Croatia), the ship was built at the Odero-Terni-Orlando shipyard beginning with her keel laying in July 1928, launching in April 1930, and commissioning in October 1931. Armed with a main battery of eight guns, she was nominally within the limit imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty, though in reality she significantly exceeded this figure. Zara saw extensive service during the first two years of Italy's participation in World War II, having taken part in several sorties to catch British convoys in the Mediterranean as the flagship of the 1st Division. She was present during the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, the Battle of Taranto in November 1940, and the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941. In the last engagement, Zara and her sister ships and were sunk in a close-range night engagement with three British battleships. Most of her crew, 783 officers and sailors, including the divisional commander Admiral Carlo Cattaneo and the ship's commanding officer Luigi Corsi, were killed in the sinking. Design Zara was long overall, with a beam of and a draft of . She displaced at full load, though her displacement was nominally within the restriction set in place by the Washington Naval Treaty. Her power plant consisted of two Parsons steam turbines powered by eight oil-fired Yarrow boilers, which were trunked into two funnels amidships. Her engines were rated at and produced a top speed of . She had a crew of 841 officers and enlisted men. She was protected with an armor belt that was thick amidships. Her main deck was thick and there was a secondary deck thick over the main one. The gun turrets had 150 mm thick plating on the faces and the barbettes they sat in were also 150 mm thick. The main conning tower had 150 mm thick sides. Zara was armed with a main battery of eight Mod 29 53-caliber guns in four gun turrets. The turrets were arranged in superfiring pairs forward and aft. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by a battery of sixteen 47-cal. guns in twin mounts, four Vickers-Terni 40 mm/39 guns in single mounts and eight guns in twin mounts. She carried a pair of IMAM Ro.43 seaplanes for aerial reconnaissance; the hangar was located